Photo by Kevin Alvarez Cordoba.
“I am grateful to be part of a community of artists and cultural practitioners who are building community through art and culture. In Miami, we do this by supporting artists in their creative process, developing new artistic work, and creating space for people to gather in shared experiences of this work. It is so rewarding to have our work be seen and acknowledged on a national level.”
Beth Boone is the Artistic & Executive Director of Miami Light Project. Her thirty-five-year career in the arts includes extensive experience and accomplishment in programming, curating, fundraising, organizational development, and public advocacy and encompasses positions in the corporate, higher education, and nonprofit sectors.
During her twenty-six-year tenure at Miami Light Project, Boone has distinguished herself as a visionary leader in the Miami community. Her work nurturing emerging artists and cultivating new artistic work is unparalleled in Miami, and has asserted Miami Light Project as a leading independent cultural institution in South Florida. Highlights of her work include establishing a singular commissioning, residency, and presenting program for Miami-based artists, launching dozens of Miami-based artists onto the national stage; partnering with the ACLU to strike down a county ordinance that prohibited cultural exchange with Cuba, thereafter launching unprecedented international cultural exchange with the island; and founding the Light Box at Goldman Warehouse, a celebrated multidisciplinary performance space in Miami’s Wynwood Arts District, which operated from 2009 through 2022.
Boone holds a BA in Fine Arts from the College of Charleston in South Carolina and an MFA in Theater Arts from Brandeis University in Massachusetts. While pursuing a career in theater in New York, Boone became a founding member of two Off Broadway theater companies, and served for seven years as a Program Associate in the Arts & Culture Program of the AT&T Foundation. Prior to Miami Light Project, Boone was the Associate Director of Development for Florida Grand Opera, Deputy Director, then Interim Director, for the Department of Cultural Affairs at Miami Dade College, Wolfson Campus.
Recognition for Boone’s work includes being named Best Promoter of Cultural Diversity (Miami New Times), one of “40 to Watch in the Arts” (Miami Herald), a “Women Ruling the Arts” (Miami Herald), and the Howard Kleinberg Carbonell Award for Contributions in Art & Activism, from the Theater League of South Florida.
As an advocate and change-maker in the field, Boone has facilitated the establishment of many Miami-based cultural organizations including Teo Castellanos D-Projects, Nu Deco Ensemble, and Rosie Herrera Dance Theater. She has served as panelist, speaker, and evaluator for the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, Japan Foundation, Ford Foundation, Association of Performing Arts Professionals, MAP Fund, Knight Foundation, Australia Counsel, and Goethe-Institut, among others.
This artist page was last updated on: 07.10.2024
Beth Boone and Miami Light Project community members in front of The Light Box.
Photo courtesy of Beth Boone.