Fall 2024. Roberto Carlos Lange, aka Helado Negro (2019 USA Fellow, Music), was working with partner Kristi Sword on an audiovisual installation for ICA Boston called Star Scores. United States Artists was planning an as-yet themeless networking event to take place during Miami Art Week. When news of their new project came to us, Program Manager Jessica Ferrer saw the opportunity to marry two notions — an opportunity for Lange and Sword to preview Star Scores, and a valuable purpose for our social event. With that, the USA Listening Party at Miami Art Week was officially underway.

Lange, a South Florida native, was enthusiastic about the opportunity to preview this work with Sword during the art world's high season in South Beach. In the moody and intimate basement lounge of The Betsy Hotel (which boasts its own writers residency and important local organizational partnerships), Art Week patrons from around the world got to experience a multi-sensory respite from the hubbub of network activity.

Star Scores is music designed by Lange for vocals and synthesizers for Sword's graphic film. It could be described as ebullient. Balloons were part of its ICA Boston installation, for example. And yet the work is also pondering in its satisfying tones, oneiric in its aesthetic and virtues.

This gathering event was an opportunity for USA to also hold space with Fellows such as Teo Castellanos (2019 USA Fellow, Theater & Performance) and Beth Boone (2024 Berresford Prize recipient). The team is grateful for the opportunity to bring Fellows from different years and disciplines together.

There was much joy and much reflection, and we can't wait to celebrate together again.