nwsa.mdc.edu - 2010 Rising Stars Showcase, NWSA spectacular signature performance, makes its grand debut at the Ars

2010 Rising Stars showcase at Artseen Gallery on March 13 with an opening reception during Wynwood Art Walk,
and the Rising Stars Showcase Performance makes its grand debut at the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts on March 24

MIAMI--- RISING STARS, a professionally staged, energy-packed, one-of-a-kind exhibition and performance, showcases the extraordinary talent of high school and college students from New World School of the Arts, Florida’s premier arts institution, making its grand debut on two different evenings this year.

The Rising Stars Performing Arts Showcase debuts at the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, [Ziff Ballet Opera House] on Wednesday, March 24, at 7:30 PM. 1300 Biscayne Blvd., downtown Miami. Assigned seating: $15 - $65 may be purchased at the Arsht Center Box Office or www.arshtcenter.org. There will be a VIP reception preceding the Rising Stars Performing Arts Showcase on March 24 from 6:00 pm - 7:00 PM at Urbanite Bistro, (just 2 blocks west of the Arsht Center on 14th Street). VIP ticket including the Reception, Performance, Valet Parking and transportation from the restaurant to the performing arts center is $250 per person.
For VIP tickets call 305-237-3852.

“Rising Stars brings it all together on one stage, and this year it’s at the Arsht Center!,” said an elated NWSA Provost, Jeffrey Hodgson. “Part of what we do at New World is training our students to be on stage, so what’s more appropriate than to put them on the best stage in South Florida, and give the community the chance to come and see them before they’re stars on Broadway?”

The Rising Stars Performing Arts Showcase on March 24 features repertory from the Dance, Music and Theater Divisions. Remembrances, by NWSA faculty Peter London, beautifully choreographed to A Song For You ( Donny Hathaway) sung by Chadwick Watkins, is an entrancing piece which highlights the graceful yet powerful modern dance movements of an all-male troupe. Other dance works to be presented at the showcase include Passengers (A Fantasy on Train Travel), choreographed by Gerard Ebitz, and an excerpt from The Apple Tree, by choreographer Joseé Garant.

The exuberant NWSA Symphony Orchestra coupled with the Concert Choir, featuring more than 100 musicians, will captivate the audience with the passionate Easter Hymn from Cavalleria Rusticana, a tragic
one-act Italian opera composed in 1890 by Pietro Mascagni. NWSA’s Jazz Ensemble will be performing The Eighth Veil, a pulsing Latin number featuring trumpeter Gilbert Paz, from the songbook of the Duke Ellington orchestra. The award-winning ensemble will be presenting this piece along with two others at the Essentially Ellington Competition in NYC this coming May.

Works by the theater division include excerpts from the 1928 electrifying musical The Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s, Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert’s Tony, as well as from the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. William Shakespeare’s classic comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream, boldly set in the more mysterious world of Afro-Cuban Santería, will round off the theater presentation.

The Rising Stars Alumnus of the Year award, bestowed on a successful alum that is working actively in his or her career and presented during the Showcase, this year belongs to Hernan Bas, a 1996, visual arts high school graduate from New World School of the Arts. The Miami-based artist explores the codes of dandyism and its subculture as a means to define sexual attraction. His paintings are tinged with nihilist romanticism, born of literary intrigue and a passion for historical painting. Small, frail and sensuously delightful, Bas' paintings personify epic romance embracing both the decadence and nastiness of pleasure. He is included in numerous private and public collections worldwide including the Rubell Collection in Miami, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami, the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others. In 2007, the Rubell Family Collection launched an exhibition of Bas' work. Spanning a decade, this exhibition included examples from each of the artist's series and is currently on view at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Hernan presented a new body of work - his first solo New York exhibition in 4 years - at Lehmann Maupin's Chrystie street gallery in April 2009. Elmgreen & Dragset's curation of the Nordic and Dutch Pavilions in the 53rd Venice Biennale includes new work by Hernan Bas.
About NWSA: The distinguished history of the New World School of the Arts began in 1984 when the Florida State Legislature established the institution to provide artistically talented high school and college students the means to achieve both an academic education and artistic training. In September, 1986, NWSA opened its doors to students in grades ten through twelve. New World School of the Arts was created by the Florida Legislature as a center of excellence in the performing and visual arts. An educational partnership of Miami Dade County Public Schools, Miami Dade College and the University of Florida, NWSA’s audition-based programs is accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art, Dance, Music and Theater. NWSA offers the high school diploma as well as a four-year BFA or BM college degree.
Sponsors of the 2010 Rising Stars include Bank of America, Biscayne Times, Radio Caracol-1260 AM, WLRN, Classical South Florida, Urbanite Bistro and the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Miami.

• Different Faces by NWSA student Carlos Rosales; Acrylic
• “Why-Can’t-They Song” from The Threepenny Opera, NWSA College students Ann Marie Olson and Jameson Hammond

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