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(Photo by Kevin Alvarez Cordoba)
United States Artists (USA) has announced Beth Boone as the recipient of the 2024 Berresford Prize, the organization’s annual award honoring cultural practitioners for their significant contributions to the advancement, wellbeing, and care of artists in society.
As an artist, community leader, as well as artistic and executive director of Miami Light Project, Boone’s dynamic career is one of force, having catalyzed systems of cultural support not only locally, but nationally and internationally.
Across theater direction, program development, and cultural leadership, Boone’s practice is grounded in nurturing artistic exchange at every scale.
The selection process for this year’s Berresford Prize was especially attentive to candidates who demonstrated persistence and iteration throughout the course of their careers. To that end, Boone’s tenacious and enduring work to build community for artists and provide resources for them to make and share their work stood out as a hallmark example of committing to one’s community.
Since 1998, in Boone’s role as artistic and executive director of Miami Light Project, she has distinguished herself as a leader in Miami’s cultural community, developing critical artistic programs and asserting the organization as one of the leading cultural institutions in South Florida.
Boone’s tremendous accomplishments in her role at Miami Light Project have brought her national recognition for her work in the field. These achievements include the establishment of Here and Now, South Florida’s most respected commission and presenting program for community-based artists; premiere presentations of internationally acclaimed artists; pioneering historic international cultural exchange with Cuba, and the creation of The Light Box at Goldman Warehouse, a multi-use performance and visual art space in Miami’s Wynwood Arts District.
Boone previously served as associate director of Development for Florida Grand Opera, deputy director for the Department of Cultural Affairs at Miami Dade College Wolfson Campus, co-founded an Off Broadway theater company (New York Rep), and served for six years as a program associate in the Arts and Culture Program of the AT&T Foundation.
Upon moving to Miami in 1994, Boone began building deep, multi-faceted relationships with Cuban artists, navigating the politically fraught relationship between the U.S. and Cuba to fortify the culturally vital link to a country central to Miami’s identity.
She diversified programming to include more artists of color from the U.S., as well as Africa and Asia, and facilitated the organization’s ongoing presentation of cutting edge performers of all kinds, both nationally and internationally known. The evolution of deeper programmatic shifts in the new millennium – focusing on Miami-based artists, cultural exchange, artists of color, and hip-hop culture – made Miami Light Project an integral part of the region’s cultural shift in the past two decades. The city revealed a unique identity, arising from its mix of immigrants and communities, as a place with its own distinctive voice.
“I am overwhelmed by this recognition and deeply honored to be the recipient of the 2024 Beresford Prize. I am grateful to be part of a community of artists and cultural practitioners who are building community through art and culture,” Boone said. “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.”
“As an esteemed colleague, there is something so remarkable about how she has continuously evolved and adapted to waves of cultural change to ensure artists and communities thrive together,” said Kristy Edmunds, 2019 Berresford Prize awardee. “Her leadership contains multitudes, but there are two characteristics that encapsulate how she navigates what is evolving while sustaining deep roots: no matter the challenge she will innovate at the speed of creative culture to ensure its integrity, and she will unlock new superpowers in the process (not only hers, but everyone’s).
“I am elated that the Berresford Prize has acknowledged her contributions, and by extension, the visibility of her work in Miami and beyond,” Edmunds added.
“We’re thrilled to honor Beth Boone, whose enduring commitment to building community among artists and cultivating platforms for cultural expression profoundly reflects the ethos of the Berresford Prize,” said Judilee Reed, president and CEO of United States Artists. “Her reverberating impacts across local, national, and global artistic spheres — including her efforts to build bridges between international creative communities — have enshrined valuable opportunities for multiple generations of artists to thrive.”
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