Allow Us to Re-Introduce Ourselves

Hi! You may have heard our name is changing…

You used to know us as MDC Live Arts. Now, we go by Live Arts Miami.

We’re turning 30 this year—yes, the big 3-0. Three whole decades of impactful live arts programming in the community. Thirty seasons of powerful performances and public projects. Hundreds of shows and collaborations. Thousands of artists, audiences, and students whose lives have been touched by our work.

We are one of Miami’s oldest, and boldest, performing arts series. For 30 years we’ve helped to breathe new life into the local arts environment, seeded growth in free and fenceless live arts gardens, borne the ripened fruit to nourish and sustain change and creative freedom in our city.

But we have never felt younger, and when we look around at a world fractured and fragmented, our planet and our local communities beset by the thousand-and-one intersecting crises of the times, we see the work ahead.

And we are ready for it.

So, we rolled up our sleeves and did what we have always done best—we got to work. Our team took all that youthful energy and the urgency of our current circumstance and channeled it into the growth and evolution of our organization. Along with the new name, we are launching a new logo and new website, a general refreshing of our entire graphic identity for our increasingly virtual world.

But don’t misunderstand us. This is not some birthday-driven vanity project. Not a frivolous cosmetic makeover for the mirror, mirror on the wall. Neither is it change for the sake of change. Rather, it is purposeful, methodical, the result of a deeply introspective and collaborative process that has been months in the making.

In all, it’s a change we’ve made for YOU.

We’ve revamped our entire brand identity, but only insofar as this rebranding positions us to enhance and evolve the ways we have long served the community, and perhaps nobody could say this better than our Executive Director herself:

“This is an exciting change for us, one that marks a crucial moment in the growth of the organization and honors the legacy of our three incredible decades of work in our city. We remain committed to serving our unique and diverse community including the live arts landscape that our programs have helped to nurture and thrive in South Florida, and our rebranding clearly reaffirms this. We’ve reimagined ourselves, in celebration of our 30 years, and always with Miami in mind. A new stage for creating positive change in our city, from within Democracy’s College.” –Kathryn Garcia, Executive Director

But what’s in a name?

“That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” So goes the timeless quote from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. And not that Juliet was wrong. But there’s certainly more to the story.

A name is not as important as the qualities of the thing it names. But it is at least, and definitely foremost, the first expression of the thing that’s being named and the qualities it possesses.

In our case, the change to Live Arts Miami reflects that renewed commitment to our city referenced by our Director. In the same way, our new logo honors our 30 years of work in the community as part of MDC while setting a new vision for the many decades of work yet to come.

As the logo reanimates MDC’s iconic brand and centers our organization as firmly rooted within the College’s historic legacy of cultural enrichment—the countless ways this institution, and the cultural initiatives it has founded over the years, have left an indelible mark on our city—our rebrand reflects our own connections to Miami’s past, as well as our renewed commitment to contribute to its future through bold and innovative performing arts programs and seasons that spark dialogue and debate, generate new ideas, and foster new creative networks and connections.

We say this commitment is renewed because our passion for boldly creative changemaking has been central to the organization from its very inception.

Created in 1990 by arts impresario Olga Garay as Cultura del Lobo—‘Culture of the Wolf,’ in Spanish—Live Arts Miami began with a howl, a daring platform for the live arts built in Miami’s image: diverse, multicultural, and free.

But we were never lone wolves. We’ve always been part of a pack. A tightly-knit family of cultural organizations founded by MDC in the 1980s and 90s with the goal of revitalizing our city’s arts and culture circuit and, by extension, the city itself.

When the College set out to transform our city, they created us. Change is in our blood. Changemaking through the arts, the engine that propels the powerful performance series and groundbreaking community programs we produce each season to this very day.

Thirty seasons later, three whole decades down the line, and we’re still howling. Our pack has grown considerably, including the thousands of artists, audiences and students who’ve seen their lives and communities transformed for the better through the live arts. With this rebrand, creative changemaking has just become an explicit part of our identity. No longer just our DNA, it is now the howl itself.

Along with our new name and graphic identity, we have renewed our mission, vision, and set of core organizational values. Our new tagline –“Your​ stage for creating change”- sums up the renewal succinctly.

Live Arts Miami, as MDC Live Arts once did, and Cultura del Lobo before it, produces cutting-edge, action-driven and people-centered live arts programs and initiatives that do more than entertain. They empower and uplift artists, audiences, and students to cultivate change in our community.​

For more about our mission, vision, and values click here.