CALL FOR PROJECTS
Inaugural Public Space Performance Festival in Miami
Live Arts Miami invites South Florida-based artists to propose new works for Live Arts Miami’s inaugural public space performance festival taking place in spring 2027 at Miami Dade College’s Wolfson Campus and surrounding public spaces in Downtown Miami.
As a presenter and producer of contemporary performance, Live Arts Miami is interested in work that reimagines the relationship between artist, audience, and place. We are drawn to performances that move beyond conventional audience-performer dynamics – work that is participatory, relational, immersive, site-responsive, or otherwise creates unexpected ways for people to encounter one another and the spaces around them.
We are looking for original, audience-centered projects created in response to the campus, its surrounding areas, and the people who move through them. Selected artists will develop their work with support from Live Arts Miami through feedback, workshopping, rehearsal, production development, and opportunities to test ideas in the spaces where they may ultimately be presented.
Project funding will be allocated based on the scope and needs of each selected work.
CURATORIAL THEME
Live Arts Miami’s 2026-27 season explores THE ART OF TOGETHER: what becomes possible when we gather, participate, listen, move, make, and experience something alongside one another.
We invite artists to interpret this theme broadly. Togetherness might emerge through movement, music, play, ritual, storytelling, conversation, collective action, stillness, celebration, disagreement, or experiencing a familiar place differently. It might ask strangers to collaborate, transform an ordinary public space into something unexpected, or shift the way an audience understands its own role within a performance.
We want to know: What does togetherness make possible? What changes when an audience is not only watching, but is part of the conditions that make the work happen?
WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR
We are looking for original works created specifically for this call that consider the audience as an essential part of the experience.
Final works should be designed for a maximum running time of 20 minutes. We encourage artists to think of this duration as a creative parameter: proposals should imagine a focused, complete audience experience that can unfold within this timeframe.
Proposals may be site-specific, interactive, immersive, participatory, mobile, interdisciplinary, relational, or otherwise unconventional. Projects might invite direct participation, create new relationships between strangers, transform the use or meaning of a public space, or reconsider where and how performance can happen.
Audience-centered does not necessarily mean asking everyone to participate. It means thinking intentionally about the audience: Where are they? What are they doing? How are they positioned in relation to the work? What are they experiencing? What changes because they are there?
Artists are encouraged to respond creatively to potential sites in and around Wolfson Campus – from plazas, terraces, breezeways, walkways, and gathering spaces to overlooked or unexpected corners of Downtown Miami.
Think of the city not as a backdrop, but as material: a place to experiment, connect, disrupt routines, and make something happen.
HOW IT WORKS
Selected artists will develop their projects between fall 2026 and spring 2027 through a series of feedback, development, and workshopping sessions with Live Arts Miami.
The process will make room to test ideas, take creative risks, respond to the site and audience, and allow the work to evolve through experimentation.
Selected projects will receive:
-
Project funding, allocated according to the scope and needs of the proposed work.
-
Facilitated development, mentorship, and feedback.
-
Rehearsal space and opportunities to workshop and test the work.
-
Site, production, and material development support.
-
Marketing and promotional support.
-
Public presentation as part of Live Arts Miami’s inaugural public space performance festival in spring 2027.
VISIT THE SPACES + LEARN MORE
Thinking through what your project might become?
Join us for an in-person information session and site visit at Miami Dade College’s Wolfson Campus. We’ll talk through the call, answer questions, and walk together through potential performance sites in and around the campus.
Come with an idea, a question, or your curiosity about what the spaces might spark.
INFO SESSION + SITE VISIT
Saturday, October 10, 2026 at 2 PM
Art Lab, Miami Dade College Wolfson Campus
Attendance is encouraged but not required to apply.
WHO CAN APPLY
South Florida-based artists working across performance, dance, theater, music, visual arts, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary practices, socially engaged performance, and other forms are encouraged to apply.
We are interested in artists who are curious about working beyond conventional presentation formats and who want to think intentionally about audience, place, and encounter.
Applicants should be open to experimentation, feedback, and adaptation and interested in developing work with a specific place and audience in mind.
IMPORTANT DATES
- Info Session + Site Visit: October 10, 2026 at 2 PM
- Application Deadline: October 25, 2026
- Development Sessions: Required sessions will be scheduled collectively with selected artists.
- Live Arts Miami’s Public Space Performance Festival: Spring 2027
INSPIRATION + PREPARATION
If creating work for public space is new to you or if you’re looking for ideas as you develop your proposal, we encourage you to explore how artists around the world are thinking about performance, audience, and place.
-
Create in Public Space offers free resources exploring artistic creation in public space, including approaches to site, audiences, participation, and the practical realities of working outside traditional performance venues. You can also sign up for its free online courses (MOOCs), which include modules focused on different aspects of creating work in public space.
- You may also find inspiration by exploring festivals dedicated to performance and artistic work in public space, including Chalon dans la rue, FiraTàrrega, and the Greenwich+Docklands International Festival (GDIF).
These resources are offered as points of inspiration, not as models for what your project should look like. We are interested in what you might create in response to Miami, its people, and its public spaces.
As you begin imagining your project, consider: How does the site shape the work? How might people encounter it – intentionally or unexpectedly? What does the audience do, feel, notice, or make possible? What could happen here that could not happen in a traditional theater?