What's Up - The Community Events Blog

WPBT2 Premieres New Art Program Highlighting Arts in South Florida and Beyond

A profile of Miami’s own choreographer Rosie Herrera and Delray Beach’s Arts Garage, a cultural hub for visual artists, musicians and performers, kicks off WPBT2 public television’s new original series Art Loft, beginning Tuesday, February 5, 7:30pm. The weekly 30-minute art program will showcase local and national artists, openings, installations, performances, and art organizations that are positioning South Florida as an emerging leader in the world of art.

“With most media outlets cutting back on arts coverage at a time when this region is actually beginning to define itself as an international leader in the arts, it seemed like the right time to shine a light on our local community,” says Neal Hecker, Chief Content Officer for WPBT2. “Art Loft will draw on the wide variety of local producers to help develop and produce content that will provide viewers a lens on this thriving and exciting arts scene.” Art Loft is designed to be a collaboration between WPBT2, local artists, producers and other PBS stations around the country.

 

Art Loft is hosted by Kalyn Chapman James.  James has performed and worked in the arts since age 9. She has studied tap, jazz, ballet, modern, and acrobatics, and hip-hop dance at various schools in Alabama, New York and California.  She has been a model and spokeswoman for the UPN Network and served as a television journalist for Fox Sports Network.  James worked as a teaching artist for Arts for Learning Miami where she instructed after school programs in some of Miami’s most underserved communities. 

James also performed in the MTV Video Music Awards, the Latin Video Music Awards, the Latin Billboard Awards, and danced and choreographed for the Univision and Telemundo Television Networks in Miami.   She has worked extensively as an events emcee, a print and television model appearing on the pages of Glamour, Ebony, Essence, Jet, and O Magazine and has been featured in national commercials for Crocs, Hershey’s Air Delights Chocolate Candy, Old Navy and Walt Disney World. James is currently Corporate Sponsorship Coordinator for the Adrienne Arsht Center, where she secures funding to support the Center’s education and outreach programs.

Funding for Art Loft is made possible through generous grants from Newman’s Own Foundation and Chappman Foundation.

Related articles

Art Loft Profiles Art, Dance, Music, and More

WPBT2 Premieres Makers: Women Who Make America

WPBT2 will premiere Makers: Women Who Make America, a new PBS documentary , on Tuesday, February 26, 2013 at 8 p.m. The film tells the story of how women have helped shape America over the last 50 years through one of the most sweeping social revolutions in our country’s history.

Leveraging the combined reach of television and internet (makers.com), the project shares the stories of exceptional women whose pioneering contributions continue to shape the world in which we live and the film will continue to chronicle the stories of women who led the fight, those who opposed it, and those — both famous and unknown — who were caught in its wake.

Narrated by three-time Academy Award-winning actress Meryl Streep, Makers: Women Who Make America takes its cue from the Movement’s motto, “the personal is political,” delving into the personal lives of its subjects.

The film is built from first-person, intimate accounts of women who experienced this time of change, including movement leaders such as author and feminist activist Gloria Steinem and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton; opponents like conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly; celebrities including media leader Oprah Winfrey and journalist Katie Couric; political figures like former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; and many “ordinary” women who confronted the dramatic social upheaval in their own lives.

 

 

 

Watch MAKERS: Women Who Make America Trailer on PBS. See more from Makers: Women Who Make America.

                  

Watch MAKERS: Women Who Make America on PBS. See more from Makers: Women Who Make America.

 

 

WPBT2 Premieres Documentary About First Openly Gay Mayor in Key West

WPBT2 marks the 30th anniversary of the election of America's first openly gay mayor with the broadcast premiere of The Newcomer on Monday, January 14 at 9:00 p.m.  The Newcomer is a documentary that focuses on the life and career of Richard Heyman, who was elected America’s first openly gay Mayor for the city of Key West.

Directed by Emmy Award-winning journalist John Mikytuck, the Newcomer tells the story about a forgotten gay icon and the tragic circumstances which arrested the political and social progress he made for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people in the 1980s.

While the culture wars inflamed by Anita Bryant and the religious right had a powerful impact on the march toward gay civil rights in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the AIDS epidemic was ultimately much more destructive to the movement. The film focuses attention on that tragedy through the story of Heyman. 

“John Mikytuck's, The Newcomer, recalls Key West in the 1980s, when the island had the highest AIDS rate in the nation and city leaders, including Mayor Richard Heyman, struggled to keep the truth quiet from mainstream tourists. Ironically, within a few years the AIDS virus killed Heyman and hundreds of other gay Key Westers,” stated Steve Rothaus with the Miami Herald.

The Newcomer includes interviews with such longtime Keys notables as Peter Ilchuk, June Keith, John Kiraly, Joan Higgs and Dr. Mark Whiteside.

The Newcomer was made possible with support from The Miami Foundation.

 

 

WPBT2 Invites You to a Downton Abbey Season 3 Preview Screening!

It's been a long wait, but that wait will soon come to an end.  Downton Abbey returns with Season 3 in January!  

In celebration of it's return to the airwaves, WPBT2 wants to invite you to a free preview screening of the first episode of the new season!  The screening will be held on Saturday, January 5 at Cinema Paradiso in Fort Lauderdale.  Beginning at 5:30pm, get dressed in your best Downton Abbey inspired hat and enter to win the hat contest!  There will be trivia games and more!  The screening will follow at 6:30pm- 7:30pm.  

Seating is limited and RSVPs are required.  Please RSVP to Kristina Gutierrez at 305-424-4025 or kristina_gutierrez@wpbt.org.

The Killer Inside

Donna Shalala hosts Surviving Colon Cancer, which peers behind the veil to examine the number two cancer killer of both men and women. Last year it killed 153,000 people, often with no symptoms until it was too late.

Miraculously, this cancer can be prevented by screening. Polyps which form inside the colon can be removed during screening before they become cancer. Ninety-percent of colorectal cancer patients are 50, which is the magic age for screening. Yet, two million people were not screened last year. Why?

Surviving Colon Cancer introduces you to survivors as well as courageous patients battling for their lives.  It took Fran Drescher two years and eight doctors for a proper diagnosis. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had no symptoms. Charlie Kelley had just nursed his wife Nan through her own chemotherapy when he was diagnosed with colon cancer. Meet Carmen Marc Valvo, Julie Greene, Marie Le, Vicki Gonzalez, Carlos Diaz, Michael Carver, and EJ Clark. EJ postponed his colonoscopy and is clinging to life via continuous chemotherapy.

Come inside the University of Miami-Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and watch live colonoscopies as well as laparoscopic surgery. Enter MD Anderson’s chemo and radiation suites. Understand what it is like to live with cancer and secrets to surviving colon cancer.

Surviving Colon Cancer premieres Thursday, November 8 at 11:00 p.m. on WPBT2.

 

 

Watch Surviving Colon Cancer on PBS. See more from WPBT.

 

 

WPBT2 Hosts Free Screening Event for Call the Midwife

Call the Midwife is a moving, intimate, funny and true-to-life series, based on the best-selling memoirs of the late Jennifer Worth.  It tells colorful stories of midwifery and families in London’s East End in the 1950s.

The series follows, Jenny Lee, a young woman raised in the wealthy English countryside, who has chosen to become a nurse and now, as a newly qualified midwife, has gone to work in the poorest area of the city. Attached to an order of nursing nuns at Nonnatus House, Jenny is part of a team of women who minister to expectant mothers, many of whom give birth at home in appalling conditions. The drama follows Jenny as she meets her patients and learns to love the people who live in the East End.  

Call the Midwife premieres on WPBT2 on Sunday, September 30 at 8:00pm.

WPBT2 will host a free preview screening of Call the Midwife on Saturday, September 22 at 7:30pm at Cinema Paradiso in Fort Lauderdale (503 SE 6th Street, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301).  

Please RSVP to Kristina Gutierrez at kristina_gutierrez@wpbt.org or 305-424-4025.

 

 

Local Event Sponsors:            

                

 

 

Half the Sky Brings International Women's Issues to the Forefront

 

 

WPBT2 will broadcast Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, a Show of Force LLC and Fugitive Films production developed in association with the Independent Television Service (ITVS), on Monday, October 1 and Tuesday, October 2 from 9:00 p.m. -11:00 p.m. This special television event, introduced by George Clooney, uses in-the-moment investigations and emotionally explosive storytelling to confront the greatest moral challenge of our time: the oppression of women and girls around the world.

 

 

  The documentary, filmed in 10 countries and inspired by the best-selling book by Pulitzer Prize-winning authors Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, is driven by the growing awareness that empowering women is the best way to increase prosperity and stability around the globe. Six talented actress-advocates — Eva Mendes, Meg Ryan, Gabrielle Union, Diane Lane, America Ferrera, and Olivia Wilde — join Kristof as he travels to Asia and Africa to meet face-to-face with inspiring individuals working to bring about change and the women and girls who confront extreme gender inequality in their daily lives. 

For directions to the SOLD OUT screening of Half the Sky, please see below:  

Directions to Little Haiti Cultural Center: 212 NE 59th Terrace, Miami, FL 33137

From North: Take I-95 S to Exit 6A (NW 62nd St or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.) Turn Left onto NW 62nd Street.  Turn Right onto NE 2nd Avenue. Turn Left onto NE 59th Terrace.  Parking lots will be on the left and right.

From South: Take I-95 N to Exit 6A (NW 62nd St/Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.) Turn Right onto NW 62nd St.  Turn Right onto NE 2nd Avenue.  Turn Left onto NE 59th Terrace.  Parking lots will be on the left and right.

National Event Sponsors: 

Local Event Sponsors:              

 

In-Kind Event Sponsors:       

                                             

 

 

 

 

WPBT2/KidVision Invites You to Story Time with Mr. Steve!

WPBT2/Kidvision, in association with JetBlue, PBS Kids and
Broward County Library System, will host an intimate story time event to help keep children reading throughout the summer on Monday, July 9 at 10:30am at the South Regional/ Broward County Library in Pembroke  Pines, FL. 

 

 

Attendees will enjoy a performance by PBS Kids host, Mr. Steve, appearances by PBS Kids characters, giveaways and much more.  The event is free and open to the public. 

For more information, call (305) 424-4025.

 

The event is part of the Soar with Reading program, a free literacy program launched by PBS Kids and JetBlue to keep children reading and beat the summer learning slide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goat Rodeo Live!

Four string virtuosos — renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, bluegrass fiddler Stuart Duncan, bassist Edgar Meyer and mandolin wizard Chris Thile, each a prominent figure in his own musical sphere — have come together as an ensemble to create what critics are now hailing “a most remarkable and organic cross-genre project in which the fire and drive of the bluegrass world meets the clarity and class of the classical music world.”

GOAT RODEO LIVE: YO-YO MA, STUART DUNCAN, EDGAR MEYER, AND CHRIS THILE, taped before a highly engaged audience at Boston’s acclaimed House of Blues, airs Friday, May 25, 2012, 9:00 p.m. on WPBT2. Guest vocalist Aoife O’Donovan joins the ensemble on two numbers.

As viewers will quickly note, the program is an out-of-the-box experience that presents an evening of music both vibrant and varied — composed and improvised, uptown and down home, funky and pastoral — and above all, uniquely American. It is music that represents the birth of something new. Four virtuosos ignore genre restraints and take viewers along on an inspiring journey that’s full of exhilarating music that ranging from meditative to mind-spinning.

The term “goat rodeo,” often applied to a chaotic situation, is a reference to the challenges of melding classical and bluegrass music. GOAT RODEO LIVE includes interviews with the four musicians, providing background and context for their work. Viewers are privy to some of the dynamics that have emerged out of four exceptional musicians’ collaboration on a project that all are deeply passionate about.

 

 

 

Check, Please! South Florida Heats Up This Season!

Check, Please! South Florida turns up the heat with all-new episodes beginning May 21, 2012 on WPBT2. In the season premiere, three local firefighters come to the rescue with the dish on their favorite dining hot spots!  Host Michelle Bernstein jumps back into the mix with fifteen new reviewers, offering restaurant picks from Tequesta to Sweetwater. 

Season 8 visits trendy up-and-coming neighborhoods like Wynwood in Miami and Northwood in West Palm Beach, and gets the lowdown on the food truck frenzy with a stop at the Biscayne Triangle Food Truck Round-up in North Miami, one of the largest meet-ups in South Florida. Whether you’re craving authentic Cantonese, Nicaraguan, Israeli or Italian food, this season has you covered. 

These fun new episodes will be served up on WPBT2 starting Monday, May 21, 2012 at 7:30 p.m. Episodes repeat on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 5:30 p.m.

Season 8 is made possible by the generous support of Badia Spices, Whole Foods Market, Illy Caffe, and Johnson & Wales University.

 

 

 

SEASON 8 EPISODE DESCRIPTIONS:

Show #801- Premieres 5/21
Featuring Tropical Chinese Restaurant in Miami, Wings N Ale in Coral Springs, and Sardinia Enoteca Ristorante in Miami Beach.

Show #802- Premieres 5/28
Featuring Hog Snapper’s Shack & Sushi in Tequesta, Talia’s Tuscan Table in Boca Raton, and Jade Kitchen in West Palm Beach.

Show #803- Premieres 6/4
Featuring Madroño Restaurant in Miami, Valentino’s Italiana Cucina in Ft. Lauderdale, and Sunrise Pita & Grill in Sunrise.

Show #804 – Premieres 6/11
Featuring The Cottage in Lake Worth, Don Arturo in Ft. Lauderdale, and Joey’s in Miami.

Show #805 – Premieres 6/18
Featuring the Biscayne Triangle Food Truck Round-Up in North Miami, My Big Fat Greek Restaurant in Ft. Lauderdale, and City Oyster & Sushi Bar in Delray Beach.