Miami Light Project launched Here & Now in 1999, as the first program of its kind in South Florida dedicated to commissioning and presenting Miami-based performance and multi-media artists. Since its inception, we have commissioned work from more than 100 artists, laying the foundation for Miami’s reputation as a cultural center of international importance.
Here & Now commissioned artists are identified through an open request for proposals and selected through an adjudication process completed by a panel consisting of MLP programming team members, working artists, colleagues, and Here & Now Alumni.
Clinton Harris
Clint T. Harris is from Miami, FL where he currently dances with Peter London Global Dance Company. Harris has also performed in works choreographed by Mammie Green, Mike Tyus, Adele Myers, Jamar Roberts, and Justin Rapaport on stages throughout South Florida including the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Miami Beach Bandshell, African American Cultural Arts Center, Super Blue, Perez Art Museum, and internationally in Trinidad and Martinique. In 2020, Harris was selected for “Grass Stains,” a site-specific dance project directed by Pioneer Winter Collective. In 2015, he was featured in the Lifetime TV Network docuseries “Step! Up,” which captured the lives of inner-city youth and their unwavering passion for dance. Harris has taught dance at BBHarts Performing Arts, XpressitDance Center, Dance Center of Florida, and the Diamond Mind Leadership Academy.
Diego Melgar
Diego Melgar is an idiosyncratic musician reflecting the tropical melting pot he calls home. After studying jazz guitar at the Frost School of Music, Melgar has led a career as an independent composer and guitarist. Melgar’s unique guitar style has led him to perform with a wide-range of artists, from pop-singer Lauren Jauregui to conductor/composer Michael Tilson Thomas. Currently, Melgar’s focus is on his original music, with which he has opened for Flying Lotus, Khruangbin, Los Espiritus, and Flo Rida. Melgar is also a frequent composer for dance collectives in Miami such as Syncopate and the Pioneer Winter Collective.
Nicole Pedraza & Diago León Lang
Nicole Pedraza and Diago León Lang first met while attending New World School of the Arts in 2014. Over the years, their artistic relationship has deepened, both continuing to inspire each other’s work. Nicole’s choreography often draws from Diago’s visual art, exploring intricate curves and detailed themes of memory and identity. Diago often sketches during Nicole’s dance classes, capturing the fluidity of movement and the relationships between dancers, incorporating it into his work. Together, they are interested in finding the contrast in their cultural backgrounds and unified experience growing up in complex immigrant households in Miami.
Nina Ahmadi
Nina Osoria Ahmadi is an artist and educator from Miami, Florida. Ahmadi is of AfroCuban and Iranian descent; existing at the meeting point of disparate cultures inspires their exploration of social and cultural in-betweens, overlaps, and shifting binaries. Ahmadi was named a United States Presidential Scholar in the Arts in 2019. Outside of local organizing within Miami’s queer community and anti-imperialist movements, Ahmadi has worked creatively with organizations such as the ACLU and the New York City Commission for Human Rights. They received a bachelor’s degree in Art and Liberatory Pedagogy in 2022 from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. They are now based in Miami, where they teach elementary school art classes through the Miami Children’s Museum’s Studio Artist Residency. They have shown work in Miami, New York City, Washington DC, Atlanta, and Valencia, Spain.
