Faena Forum opens with a new dance commission

Faena Forum marked its opening on November 28 with Once With Me, Once Without Me, a new dance commission by Pam Tanowitz created in collaboration with architect Shohei Shigematsu of OMA. The performance placed movement at the center of the building’s public introduction.

That choice made the opening more than an architectural presentation. Dancers can reveal a space through scale, timing and the relationships between bodies, giving an audience a different understanding from photographs or a guided walk. The commission allowed the building to be encountered through an event made for it.

Students from the Miami City Ballet School participated, connecting the international project with local training and talent. The opening therefore joined several kinds of cultural work: architecture, choreography and education. Faena Forum now enters Miami Beach’s venue landscape with a first chapter defined by performance, while its continuing program remains the next part of the story.