ART IN THE EVERGLADES

         Just fifty miles from Miami is an incredible treasure, Everglades National Park. Last Sunday it was further enhanced by local artists in Dale Andree's "Everglades Imprint" performance piece. Almost two hundred of us watched dancers rise up from a sawgrass prairie. Dale Andree's dance troupe then performed to a native American's music.

  
                    



           Musician Samuel Tommie               
Their amazing costumes were created from the plants around them.

     Alexis Caputo of the Afro Diaries Project shared the terrifying drama of the 1926 hurricane that swept through South Florida and killed thousands.

      An hour earlier we toured sculptures created by Coconut Grove artist, Robert Chambers. Each was inspired by the Saw Palmetto, the tree on which so much of the Everglades depends.
    Robert photographing his gator back (burnt saw palmetto root) sculpture.


     No it wasn't the King Mango Strut-which was going on at the same time- but it was just as enjoyable, a quiet respite from the unsettling world that the Grove's zany parade reflects. 
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