Mary Luft
Legendary multidisciplinary arts presenter, Mary Luft founded Tigertail Productions in 1980. Some of Tigertail’s early productions took place in her backyard, including a performance by Tom Johnson, a composer and writer for The Village Voice. London composer and music critic Michael Nyman composed for her work Lil Crocodile,
presented in Bob Herman’s (Miami Opera) New World Festival of the Arts in 1982. Mary soon became involved in New Music America, each year recreated in a different city, beginning in NYC in 1979. Tigertail produced and Mary co-directed the 1988 New Music America Miami Festival in Miami with every major U.S. newspaper sending a writer to Miami to cover the event. Mary received an Arts Administration Fellowship to the National Endowment for the Arts, served on panels in FL and around the U.S., received three NEA choreography fellowships, performed twice at Dance Theater Workshop in NYC and received a Fulbright Fellowship to Brazil in 1989. For 20 years, Mary traveled Brazil annually to bring performing artists to Miami and sent Miami artists to Brazil. In 1991, she produced events for São Paulo’s Bienal. From the 1990s to 2017, Tigertail presented at theaters and site-specific locations, including FLA/BRA (Florida/Brazil) festival, danceAble, produced poetry books with David Beaty for 10 years, WordSpeak: a teen spoken word project, and ScreenDance Miami. In 2013, she received a grant from France to visit countrywide choreography centers, which led to FLA/FRA (Florida/France) festival in 2014 and 2015. In 2015 and 2016, events spun off projects inspired by the elements, first WATER and then FIRE. In 2017, Mary moved to New York and is currently working on Women and Whaling in Hudson in Hudson, NY.