Miami hosting young performance artists from around the country this week
MIAMI -- Whether it's jazz, ballet, contemporary dance, voice, visual arts, photographers and more,
National YoungArts Week is designed to celebrate the best and brightest of young artists who range in age from 15 to18.
The artists, who hail from around the U.S. and practice in 10 disciplines in the arts, are in Miami over the next several days to rehearse and perform as part of National YoungArts Week.
The event rungs through Friday with most of the evening performances scheduled to be held at the New World Center. Tickets cost $15 or events will be streamed live on the YoungArts website.
Clive Cang, a pianist and composer who is formerly of The Lincoln Center, is president of YoungArts.
"These wonderful young artists, who come from 26 states, all participated in a national competition and have been selected out of over 7,000 applications," he said. "These are the top 138, and this is a chance for us to showcase them to celebrate their talent crafts and to allow them to take the next step."
Big stars such as Viola Davis, Kerry Washington, Josh Grobin and Timothy Chalumet are all alumni of the YoungArts program.
The group's members were slated to hold rehearsals Monday in voice and dance, according to organizers.
At the headquarters Monday for Miami City Ballet, dancers Joshua Armstrong, 17, of Tampa, and Jocelyn Winn, 18, of Rochester, NY, were fine tuning their routines under expert supervision.
"I think this program is amazing for people of our age, because it allows us to start networking at such a young age and we know that the friends we meet this week will be lifelong friendships and connections," Winn said.
"There's so many different an amazing unique people here and all of the arts, so if you're not familiar with one you can check out a different one end. It's beautiful all around. I'm really enjoying it," Joshua said.
Samuel Fine, a 17-year-old artist from Miami, said he has dreams to dance on Broadway one day.
He said he is thrilled YoungArts is based in his hometown.
"It is amazing to know that my mom can come and watch what I do," he said. "That's like a really big perk. Some people aren't able to see their family here and I think it's crazy that my mom can come and watch me dance at this amazing YoungArts organization. It's really awesome."