Soul Of A Community

WHEN THE SANCTUARY of the Arts first opened in the former sanctum of the First Church of Christ, Scientist on Andalusia Avenue in Coral Gables, its newly minted director Rafi Maldonado-Lopez had a sign hoisted up amidst the Romanesque columns of its front facade which simply read: “Yes, This is It.”

Four years later, the sign is no longer needed—the Sanctuary now hosts a dizzyingly diverse array of up to 55 shows per year, drawing around 25,000 patrons.

“People just walk by now and say, ‘Hey, Rafi, what’s going on today?’” Maldonado-Lopez says with obvious pride, young dancers from around the world flitting back and forth behind him by way of proof.

“People know we’re active.” And yet, in another very real sense, the sentiment of the long-gone sign remains very much apropos: This collaborative, sui generis artist-led institution is blazing a visionary path to a more accessible, inclusive, and thriving creative and economic path for the arts.

A few miles away, the not-for-profit 501(c)3 operates another Sanctuary at St. Mary First Missionary Baptist Church, a historic Black church founded in 1924 and a pivotal hub during the civil rights movement. At one point its congregation was 1500 strong, but it fell on hard times in later years.

“This is our heart,” Maldonado-Lopez says of the downtown Gables location. “St. Mary’s is our soul.” The Sanctuary continues to work with the past congregants and neighbors, ensuring the multi-use space remains a benefit to the community through local events—there was a recreation of the Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 March on Washington for the church’s rededication to the community—and youth mentoring programs, for which Sanctuary does not charge fees, between its jazz nights, theatrical performances, and more.

“You know, the church is still in service,” a resident once told Maldonado-Lopez. “Just now it serves us through the arts.” That? Music to Maldonado-Lopez’ ears.

 

IN THE BEGINNING

Mike Eidson was restless. It was 2019 and the Coral Gables attorney and restorer of historic buildings—you can see, for example, his work every time you visit the building, which houses Books & Books—had had his eye on bringing the Coconut Grove Playhouse back to life, but the project never materialized. And so, when he learned two First Church of Christ, Scientist buildings in the heart of the Gables—designed in the 1920s and 1930s by legendary local architect Phineas Paist, whose work on Coral Gables City Hall and the Douglas Entrance still define the city to this day—had not only sat empty for years and were under the protection of the city’s historic preservation rules from more commercially-minded development, the gears began to turn.

“I saw an opportunity to create a space that wouldn’t be just theater or just ballet or just opera or just anything,” Eidson tells AQUA Pinecrest. “I wanted it to be the best of everything—and affordable for the people and families being priced out of experiencing the arts in too many other places.” That’s a tall order, but he had a very specific man in mind for the job—someone with not only a seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy, but also with financial and fundraising acumen.

“I invited Rafi to lunch at a restaurant not far from here,” Eidson says, standing on the Sanctuary steps and waving a hand towards the bustling midday downtown streets. “And I told him about this crazy idea I had and asked him two questions: ‘Do you want to do it? And, if you want to, can you do it?’”

There was no hesitation.

“In so many places, good ideas are beat back because you need permission from so many different people to be creative,” Maldonado-Lopez says. “You lose freedom of creativity. And Sanctuary, it was clear to me, was going to be a very free place. And a place where I could try many different things; Mike is more high-octane than me, if you can believe it. Do we fail sometimes? Of course, but every artist knows that is part of your creative process.”

“This wouldn’t work without Rafi,” Eidson says. “Everyone I talked to had told me, ‘This guy is sharp,’ but I did not realize he was good at basically everything and had so many connections. Everyone respects him, and he has a never-ending stream of ideas and the energy to get it done. He works all the time. He answers his phone seven days a week, any hour, and he is always ready to go.”

THE ARTIST’S SOUL

Maldonado-Lopez was born in New York. Williamsburg, more specifically, well before the hipster gold rush. His family was from Puerto Rico, and Maldonado-Lopez travelled back and forth often during his early years. He describes himself, alternately, as a “typical Puerto Rican gypsy child” and “reverse Nuyorican.” Then, around 10-years-old, he moved semi-permanently to the Caribbean Islands for the rest of his childhood school years.

In high school, Maldonado-Lopez joined a performance group and realized he was more comfortable in front of a crowd than just about anywhere else. He danced throughout these years, sure, but in the informal way of musical theater kids. When he arrived at New York University at age 17, however, one of his dance classes was outsourced to the renowned Joffrey Ballet School. Maldonado-Lopez fell in love with the art, even if the attitude towards men at that time was somewhat limiting.

“They would say, ‘the girl is the pretty picture and you’re the frame,’” Maldonado-Lopez recalls. “‘That’s your job. You hold the pretty picture.’”

From there Maldonado-Lopez went to Boston Conservatory—the “first conservatory to integrate ballet and modern dance into a unified program”—then the contemporary Minnesota Dance Theatre. “Wherever I moved,” he says, “I tried to absorb the culture.” Case in point: In Minnesota, Maldonado-Lopez sought out a Lutheran church dinner and

its mainstay delicacy of lutefisk—dried cod cured in lye—on the conditional recommendation of the NPR show A Prairie Home Companion.

Then, in 2003, came the opportunity to serve as a faculty member and development officer at the New World School of the Arts. (A year later the indefatigable Maldonado-Lopez would pick up a simultaneous position as Major Gifts Officer and faculty member at Miami City Ballet as well—where Eidson was president of the board in a bit of foreshadowing.) He was excited to be in a city that matched his energy.

“Miami isn’t a melting pot,” Maldonado-Lopez says. “It’s a salad—we’re all mixed up together but you can still identify the individual pieces, still get the individual flavors.”

In 2009, Maldonado-Lopez reinvented the family show Carnival for the Animals for Arsht Center and got one of the best—if most peculiar—compliments of his career from the house manager: “This is the first family show we’ve done where no one went to the bathroom for an hour and a half.” (Captivating kids—no easy task. The show has since toured the world, often playing to sellout crowds.) Five years later, Maldonado-Lopez founded the Inter-American Choreographic Institute, where he serves as Artistic Director and produces Men Who Dance, the largest all-male dance company in the United States, comprised of dozens of dancers from more than 25 countries. For good measure, he also helped found the Colombia-based Compañía Ballet Metropolitano de Medellin. After 20 years, Eidson came calling.

“Rafi, it’s not even that you were unchained,” one of his New World School colleagues told him shortly after he made the transition, “you grew wings.”

COMMUNITY OVER EVERYTHING

When Maldonado-Lopez helped start the company in Colombia, he asked a simple question: “Why is a waitress at the nearby café willing to save her tips for a month

to see Shakira, but not the ballet?” To Maldonado-Lopez the answer is simple: She does not see herself in it. It does not speak to her.

His calling is to change that. And Sanctuary of the Arts is the vehicle.

“We’re fortunate Coral Gables leadership is pro-art,” Maldonado-Lopez says. “I mean, they’re not going to let me put a neon sign up here—which I would love to do—but they understand the benefit of a vibrant arts scene is not just social, it’s economic. It’s more foot traffic for small businesses in safer neighborhoods with rising real estate values. That support creates a real opportunity for us, and I don’t think we’ve come close to maximizing the arts community here.”

To that end, the Sanctuary hosts the Coral Gables Community Foundation’s State of the Arts meetings, which aim to build mutual aid and create synergy between area arts organizations. “True collaboration is like a potluck, he says.” They’ll host a National Independence Day celebration for the Peru consulate with a large enough entourage of diplomats to require Secret Service protection and present award-winning performers, but also make sure the space is available and affordable for, say, local authors or any number of smaller organizations. Affordability and access are paramount—no nonnegotiable

$50,000 rental fees here. The Sanctuary also creates dance and arts curriculums for local kids and schools, which it hopes to soon expand. They run a full-time program of 18 dancers from countries all over the world.

Maldonado-Lopez is full of praise not just for Eidson, but also his director of education Alice Arja, production manager Clayton Oliveira, and his small but mighty board. “Everyone is so committed,” he says. “Our staff is small, but our reach is so expansive people assume it is much bigger. Many organizations with $30 million in the bank don’t get as much done as we do.”

Maldonado-Lopez dreams of a day when artists, now largely a part of the gig economy, can earn a living wage and thrive, and community-minded organizations like his are the rule rather than the exception.

Does that sound impossible? So did Sanctuary of the Arts not long ago.

BY SHAWN MACOMBER