'Lights on Tampa' adds new display, performance art

The one-night biennial happening known as "Lights on Tampa" is back again Saturday.

Centered around Curtis Hixon Park Waterfront Park and extending into downtown Tampa, this year's event includes the unveiling of the "Portal to the Arts," performance art and light shows on 10 buildings.

The "Portal to the Arts" is perhaps the most people-friendly part of the show. Stationed on the riverwalk along the Hillsborough River, it consists of a column-like metal structure with three video screens at the top, each continuously showing a video created by an artist.

Tampa artists Juliet Davis and Stephanie Tripp will present their video "Shedding Light" on one screen; another screen will feature "A Light Portrait of the City" by Connecticut artist Eva Lee; and the third screen will show "Watershed," by Molly Schwartz, of New York City.

"Each year, we try to have one installation that becomes permanent," said Robin Nigh, manager for Tampa's Art Programs Division, which organizes the event.

This year, it's the portal, which will continue after Saturday to display works by different artists on a rotating basis.

Another new element in Curtis Hixon Park is "Shadow Play," performance art created by University of Tampa professor Susan Taylor Lennon and University of Tampa alum Jennifer Rosoff, who owns a Tampa dance consulting company called "The Creative Movement."

"There's going to be a silk screen set up adjacent to the park where dancers will be moving behind the screen with light projected on them to create a shadow effect," explained Rosoff. "And we're going to be asking people from the community to come up on the platform and try it out for themselves."

Disc jockeys will be spinning the music for the dancers, who will be in motion throughout the light show.

For the one night only, the Poe Parking Garage will be lit up with a video projection created and orchestrated by guest artist Pablo Valbuena, from Madrid, Spain.

Another nine buildings are the canvases for a wide array of existing and ongoing illuminations in the downtown area. The newest of these are Leo Villareal's ever-changing luminous display called "Sky" on the façade of the Tampa Museum of Art; "Spiral Fantasia: A Child's Dream" on the Glazer Children's Museum; Ray King's light-responsive patterned sculpture at the Tampa Port Authority Parking Garage; and "Light Pulse" by James Woodhill at the HART Streetcar Station at Whiting and Franklin Streets.

Other permanently lit structures are the Tampa Convention Center, Municipal Office Building, the David A. Straz Jr. Center for the Performing Arts, SkyPoint condominiums and the minarets on the University of Tampa campus.

Festivities will begin around 5:30 p.m. with opening remarks by Mayor Pam Iorio at about 6:15 p.m. When the day starts to darken, then the lights will go on and stay on until 11 p.m.

"We're hoping that people will make a night of it and see a lot of things," Nigh said.