Late Nights at the Dallas Museum of Art take place on the third Friday of every month (except December) and can bring up to 5,000 visitors to the Museum in just one evening. With eleven Late Nights to plan each year, we are constantly brainstorming program ideas and themes.
The process starts with coming up with a theme for each Late Night month. These are usually decided a year in advance by looking at our upcoming exhibitions, works of art in our collection, or other special events and occasions like the Museum’s annual birthday celebration in January.
We have three Late Nights left in 2010 and each one will celebrate a different exhibition on view this fall. The next one, on September 17, focuses on our México 200 exhibitions: José Guadalupe Posada: The Birth of Mexican Modernism and Tierra y Gente: Modern Mexican Works on Paper. These two exhibits, which showcase Mexico’s long tradition of exquisite artistry, were planned as a way to commemorate the Mexican bicentennial.
Once the themes of each Late Night are chosen, the programming team decides which performers, speakers, and programs to schedule, making sure there is a mix of live music and performances, lectures, tours, films, family activities, Tech Lab programs, and other special events. Through our own research, recommendations from colleagues, and old-fashioned word-of-mouth, we choose the Late Night performers and speakers who we feel tie into the main theme of the evening while also offering something new and interesting for our visitors to experience. These special guests come from all across Texas, often from across the country, and once in a while, from abroad.
We also collaborate with other organizations in our North Texas community to present joint programs at Late Night. In September the acclaimed Mexican poet Homero Aridjis will be at the Museum to give a reading in both English and Spanish. This program is hosted in partnership with the Center for Translation Studies at UT Dallas.
We’ve just finished deciding on our themes for the 2011 Late Nights, and while we’ll keep them a secret for now, we hope to see you at one or maybe even all of them!
Stacey Lizotte is Head of Adult Programming and Multimedia Services.
