South Florida Center for Percussive Arts (SFCPA) comes alive January 30–31 with Chameleon, a two-day, multi-sensory performance and art installation that merges live music with cutting-edge technology. Created by MF Dynamics with support from MAD Arts and funding from the Knight Foundation, the project reimagines how audiences experience sound and movement, transforming the entire SFCPA into a playground of rhythm, color, and emotion.
Each evening features four intimate performances unfolding across outdoor and indoor spaces. The night begins outdoors as the SFCPA grounds transform into a stage and large-scale video canvas, then continues inside with a 360-degree environment of live music and visuals, where new technologies sonify the performers’ pulse and translate movement and brainwave data into evolving sound and imagery—revealing the living connection between body, instrument, and environment.
Conceived by composer, percussionist, and new media artist Maria Finkelmeier, Chameleon draws inspiration from her experience as an adoptee and her lifelong exploration of identity, perception, and transformation. Through music, projection, and motion, it asks: What versions of ourselves live in the minds of others? As we move between communities, our personas shift, adapt, and reveal new layers of self. Chameleon makes these invisible transitions visible and audible, inviting audiences to reflect on how identity forms in response to the world around us.
Performances feature students from the South Florida Center for Percussive Arts alongside Finkelmeier and Boston-based hybrid artist Greg Jukes, creating an experience that is both deeply human and technically daring — bridging generations, disciplines, and communities through shared rhythm and motion.
“Chameleon embodies what happens when art and technology intertwine to reveal something profoundly human,” says Finkelmeier. “We’re not just layering visuals onto music — we’re uncovering the inner pulse of the performance itself.”
SFCPA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to creating new and enhancing existing opportunities to study, perform, and enjoy music through percussion. Along with educational programs from classical to world percussion, we help make music accessible to our community through school presentations, workshops, and performances.
South Florida Center for Percussive Arts opened its doors in 2013, it is an organization with a 12 year track record of increasing access to the arts through collaborative efforts, educational programs, workshops, and performances. At the heart of founding the South Florida Center for Percussive Arts, was deciding its location to be Kendall, a geographic area lacking in free and low cost arts programs.
SFCPA Executive Director
SFCPA Staff & Student Performers: Ray Robinson, Juan Posso, Gabriel Placido, Enrique Pulley, Chelsea Roman, Vanessa Thompson, Michelle Jimenez, Alan Suero, SFCPA Advanced Ensemble, RhythmFUN! Groups (Ages 6 – 18).
Graphic Design:
DFER Design
Sound + Lighting:
Legacy Events & Productions
MF Dynamics creates large-scale art works and performances in public spaces, immersive multi-sensory moments at art and concert venues, digital art and original music. Our mission is to generate moments of connection through visceral, ephemeral, unforgettable experiences by fusing musical performance with new technologies, inviting reflection and community dialogue into artistic environments.
Artist, Composer, Director
Performer, Educator
Supreetha Krishnan
Creative Technologist and Visual Designer
Andrew Ringler
Hardware Designer and Fabricator
Cara Tuttle
Glove Designer
Allison Rodman
Executive Assistant and Project Manager
MAD Arts is a museum, community hub, and laboratory for art and technology founded in 2020, its flagship headquarters is a 50,000-square-foot space in South Florida that facilitates visionary exhibitions and projects by individuals, collectives, non-profits, and companies. Committed to educational initiatives, inclusive programming, and career development, MAD Arts is grounded in the philosophy that art and technology are tools for social good and should be made accessible.
Tiger (Sophia) Shokripour
Producer
Gus Vieira
Executive Creative Director
Mohammed Khatib
Neuroscientist
Bebe
3D Production Manager
Fernando Rodriguez
Motion Capture and Hardware Design
Chase Mussey and Javier Herrera
Concept and 3D Artists
We would like to give a huge thank you to The Knight Foundation for making this project possible. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation believes arts and culture are at the core of community, connecting people to place and to one another. Investing in arts and culture is central to Knight’s effort to build stronger, better informed and more engaged communities, which are critical for a more effective democracy. Knight Foundation funds the application of technology to enhance the creation, dissemination and experience of art. We invest across genres and increase the impact of our work by focusing funding in the eight communities Knight supports.
South Florida Center for Percussive Arts and Maria Finkelmeier were selected as a 2024 Knight New Work Grantee – presenting a multimedia performance piece by Maria Finkelmeier incorporating digital projections and live music, creating a dynamic blend of physical and virtual storytelling entitled: Chameleon
