THE DASS STORY
Downtown Miami
In the past 10 years, Downtown Miami has changed from a business and bureaucratic center that went to sleep at 5 pm to a vibrant residential and entertainment hub.
We have some 100 thousand residents scattered around an archipelago of high-rises. We have opera, the Miami Heats, night clubs and fancy restaurants, but not many places to gather for conversation with neighbors and develop a sense of community.
About DASS
We created DASS to fill that void. DASS is the place to meet fellow Downtowners for conversation over a glass of wine, or two. We are a combination of TED Talks and a local Social Club. Like TED Talks, we believe in spreading great ideas under fifteen minutes, and a social club in the historical sense, a place for exchanging talk about scientific innovations, books, art, technological trends and how to improve the neighborhood.
Cofounder Marc Schmidt said: “DASS is the place to take a break from virtual reality and reconnect with real people, with neighbors.”
A bit vague? Let me illustrate the concept:
One SALON was organized around the evolution of emotions, and how emotions influence laws. If enough people in a particular place share the emotion of disgust, for example, it can be enacted into a law. Evolutionary psychologist Debra Lieberman, professor of Psychology at the University of Miami, led a contentious discussion, drawing on her book Objection, published by Oxford University Press.
This Salon drew around 75 attendees. Ages fluctuating from 25 to 60. That’s another characteristic of DASS: diversity, financial, occupational, age, ethnicity. A physicist sits next to a painter, a waiter next to a lawyer, etc.
Another SALON transformed the written word into jazz renditions and dramatic readings. We invited local writers, famous and not so famous to collaborate with excerpts from their works, and commissioned jazz musicians to interpret those excerpts, and actors to dramatize those pieces, hence creating a dialogue of genres.
And we invited members of the team of physicists at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland who proved the existence of the Higgs Bosom, the particle that gives matter to all other particles, to lead the Salon Can Physics unlock the Mysteries of the Universe. The Higgs Bosom is the reason why we are not drifting away in space. The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for proving the existence of this particle.
We also host members-only happy hours with tango, poetry, wine, tapas… Even fencing.
The Origins
DASS started 4 years ago at CU-1 Gallery in the historic Security Building. Then, when the building was sold, our business model changed for the better. Downtown became our campus. SALONS take place in downtown iconic venues, from the historical Olympia Theater to Books & Books, from Miami Dade College to residential high-rises.
DASS was founded in 2014 by novelist and journalist Raul Guerrero and Marc Schmidt, cardiologist and award-winning photographer. Raul Guerrero is the author of the novel WOMEN LOVE DR. BOLL, and Cronica del CORAZON, a Spanish-language mini encyclopedia of the heart, and collaborates with publications worldwide on culture, language and science. Locally his column appears at the Nuevo Herald. Marc Schmidt’s photography won first prize at the Miami History Museum’s Street Photography Festival. More recently he was the official photographer for the acclaimed movie The Florida Project, for which its protagonist Willem Dafoe was nominated for the Oscar.
Dass Mission
At the risk of sounding pompous, we do aspire to help foster a downtown sense of neighborhood through the exchange of ideas.
A Word on Salons
Salons evolved in Paris and other cities en Europe and America as an alternative to universities and rigorous scientific academies. The likes of Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were regulars at Salons, and firm believers that knowledge and pleasure (food, wine and a little flirting — derived from the French word for throwing flowers — were not incompatible, on the contrary, they complemented one another.
Consequently, the Miami New Times had to say:
“The best Place in Miami to meet intelligent women.”
What The Florida Book Review Had to Say?
“Miami’s literary community gathered at the opulent Olympia Theater, long a mainstay of the city’s small but dedicated creative class. The event, hosted by the Downtown Arts and Science Society (DASS), drew hundreds of patrons for a dramatic reading of works by four local authors, accompanied and interpreted by an experimental jazz quartet.
DASS’s curator, author Raul Guerrero, says this is exactly the kind of “intellectual flirting” its members enjoy every month. Drawing on the concept of the salon, which flourished during the European Enlightenment and enjoyed a heyday during the Parisian jazz age of Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein, DASS functions as a local social club that discusses themes ranging from science and innovation to literature and music.”
Membership
If you wish to be part of the DASS experience, become a member. The Downtown Arts Science Salon — DASS — is supported by memberships. Click here for MEMBERSHIP information.
