Where We Meet: Conversations from New Mexico and Beyond

After the screening of Acequias: The Legacy Lives On, Aracely "Arcie" Chapa (film director),  Vicente Fernandez, Miguel Santistevan, and Sylvia Rodriguez, discuss the importance of acequias to water and land use and the preservation of Northern New Mexican culture. 

Francisco El Comanche Gonzales is a community activist and educator whose practices center on the heritage of the Comanches. With his community, he leads dancing, singing and traditional customs. Los Comanches de la Serna are located in Ranchos de Taos.

Founded in Northern New Mexico in 1969, La Academia de la Nueva Raza (The Academy of the New Humanity) grew out of conversations between various scholars, community members and activists. La Academia developed its own educational model based on the concept that learning is derived from life and historical experiences - from El Oro del Barrio - and from the analysis of the history and external forces that impinge on people's lives.

Founded in Northern New Mexico in 1969, La Academia de la Nueva Raza (The Academy of the New Humanity) grew out of conversations between various scholars, community members and activists. La Academia developed its own educational model based on the concept that learning is derived from life and historical experiences - from El Oro del Barrio - and from the analysis of the history and external forces that impinge on people's lives. On the first episode of this two-part series, hear about the beginning of La Academia and how critical pedagogist, Paulo Freire, influenced its founding.

AJ, “LifeTracks”, is a founding member of Po.10.Cee, a Native American hip hop group based here in Taos. We hear about how he came to love hip-hop, his relationship to art, and hope.

Dante Biss-Grayson is a Native American Veteran from the Osage Nation, clan Eagle. He is an artist, poet and fashion designer. After learning about the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women epidemic , Biss-Grayson sought to inspire others, give them strength, pride, hope, empowerment, and resilience through his work on his fashion house, Sky-Eagle Collection.

Daniel Barela is the president of the Taos Historic Museums and a third generation Spanish Colonial woodcarver. David Fernandez de Taos is on the board of the Taos Historic Museums and is a writer and speaker with a rich spiritual life. The two discuss what it's like to oversee two historic properties in Taos and the upcoming Old Taos Trade Fair.

Tamra Carraher is a writer, editor and artist. In 2014, she started an independent press, Alexandria Quarterly Press, which would publish collections of written and visual art. In recent years, the format shifted to the publication of books, supporting specific artists' projects, including collections of poems or short stories. Carraher's own poetry has been featured in Toe Good Poetry and in Burningword Literary Journal. Her latest book, long been a mortal being, is a collection of poems published in 2022.

Tom Frouge is the founder and director of ¡Globalquerque!, “New Mexico's Annual Celebration of World Music & Culture”. ¡Globalquerque! takes place each September and includes educational workshops, a global dance party, an International Cinema Series with free film screenings, panels, food demos, and performances by local and international musicians.

Ray Sandoval, the Zozobra Event Chairman, tells us about the origin of Zozobra. Each summer, the gloom marionnette is carefully crafted, at once physically as a structure of wood, wire and paper, and metaphysically, by the gathering of people who contribute their gloom before they burn it to restore hope. Sandoval reflects, in this conversation, on the celebration itself, its significance and its evolution over the past 98 years.

An American poet, spoken word artist, subsistence farmer, and water rights activist from Taos, New Mexico, Olivia Romo addresses the deep and rich history of Northern New Mexico.

Dr. Ivan Deutsch's background is in atomic physics and optical physics and he has been working at the University of New Mexico for over 25 years within the Physics and Astronomy department. Currently the director of the Center for Quantum Information and Control (CQuIC), which is funded by the National Science Foundation, Deutsch is responsible for one of the longest standing centers for fundamental research in quantum information and technology.

Julia Reinhard Lupton teaches English at the University of California, Irvine, where she co-directs the New Swan Shakespeare Center and serves as Interim Director of the UC Humanities Research Institute. In this conversation with Colette LaBouff, Lupton shares how her academic and community work explores connections between William Shakespeare and a diversity of life elements. She works with community members, including religious entities and national experts, to explore the writer's work and engage with wide audiences.

Dr. Sharon Erickson Nepstad is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of New Mexico. Her research spans the globe focusing on social movements, non-violent movements, and the role of religion, specifically, Catholicism, in social movements. In this conversation we hear about solidarity organizations founded by missionaries in Central America as well as in the United States, the influence of priests and nuns on US foreign policy, the spirit of service in religious traditions, and how movements engage with religion to promote social change.

Written in 1770 by André Grétry, Silvain, is restaged in the 19th century American Southwest through Opera Lafayette's interpretation. Written in 1770 by André Grétry, Silvain addresses land right issues between peasants and landowners back in 18th century France. Opera Lafayette's current production sets the plot in San Luis Valley, CO and the conversation today addresses the relevance of this topic.

Tina Cordova, the granddaughter of a resident of Tularosa during the first atomic bomb, is the co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, an organization that seeks to bring attention to the victims of the first nuclear blast. Music Credit: The Reckoning by AERØHEAD: https://soundcloud.com/aerohead Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/the-reckoning-aerohead Music promoted by Audio Library: https://youtu.be/NQk5C6Z_WOA

Bob Arellano is a Cuban-American author, musician, and educator. Arellano's literary production includes pioneering work in electronic publishing, graphic-novel editions, and six novels.

David Rocchio is an attorney, writer, and Emmy-nominated filmmaker. Through his organization, Stowe Story Labs, David provides opportunities for people to break into film, advance their work, and break down industry barriers. Stowe Story Labs is currently partnered with the New Mexico Film Office in launching a new training program for emerging New Mexican screenwriters.

On this show we hear from five people who agreed to lend their thoughts about Taos to TCA's microphone. Joshua Aragon, Montserrat Oyanedel Tolmo, Ryan Brown, Ava Collignon and Sonya Vitalia Silva Baca. Each one of them has a singular relationship to Taos, having ancestral roots in this land or simply passing through. In sharing their perspective with us, they create a small mosaic, reflecting some of our community.

Since its inception in 1989, as the only independent Native women's non-profit organization, Tewa Women United provides advocacy and prevention services to women and youth in the community. In this show, Executive Director, Dr. Corrine Sanchez speaks to healing, relation in action, releasing trauma, and how we end violence against women, girls, and Mother Earth.

Since 1957, the Santa Fe Opera has drawn people from around the world to its adobe theater that overlooks the high desert landscape in northern New Mexico. This season at the Santa Fe Opera visitors can experience Carmen, The Barber of Seville, Falstaff, Tristan und Isolde, M. Butterfly, and the apprentice scenes. We hear from Tim Hill, the Director of Marketing, about the unique apprenticeship opportunities at the Santa Fe Opera, intricacies of planning seasons, and the 2022 season.

Dr. Philip Gonzales is a doctor in sociology at the University of New Mexico. Dr Gonzales's work explores ethnic identities and politics that were experienced by Mexican descendants after 1848. Dr. Gonzales also explores what it means to be a “cultural citizen”, and how Nuevomexicanos expressed their ethnic identity post WWI.

Roanna, or Rowie, Shebala is a Native American of the Dine (Navajo Tribe) and Shiwi (Zuni Tribe) writer, poet and performer. Shebala shares her intentionality in bringing native voices in spaces where they are not always heard. Shebala also reflects on her writing processes and the place of performance in her work.

Anakeala Trujillo is a musician. In 2021, she put together an EP of 7 songs. Isabella O'Donnell Silfverberg is also a performing artist and an active community member. She is part of True Kids One and has participated in many events, leading conversations with local political figures. In this conversation, we reflect on places available for youth to create and gather. We interrogate the role of performing arts in developing one's confidence and ability to meaningfully contribute to its circles.

Rupert Boyd and Laura Metcalf are partners in life and music as a dynamic guitar and cello duo. The couple arrange much of their repertoire themselves, drawing inspiration from artists across all genres. Boyd and Metcalf share their eclectic mix of musical arrangements from Debussy and Bach to Radiohead and Beyoncé in this episode recorded after a rehearsal for their recent performance in Taos.

Three artists, Sarah Parker, a printmaker and digital artist, Jack Lorang, a musician, and Jai Knight, an interdisciplinary artist, reflect on the recent creation of The Lost Sunshine Cinema Collective. They share insights on the nature of the collective and the potential for collaboration and connection through art.

Revolt Gallery's owner and founder, Steve McFarland, shares his insights on creating a space for new artistic voices in Taos. Since 2017, Revolt Gallery has become a place where a diversity of artists present their work - a place for community that is rooted in art.

Leo Vicenti is an enrolled member of the Jicarilla Apache Nation, who identifies creatively as a human, an artist, educator and visual communication designer. In this conversation, he reflects on his knowledge and work surrounding design.

David Fernandez de Taos is a writer and a participant in the spiritual, cultural, historical, and political aspects of life in Taos and beyond. As a Native Taos New Mexican, with both Spanish and Navajo family heritage, he is interested in the advancement of the spiritual and conciliation among the cultures and peoples of the Northern Rio Grande region and beyond.

Dr. Liz Przybylski is as ethnographer and a interdisciplinary scholar of popular music, specializing in hip hop practices in Canada and the United States, with a focus on Indigenous popular music. She is an Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Riverside. Her 2020 book, Hybrid Ethnography: Online, Offline, and In Between develops an innovative model of hybrid on- and off-line ethnography for the analysis of expressive culture.

Dr. Lillian Gorman is a researcher, Spanish heritage language learner and teacher, and a proud Chicana and Nuevomexicana from Albuquerque. In this conversation, we speak with her about language, pride within Spanish heritage language learning, language and identity in northern New Mexican families, and the dialogue between nuevomexicanos and other Latino communities in the US.

Anita Rodriguez is a mother, a painter, a construction worker, an enjarradora, and a writer from Taos. In this conversation, cultural representation, historic trauma and community work all play a part in informing the understanding of the current Northern New Mexican culture.

Tomas van Houtryve is a Paris based artist, photographer and filmmaker whose major works interweave investigative journalism, philosophy and metaphor. One of van Houtryve's latest works confronts America's collective historic amnesia, bringing stories of the “Far West”, that are often untold, to the light. The conversation with Tomas van Houtryve explores the processes related to his documenting work.

Joanna Keane Lopez is a multidisciplinary artist whose work brings together large scale installation, adobe architecture and sculpture as a reimagining of landscape and place. By working with materials of adobe, alíz, paper and natural dyes her practice acts to address conceptions of sculpture in engagement with land.

Delinda VanneBrightyn is the President of Taos Search and Rescue. For almost 20 years, she has been helping find missing persons and strengthening the structure of the organization itself. She shares her expertise on the rescue process and her unique understanding of dogs as working companions.

Bianca Manuelita Encinias' research addresses and deconstructs inaccurate historical images, perspectives, and interpretations of Mestiza, Mexican, Spanish, and Nuevamexicana women from northeastern New Mexico in the field of planning. She is the owner of El Chante: Casa de Cultura, a community gathering space in Albuquerque, New Mexico with an emphasis on community-based economic development focusing on the promotion and development of local artists, art, and crafts. She is also the Executive Director of the South Valley MainStreet, which is a grassroots economic development organization that assists the South Valley community in revitalizing its commercial district.

Sandy Rodriguez is a Los Angeles-based artist and researcher. Her Codex Rodriguez-Mondragón is made up of a collection of maps and paintings about the intersections of history, social memory, contemporary politics, and cultural production. The series pays homage to Indigenous artists and the history of migration between the Americas and raises awareness about immigration injustices. She was raised in San Diego, Tijuana, and Los Angeles. Rodriguez has exhibited at a number of museums and cultural institutions, including current exhibitions at Denver Art Museum, The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Garden, The Amon Carter Museum of American Art and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Street Safe is an all-volunteer, non-profit striving to reduce the harmful consequences associated with life on the street. Most of the women served have been victims of sex-trafficking, while others have struggled with homelessness and addiction. Please note that this episode contains depictions of violence that some people may find disturbing or difficult to listen to.

Dr. Christine Ami is a Diné College Associate Professor in the School of Business and Social Sciences where she teaches Indigenous Research Methodologies, Ethnographic Methods, and Indigenous Anthropology classes. Her dissertation is titled “Díí jí nída'iil'ah : A Study of Traditional Navajo Butchering.” She recently received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, to further her research into a book surrounding the practice of sheep butchering in Diné history and culture.

Alejandro Jimenez is a formerly-undocumented immigrant, poet, writer, educator, and distance runner from Colima, Mexico. He lives in Santa Fe, NM and his work centers around cultural identity, immigrant narratives, masculinity, memory, and the intersections of these themes.

Virginia Grise, Adela Licona and Kemi Sijuwade-Ukadike in conversation with Colette LaBouff explore the following questions: what is possible beyond the play, how to make art accessible to audiences, what should administrative support for artists look like, and what is art in the time of diminishing democracy? Finally, how do all these questions relate to the idea of art as coalitional gesture. Virginia Grise is a theatre artist. Her body of work includes multimedia performance, dance theater, performance installations, guerilla theater, site specific interventions, and community gatherings. Adela Licona has decades of experience in higher education, feminist and intersectional leadership, community organizing, and the arts. In her work, she refuses the capitalistic imperative to hierarchy. Kemi Ukadike is the manager of programs and inclusion at Eyebeam, an organization established in 1998 as a resource for artists to engage creatively with technology in an experimental setting. Ukadike advocates for the Fractal Fellows, a fellowship program at the heart of an initiative called: The Democracy Machine: Artists and Self-Governance in the Digital Age.

Nikesha Breeze, a multidisciplinary artist, shares their recent visual and performing work. From a collaborative performance in Blackdom, New Mexico, to a collection of paintings, Breeze's latest works center Black bodies, where Black pasts become re-informed by Black futures.

Amber Vasquez is an arts educator and advocate who works constantly to remove barriers for school children to participate and create in the performing arts. She talks with us on how integrative arts inform the whole person.