Poet Archives - Getcreativesanantonio.com: The Cultural Calendar for the City of San Antonio, Texas

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Marisela Barrera

Literary Arts: Author/Writer, Playwright, Poet; Media Arts: Radio/Television Talent, Voiceover; Multi-Disciplinary: Multiple Art Forms, Performer and Writer; Other; Performing Arts: Actor, Director, Performance Art, Spoken Word Artist, Storyteller; Teaching Artist/Instructor

Marisela Barrera is a Tejana writer and performer with a BFA in Acting from Southern Methodist University and MA/MFA degrees in Creative Writing, Literature and Social Justice from Our Lady of the Lake University. She was Artistic Director of Cara Mia Theater, Theater Director at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, and has performed in Latino cultural centers in Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. Recent original productions include a live-streaming pandemic performance of Tejana Rasquacha with Jump-Start, Ruby Reds, Big Birds y Burras at the Guadalupe, and Tejana Trilogy at Palo Alto College. Favorite directing projects include Yemaya’s Belly with Cara Mia, Lydia with AtticRep at Trinity University, and Ay, Pedro at the Guadalupe. Barrera’s writing has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, HowlRound, The San Antonio Report, Latina Critical Feminism, Out in SA, Texas Matters, The San Antonio Current, Radio Esperanza 101.5 LP-FM, and TheaterJones, among others. She teaches writing and literature at Northwest Vista College and is a two-time recipient of the National Association for Latino Arts and Culture Fund for the Arts award. Barrera is a company member at Jump-Start Performance Co., where she spins and eats fire. She recently performed in ArtHeist and as Michael Scott in The Office: A Parody at the Tobin.

Bett Butler

Literary Arts: Author/Writer, Poet; Performing Arts: Composer, Musician, Spoken Word Artist, Vocalist/Singer

Believing that storytelling is essential for human connection, Bett Butler pours her considerable energy into storytelling using whatever is at hand: words, music, found footage, imagery. She partners with her spouse, bassist/composer/producer Joël Dilley, at Mandala Music Production, creating tracks played in ambient settings worldwide and licensed by HBO, Discovery Channel, Travel Channel, Food Network, and more. Current projects on their label Dragon Lady Records include Gracia, music in the time of Covid; The Gospel Truth, inspired by the proliferation of conspiracy theories in the U.S.; ongoing collaborations with experimental writers and filmmakers; and music and meditation videos for YouTube’s Mandala Meditation Channel.

Gerardo Cazares

Visual Arts: Illustrator, Mixed Media Artist, Muralist, Painter, Printmaker

My name is Gerardo “ghost” Cazares and I was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. My parents immigrated to this country in the late 70s and they taught me the value of hard work, respect and responsibility. I have been creating art for as long as I can remember, from daycare, through school, the military and up to present day, I have been developing skill in my craft. I joined the army in 2008 and served eight years as a combat engineer. I was stationed in Fort Hood and deployed to Iraq in 2010. I was also stationed in Grafenwohr, Germany and deployed with my unit to Afghanistan in 2013. I returned home in late 2014 and had trouble with reintegration. I had been gone for a little while and had changed so much that I really felt like a foreigner in my hometown. I had never taken art really seriously, it was just a hobby that I used to pass the time throughout my life. This was a time in my life where I started using it as a therapy to assimilate back into the civilian world. With nothing to lose, I went out and bought beginner painting supplies, I did not exceed my $20 budget at that time. I was able to get enough material to produce my first set of paintings that would ignite a fire inside me that has taken me through a very awe-inspiring journey through life. I have gone from setting up tables on South Alamo, live art on the St. Mary’s Strip, to now painting murals around the city. I continue to work as a full-time artist to support myself and my family and I don’t really see myself doing anything else at the moment.

Aminah Decé

Literary Arts: Poet; Media Arts: Graphic Artist, New Media/Technology; Multi-Disciplinary: Multiple Art Forms, Performer and Writer; Performing Arts: Performance Art, Spoken Word Artist, Storyteller; Teaching Artist/Instructor; Visual Arts: Artisan, Mixed Media Artist, Painter

Aminah Decé is trained at the World Combat Academy, Institute of Martial Science and maintains degrees of The Humanities, Fine Arts & Art History/Criticism from The University of Texas, San Antonio. Under the pseudonym P16, she began her artistic journey as a slam poet in Killeen, Texas, discrediting the concept of race and supremacy through a variety of media and performance. Aminah teaches Art leads Progrés Studios and A OK Arthouse. She collaborates with local artists and organizations to create Happenings and conduct visual and literary art workshops in the community. Aminah is also a member of Return of the Matriarch, a band completed by San Antonio’s Poet Laureate, Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson. Together R.O.T. M has featured their message of youth and women empowerment at South by Southwest, Luminaria, The McNay Art Museum, San Antonio Art Museum, The Carver Community Cultural Center and various schools and universities in the Central Texas region. Return of the Matriarch is currently preparing for the release of their long-awaited album, Queendom Come.

Nina Diaz

Performing Arts: Musician, Vocalist/Singer; Visual Arts

My music career began at the age of 13, as the main songwriter and front woman for San Antonio’s own all female alternative band, Girl in a Coma. By the time I turned 22 years old, we had released four albums on Joan Jetts’ Label Black Heart Records and toured all over the United States and overseas. I spent a good chunk of my time lost in a haze of stages. Stages of drug addiction, depression, and a victim of narcissistic abuse. The program in my mind that focused on likes and followers as true success got flushed out when I inevitably found my balance after my first solo album. True success as an artist became success in recovery from drug addiction, setting boundaries and allowing myself to take up space. After twenty years of traveling, writing and now a full-time solo artist, I can now confidently express and answer that question every artist cringes at when asked: What is it you’re trying to say in your art? I am a healer, a leader and strive to connect to those who may feel alone or misunderstood through my music, videos and paintings.

Anthony Flores

Literary Arts: Poet; Multi-Disciplinary: Performer and Writer; Performing Arts: Spoken Word Artist; Teaching Artist/Instructor

Anthony “The Poet” Flores is a three-time San Antonio Grand Slam Poetry Champion who has represented our city in competition on six different occasions at the National Poetry Slam. He has performed his work all over the United States, from local schools & community centers to H.B.O.’s Def Poetry Jam to the famous Lincoln Center in New York City. He is a co-founder of Fresh Ink Under-21 Youth Poetry Slam, the only on-going poetry slam and open-mic for teenagers in San Antonio, and he was also a judge for S.A.’s La Voz City-Wide Spoken Word Competition. Anthony The Poet has also recently completed his 8th year of serving as a judge for the San Antonio Public Library’s Young Pegasus Poetry Contest for kids and young adults. A few years ago, he founded The University Of The Spoken Word, a collective of spoken-word artists that has performed at some of the city’s most high-profile cultural events, including Una Noche En La Gloria, Luminaria, and the touring Matisse & Pablo Picasso Tapestries exhibits at the San Antonio Museum of Art, to name a few. His widely popular “Manu Ginobili” poem was published in 2018 as part of the Manu Ginobili Tribute Poster by the San Antonio Express-News, and he was named “Best Local Poet” in the San Antonio Current’s “Best of San Antonio 2018” issue. He released his first full-length book of poetry, CINCUENTA, just last year. He is a full-time poet who lives & works on the Southside.

Abril Garcia-Linn

Literary Arts: Author/Writer, Playwright, Poet; Multi-Disciplinary: Performer and Writer; Performing Arts: Actor, Performance Art, Spoken Word Artist, Storyteller; Teaching Artist/Instructor; Visual Arts: Craftsperson, Jeweler, Mixed Media Artist, Sculptor, Textiles

I am Chicana born and raised in the Westside of San Antonio. Growing up, I participated in my family’s tradition of Teatro and paper mache mask making. As a child, I performed original plays for my family members at gatherings and holidays. Teatro is in my blood. I am an artist, art instructor, seamstress, writer, performer, and cultural arts advocate. I am a proud mother of two amazing children. I am a founding member of the poetry/performance group Women of Ill Repute :Refute. We were featured in the book “Stages of Life: Transcultural Performance & Identity in U.S Latina Theater” 2001. My poetry has been published in various anthologies and publications including The SAPL “Young Pegasus” 1996, “Cantos Al Sexto Sol: An anthology of Aztlanahuac Writing” in 2002, “Contemporary Chicanx Writers Anthology” 2021. My original play “The Altar” was showcased at the San Antonio Museum of Art in 2019. Through my work teaching arts, crafts, and sewing to refugees in 2016, I completed a project designing and creating a line of handcrafted jewelry and accessories to sell at open-air markets as a fundraiser for the Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement Program. In 2017, I created a line of handmade dolls designed by my six-year-old daughter Sofia called Fea Dolls. I am a teaching artist in many San Antonio schools and non-profit organizations such as the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center. I teach poetry, folk art traditions, mask making, sewing, and jewelry making. I have over 25 years of experience working with various non-profit cultural arts organizations. I completed a six year term as board member and President for San Anto Cultural Arts (2003-2009). I have served as a board member and President for the Conjunto Heritage Taller since 2014. I currently work as an Instructional Aid for NISD Adult Education and Literacy.

Xelena Gonzalez

Literary Arts: Author/Writer, Poet; Multi-Disciplinary: Performer and Writer; Performing Arts: Dancer, Storyteller

Xelena González is a storyteller, screenwriter, poet, and author of ALL AROUND US, winner of multiple accolades, including the Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award, an American Indian Youth Literature Honor Award, and an International Latino Book Award. Her storytelling skills were honed as a children’s librarian in San Antonio and in Guangzhou, China. As a visiting author, she has introduced her method of “tai chi storytelling” to more than 60 schools and libraries around the country. In 2021, Cinco Puntos Press will release WHERE WONDER GROWS, her sophomore collaboration with muralist Adriana Garcia. In 2022, Simon & Schuster will release her third picture book, tentatively titled REMEMBERING. With grant support from the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, Xelena recently developed work in both children’s literature and visionary fiction, inspired by the iconography of the Mexican Lotería card game. Her resultant book LOTERÍA REMEDIOS led to the creation of a television script centered on this theme and featuring a modern Mestiza protagonist. She showcased her screenplay THE CARD SINGER with support from the Luminaria Artist Foundation. A member of the Macondo Writers Workshop and the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation, Xelena is a sought-after speaker on topics such as radical self love, creative early literacy strategies, inhabiting story through music and movement, and reclaiming indigenous identity in Latinx communities.

Jessica J Herrera

Literary Arts: Author/Writer, Playwright, Poet; Media Arts: Filmmaker, Graphic Artist, Media/Visual Communications; Performing Arts: Actor, Director, Performance Art, Spoken Word Artist, Storyteller; Visual Arts: Craftsperson, Illustrator, Mixed Media Artist, Muralist, Painter, Sculptor

Jessica J Herrera was born and raised in San Antonio. As a Latin x/ Tejana author, she speaks through her different artistic expressions. Art was her outlet while attending a restrictive Catholic School in the Southtown Area. At an early age, she rebelled and took a stand against her persecution for her creativity and love for her culture from the white-washing Nuns. It was after leaving that school she found herself in a world filled with opportunity while attending public school. She would formally be introduced in art class to the concept of Renaissance men, a person of many talents. Having a love for art, poetry, acting, and writing, she aspired to be that. Jessica would go on progressively developing her craft in taking classes and courses in high school, college and her local university. Constantly, she was recognized for her perspective and unique creativity. She also worked in the performing arts as an actress in films that led her into screenwriting and then directing. She then ventured into having her short stories published and later moved towards publication of entire works. She became best known for live storytelling of the Urban Legends of San Antonio and would later go on to writing an adult-based book “Traditional Tales of Tejano Terror San Antonio Urban Legends Then and Now” which is based on the classic and contemporary stories on San Antonio Folklore. She also wrote illustrated a children’s based book known as “San Antonio Urban Legends”. She would go on to illustrate and write her first comic “Demon Hunter Jane”. After several published works, she began focusing on painting and developing a serious portfolio. Working in sketching, painting, digital work and sculpture she found herself frequently vending at King William’s First Fridays, Southtown’s Second Saturdays, and also at commercial art related events such as Alamo City Comic Con, Monster-con and Big Texas Comic Con as a celebrated artist.

Ceiba ili

Multi-Disciplinary; Teaching Artist/Instructor

Ceiba ili is a Cultural Educator and Musician-Activist from Centroamérica, Honduras who centers Lenca and Maya Ch’orti identity revitalization in her work. Through language recuperation, land conservation, and powerful testimony, her music empowers us to face the urgency of now through the timeless truth of a living earth. Ceiba employs indigenous instruments and languages in music creation. Her work intertwines migrant communities, indigenous rights, and environmental justice. Her chosen name, Ceiba, comes from a statuesque tree of life with spiritual significance to native people in the Americas, including her home country, Honduras, and West Africa. Ceiba ili translates to Árbol Ceiba or Ceiba tree in Kotik, the Lenca language.

Priscilla Iree

Literary Arts: Poet; Media Arts: Graphic Artist; Multi-Disciplinary: Multiple Art Forms, Performer and Writer; Performing Arts: Musician, Spoken Word Artist, Vocalist/Singer; Visual Arts: Illustrator, Painter, Photographer, Sculptor

I am a Xicana multidisciplinary artist-activist born and raised in San Antonio. I am dedicated to advocating for human rights, Madre Tierra, and de-stigmatizing the taboos surrounding sexuality, spirituality, and mental health in Latinx culture as it pertains to my religious upbringing and self-awareness.

Joyous Windrider Jiménez

Literary Arts: Author/Writer, Poet; Media Arts: Filmmaker, Voiceover; Multi-Disciplinary: Multiple Art Forms, Performer and Writer; Performing Arts: Director, Performance Art, Spoken Word Artist, Storyteller; Teaching Artist/Instructor; Visual Arts: Constructions/Collage, Painter, Photographer

Joyous Windrider Jiménez is a performance poet, visual and theatre artist, and emerging filmmaker, blending performance and visual elements into stories that help articulate the fragmented pieces of her own identity. As a person of color who lives in margins and overlapping categories, Joyous utilizes the power of storytelling to explore personal experience, memory, and worldview. A San Antonio native, she spent nearly a decade abroad, where she helped diverse minority groups tell their stories. Since her return in 2009, she has presented her original poetry, theatre, and visual work in venues around her city. A teaching artist since 2012, she’s been creating and delivering workshops for organizations such as SAY Sí, Gemini Ink, the Magik Theatre, Teatro Audaz, San Antonio Wolf Trap, the McNay Art Museum, and the San Antonio Museum of Art. Joy is currently exploring digital media and video production. Last year she directed and edited She Wears Bells, a video adaptation of jo reyes-boitel’s original operetta for the Jump-Start Performance Co’s INKubator series. Her time-lapse short film “Quarantine is a Dragon” was selected for the Roxie Theater’s Mixtape-In-Place film festival. This year she completed a series of nine educational videos for the San Antonio Museum of Art. Her work has an expressionistic and cathartic function, often mixed with a touch of advocacy. She grapples with topics such as home, identity, trauma, mental health, and emotional healing.

Catherine Lee

Literary Arts: Author/Writer, Playwright, Poet; Media Arts: Producer, Voiceover; Multi-Disciplinary: Performer and Writer; Teaching Artist/Instructor

Catherine Lee, writing from San Antonio, Texas, explores poetry’s percussive jazz voice and social change activism by reading solo and performing with improvising musicians “on poem.” Since 1976, Lee’s multifaceted writing has appeared in print, online, and as collaborative multimedia incorporated in bots. Her ekphrastic poem “Apache Pitch Lined Basket” won publication (over 125 entries) and appears with its inspirational artwork on The Witte Museum’s website for National Poetry Month, April 2021. Other 2021 publications and acceptances are listed on the attached resume. Featured poetry published during summer 2020 included two 100 Thousand Poets for Change reading videos (Aug 29, Sept 26); Creativity Webzine, Vol 6, No. 9, “Time Travel” issue; and the July 2020 “Music” Issue 5 of Northampton Poetry Review, pages 63-74, where five annotated jazz-related poems were published. Lee collaborates with media artists to create crossover educational multimedia works. Lee, former Pearson custom textbook production editor, created several signed, numbered artist handmade, limited edition chapbooks (We Free Kin, A Rested Development and Kinda Pregnant), available with a music CD from her writing/editing services web site Cat at Jazz Ovation Inn. Multimedia poetry, documentary videos, and radio specials that Lee has produced are archived on Soundcloud and VIMEO. She blogs about notable musical/poetic collaborations on Medium and Facebook/Jazz Ovation Inn

Georgette Lockwood

Literary Arts: Playwright, Poet; Media Arts: Radio/Television Talent, Voiceover; Clown/Mime

Georgette Lockwood is a Latina actor, writer, and teacher from San Antonio, Texas. She earned her B.F.A. in theater arts/acting from Boston University. Additionally, she has trained with the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art with a focus on the LeCoq theory of clown and miming. She has appeared on stage and on screen in TV in both creative and commercial projects. As with many bi-racial children, she is exploring what it means to be “Latina” even when you were raised away from those cultural ties for much of your life. She only recently learned her mother’s full story of coming to the U.S. as a child immigrant from Chihuahua, Mexico and is committed to exploring both for her own understanding and the understanding of others. She has performed in published and new/original work with Huntington Theatre Co., Classic Theatre, Guadalupe Theatre, and Tobin Center. Her casting credits include the title role in Euripides’ Medea. Recently, she is playing the role of suspect Brian McDevitt in The Art Heist Experience at the Jones Hall for the Performing Arts. With a background in youth coaching and teaching, she is inspired to use performance and storytelling to help others understand and heal from generational and childhood trauma.

Reb Mari

Performing Arts; Teaching Artist/Instructor

Reb Mari comes from an ancestral line of healers and storytellers. She has her bachelor’s in psychology from the University of Texas in Austin. Reb is a danzante with Danza Coyolxauhqui and the Ballet Folklorico en Aztlan. She is a co-creator and founder of Texas’ first vegan restaurant with a full bar and community venue La Botanica SA. She is also the owner of the Alluring Alchemist apothecary and co-creator of San Arte Healing & Cultural Clinic.

Christopher Martinez

Literary Arts: Author/Writer, Playwright, Poet; Teaching Artist/Instructor

C.L. “Rooster” Martinez is a spoken word poet and educator from San Antonio, TX. He is the author of two poetry books: A Saint for Lost Things (Alabrava Press, 2020) and As it is in Heaven (Kissing Dynamite Poetry Press, 2020). He co-edited Contra: Texas Poets Speak Out, a poetry anthology, and was a writer on the 2016 play, American Pride, which won two ATAC Globe awards for Writing of a Drama and Overall Production of a Drama. In 2012, C.L. also co-founded the Blah Poetry Spot-a weekly, poetry open mic–and in 2017 co-founded Write Art Out Inc–a San Antonio literary not for profit organization specializing in writing and community outreach. In 2018, he was the event director which brought Southern Fried Poetry Festival–the third largest spoken word competition in the nation–to San Antonio. In 2014, he became San Antonio’s Grand Slam Champion, and he received his MA/MFA in Literature, Creative Writing and Social Justice from Our Lady of the Lake University in 2018.

Pablo Miguel Martínez

Literary Arts: Author/Writer, Playwright, Poet

A native of San Antonio, Pablo Miguel Martínez is a widely published, award-winning poet. His collection, Brazos, Carry Me (Kórima Press), received the 2013 PEN Southwest Book Award for Poetry. His chapbook, Cuent@, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2016. Martínez’s work appears in numerous publications, including Bilingual Review/Revista bilingüe, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Gay & Lesbian Review; anthologies such as Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century, Imaniman: Poets Writing in the Anzaldúan Borderlands, This Assignment Is So Gay, Mother Mary Comes to Me: A Pop Culture Anthology (poems based on the Virgin Mary), Closet Cases: Queers on What We Wear, and elsewhere. His work has received support from the Artist Foundation of San Antonio, Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation, and the National Association of Latino Arts & Culture. Martínez is a Co-Founder of CantoMundo, a national retreat-workshop for Latinx poets. Currently, he is at work on a mixed-genre family memoir; a one-person play based on the artist Charles Demuth; and a short play based on an imaginary conversation between Donna Summer and Zora Neale Hurtson.

Nancy Nance

Literary Arts: Poet; Visual Arts: Painter; Shadowbox, Collage

Between the ages of 1 and 3, I lived with my maternal grandparents in a one bedroom house my grandfather built in rural Southeast Texas. It was a Garden of Eden with vegetables, fruits, flowers, grapevines, bees, birds and me. This was my playground and classroom where I learned colors, shapes and shadows that changed with the time of day and the seasons. In the hot Texas sun, I often climbed on the limbs of my grandfather’s fig trees and looked up to blue sky. I appreciate color, movement, spontaneity, humor, quiet understatement, invention and mastery of technique. If I live to be 100, I will never forget a time in my 20s when I stood in a Chicago museum looking up at a large John Singer Sargent painting towering over me; it was the moment I first knew that art could be powerful. I carry a small sketchbook for notes and sketches of my vision of a finished piece for later use in my little studio. I have worked in watercolor, collage, pencil, pen, charcoal, pastel, oil, lithograph, silkscreen, assemblage, mixed media, and now acrylic. My artwork is eclectic, whimsical and thought provoking. Originally self-taught in creating collage, watercolor and pencil, my college coursework included varied interests of art, interior design, journalism and communication before acquiring a degree in Public Relations. I have had 4 careers in the applied arts; Interior Design, Visual Merchandising, Floral Design, and teaching multiple interior design subjects. In addition to continuing design work, I am a painter and artist in varied mediums. Born in San Antonio, I grew up in Southeast Texas, Houston and Austin. I have been an artist since the age of four, when my stepfather, a professional artist in oil painting, taught me the use of art supplies. In addition to art, I am a published poet and a member of The American Academy of Poets. Interior Design work and travel have taken me to Miami, Los Angeles, Houston, Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, Honolulu, Chicago, Denver, Tucson, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Santa Fe and Palm Springs. During these times, I met Johnny Mathis, Don Ho, Gloria Steinem, Charles Ward, Tony Bennett, Count Basie, Greer Garson, Dr. Robert Schuller, Gray Hawn, Glen Campbell, Mark Gastineau and Peter Max. I currently live and work as a Painter, Interior Designer/Decorator and Visual Merchandiser in historic San Antonio Texas.

Rikko Ollervidez

Ever since I grew up on Langford Street, I’ve always been so curious about people and the little details that make up who they are. Maybe it’s their glasses, a shirt, a hairstyle, a dress. Maybe it’s a watch or shoes. Their accent, their fragrance, their smile. These little things capture me, and compel me to speak with everyone and anyone. When I’m pumping gas, drinking a cup of coffee, walking my dog through the park and everywhere I go, I see the light in people and want to share in it. I know you – like many others – are thinking, “okay that’s crazy.” You know, everyone has a unique story – one about faith, one about love, one about pain. It doesn’t matter where I go or who I’m around, I always end up absorbed in the stories around me. The world is so beautiful, flowing with vibrant, varied colors, that we can all get lost in it if we just take the time to look around and embrace our surroundings. This collection of abstract paintings was brought to life with passion, anguish, and desolation. Each painting has a name and a story. For someone who has never painted, the creativity challenge began in 2018 with a surprising Father’s day gift of brushes, paints and canvas. Thank you to my kids and thank you to those who let my curiosity open a doorway to the colorful tales of our lives. – Rikko Ollervidez (just some kid from the southside)

Amalia Ortiz

Literary Arts: Author/Writer, Playwright, Poet; Media Arts: Radio/Television Talent; Performing Arts: Actor, Director, Performance Art, Spoken Word Artist, Storyteller; Teaching Artist/Instructor

Bio Tejana poet and playwright Amalia Ortiz appeared on three seasons of Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry on HBO. Amalia was awarded the 2020 American Book Award for Oral Literature. NBC Latino named her book Rant. Chant. Chisme. one of “10 Great Latino Books of 2015.” It won the 2015 Writers’ League of Texas Poetry Discovery Prize. Amalia was chosen to speak at TEDx McAllen 2015. She won an Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Award and a writing residency at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. She is a CantoMundo Fellow, a Hedgebrook writer-in-residence alumna, and she was the inaugural performing-artist-in-residence at ArtPace in 2018. She was awarded a NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant to film music videos for her latest book The Canción Cannibal Cabaret & Other Songs (Aztlan Libre Press). Amalia received her MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Artist Statement As a Chicana feminist raised in the Rio Grande Valley, I express my heritage and politics through performance-poetry. My experience growing up on the border permeates my work. My roots are planted in Mexico, yet I am also completely American. My own hybridity compels me to mix distinct cultural forms in search of new areas of confluence. I utilize code-switching and Spanglish as well as US counter-cultural expression such as spoken word, punk rock, and hip-hop to craft narratives of the oppressed. My art is my activism aimed at galvanizing and inspiring civic action.

Lourdes Pérez

Puerto Rican-born composer, poet, decimista, oral historian, vocalist and guitarist Lourdes Pérez is known for her “achingly beautiful contralto voice” and her ability to write emotionally rich songs about people, places, history and ideals. Often called “one of the finest Latin American vocalists and songwriters,” Pérez has performed internationally from war zones to performing arts centers and has collaborated with diverse artists across language and genre for 29 years. In Canada, critics dubbed her “the Edith Piaf” of the Spanish language. In the early 90s when she began touring, Pérez was one of the only out, Latina/x lesbians and she performed only in Spanish. Through her visibility and her music, she occupied spaces that didn’t often overlap, or include people like her, and quietly opened many paths along the way. In 2006, she was one of the first five composers (and the only woman) to be awarded the unrestricted, United States Artist fellowship for Music. Published works: 14 CDs (including two illustrated, oral history books with original music CDs), over 300 singles and several scores, soundtracks and commissions for dance, theater and film.

Michael Ryan

Literary Arts: Author/Writer, Playwright, Poet; Multi-Disciplinary: Performer and Writer; Performing Arts: Composer, Director, Musician, Storyteller, Vocalist/Singer; Teaching Artist/Instructor

I am an independent singer-songwriter, bandleader, and recording artist from my beloved city of San Antonio. I received a B.A. in Sociology from U.T.S.A and did all my graduate studies at Tacoland. I was one of the principle songwriters and front man for the eclectic, experimental roots-based band Coyote Dreams. We were recipients of numerous S.A. Current Music Awards for my songwriting, as well as band and album of the year in the late 90’s. I’ve composed music and performed in numerous plays at the Guadalupe Theatre the Instituto de Mexico de San Antonio as well as for independent movies. My latest project Los San Patricios, is a Celtic, Mexican, and South Texas concatenation with a historical and cultural connection to the land and people that is rebellious by nature.

Sabrina San Miguel

Literary Arts: Author/Writer, Poet

Sabrina San Miguel was born and raised in Denver Heights on the East Side of San Antonio, Texas. After dropping out of high school at the age of 15 and having her first child at 18, she obtained a GED and eventually earned a BA in both English and Women’s Studies, and an MA in English from Texas A&M University-San Antonio, making her a first generation college and graduate student. San Miguel is a 2018 Macondo fellow, co-founder of Feliz zine, a 2020 Frontier Poetry Open finalist, and a single mother of 3 children. Laurie Ann Guerrero, former Texas Poet Laureate, has described her poetry as “gritty, unapologetically honest and reveals unspoken intimacies in the struggle for justice.” Her work appears in Latinx Writing & Rhetoric Studies, The Rumpus, Frontier Poetry and others.

Tamara Adira Say

Literary Arts: Author/Writer, Poet; Media Arts: Filmmaker, Media/Visual Communications, New Media/Technology, Producer; Multi-Disciplinary: Multiple Art Forms, Performer and Writer; Performing Arts: Choreographer, Composer, Dancer, Director, Musician, Performance Art, Spoken Word Artist, Storyteller; Teaching Artist/Instructor; Visual Arts: Illustrator, Maker, Mixed Media Artist; Programs Manager

“Always remembering the masters of flamenco, Adira keeps a keen eye to the future. Bridging both the traditional and the new school, Adira proves to be one of the most creative visions in the South Texas flamenco scene.” – The Rivard Report Tamara Adira is a dancer, choreographer, and founder/ Artistic Director of Arte y Pasión, a company known for pushing the boundaries of flamenco and Spanish dance and one of the most contemporary Spanish dance companies in the United States. Arte y Pasión, founded in 2010, produces work that is at once avant-garde, interactive, classic, historical, informative, and playful. Every performance is a chance to build on a joyful and experimental approach while repeating and perfecting the work. Arte y Pasión experiments with media and specific subject matter, using flamenco as an artist uses paint to a canvas, making provocative work, to make the audience think and feel, and hopefully inspire to action. Tamara Adira was recognized in December 2020 by SA Monthly Magazine, September 2018 by Eleanora Magazine in Top 50 Women to Watch in Texas, and her work was featured in the July 2018 Issue of San Antonio Woman. Most recently, Tamara debuted her project Grito de los Árboles, “Scream of the Trees,” her first full-length flamenco film, in response to the pandemic. This project would mark a pivotal change in Tamara’s work, now with distanced performances presenting the opportunity to create film, and bring together artists from San Antonio, Spain, France, Los Angeles, and New York. Tamara Adira collaborated directly with San Antonio’s Poet Laureate Andrea Vocab Sanderson to conceived and direct Mantas de Luz “Blankets of Light,” a DreamWeek 2020 project. In 2018, Adira’s company Arte y Pasión was picked up by the San Antonio Tricentennial Commission as an official Event Partner for her yearlong project Siete Aguas, and the company was selected to perform in front of the King of Spain’s collection at the San Antonio Museum of Art. Arte y Pasion conceived and directed Sanctorum, a ceremony for the internment of a musical time capsule in honor of the San Antonio College Multicultural Conference honoring the San Antonio Tricentennial SA300. She has performed for such dignitaries as San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg and First Lady Erika Prosper, Wendy Davis, Joaquin Castro, Julian Castro, the Vice President of Nicaragua and at a Presidential Rally for John Kerry. She has appeared in such programs as America’s Next Top Model. Tamara is known for her work across mediums bridging gaps between music, cultures and media, she was most recently seen in featured as soloist opening with Wayne Holtz for Big Freedia, in Oliver Rajamani’s Flamenco India, and Andrea Vocab Sanderson’s Bad Mama Jama Mixtape. She has also performed with such bands as Femina-X, Deer Vibes, and at the San Antonio Youth Orchestra’s Thriller, a tribute to Michael Jackson. She the is 2015 winner of the Artist Foundation of San Antonio Department of Arts & Culture award for “Original Choreography” and 2010 winner of the Artist Foundation of San Antonio Bernard Lifshutz Award for “Original Theatrical Production.” She studied and shared the stage for ten years with her mentor the great master Teo Morca before he passed. The pandemic has given her the opportunity to study regularly with masters from Spain. She currently studies with Daniel Caballero, Belen Maya, Nino de los Reyes, Triana Maciel, Jose Cortes, and La Farruca. She gives back to her community, having choreographed for the City of San Antonio’s Parks and Recreation youth groups Fandango and Alamotion, the Say Si Allas Theater, and the North Independent School District. A graduate of MIT, her early performances and projects have been featured in Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program through the MIT Media Lab and Center for Advanced Visual Studies. Counterbalancing her studies in traditional flamenco, Adira leverages her experience in experimental and contemporary performance, influenced by her Harvard University residency in a John Cage production. Press Kit https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yv1uw2jgamhdncx/AACuwKHBQDQhFcAqWO2A8w2ra?dl=0

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