Valerie is Executive Director and Core Artist with Littleglobe:  learn more about this work (including some of the projects below) at www.littleglobe.org.  

FOUR POETS RESPOND  (Valerie Martinez, Lauren Camp, Jasmine Cuffee, Shelle Sánchez)

A One-Night Performance for the Tricklock Revolutions International Theatre Festival (January 18, 2012)

and a repeat performance in March for Women & Creativity Month (see below).

DATE: Thursday, March 8, 2012, 7 p.m.
WHERE: Domenici Education Ctr/National Hispanic Cultural Center
TICKETS: Free and Open to the Public
INFO: valerie@littleglobe.org
 

Four Poets Respond is poetry-as-performance that responds to visual works by contemporary artists. Each year, four poets come together to write about art, collaborate and compose an original performance piece that reflects on issues of interest and urgency to women. Four Poets Respond (created by Valerie Martínez in 2009) bridges spoken word performance, ekphrastic poetry and theatre with the hope of revitalizing poetry for all audiences in the 21st century. This year, Valerie Martínez is joined by Lauren Camp, Jasmine Cuffee and Shelle Sánchez.

This event is part of Women & Creativity Month (March performance) and the 12th Annual Tricklock Revolutions International Theatre Festival (January 18, 2012). The performance is directed by Tricklock’s Elsa Menéndez. The poets will perform in response to personal objects as well as artwork by Lauren Camp, Becky Holtzman, Stephanie Lerma, Maria Moya, Carol Sanchez and Jennifer Zona.

                                                                                      images left to right:  Lauren Camp, "Undoing;" Serafina's 102 year old teacup, Shelle's baby shoes, Jennifer Zona, "Purity"

Santa Fe Bus Opera

Littleglobe, in collaboration with Santa Fe residents, is creating a new opera that will be performed on active city bus routes. The Littleglobe bus opera will delve into the real and imagined stories, interactions, and personal dreamscapes of Santa Feans, comprising a vibrant and collaborative “story” about the capital city and its people. The opera (Artistic Director: Valerie Martinez) will premiere in October of 2012.

The bus opera will be performed both inside the bus and along the performance route, featuring live vocalists and musicians, poetry/spoken word, choreographed movement, and street performances. Various bus stops and sites along the route will present unexpected and magical “encounters” that will complement the more scripted/scored/choreographed passages of the performance.

The libretto/script for performance is being developed via a community process that includes interviews with bus drivers, riders and residents, those who live along and use city buses as well as visitors and those who seldom use public transportation. In this way, the opera will evoke issues, stories, perspectives and dreams at the heart of community life.

The city bus as a performance space is an essential component of the opera. The route weaves through neighborhoods that differ economically, racially and culturally, cutting across invisible lines that sometimes prevent Santa Feans and visitors from knowing one another. In the same way, the collaborative process of creating the opera will result in a “collective imagining,” a performance that encourages audience members to think about our interconnections and communal dreams. At the end of the performance, audience members will be invited for food and facilitated dialogue about the performance.

The bus opera creative team includes Valerie Martínez (Project/Artistic Director), Acushla Bastible, Molly Sturges, Chris Jonas, and the wide range of community members who are contributing to the creation of the performance.  Partners include the Santa Fe Trails Bus System, the City of Santa Fe, the Santa Fe Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Santa Fe Opera—all of whom are providing essential support for the project. Funders also include the MAP Fund, Black Rock Arts, New Mexico Arts (a division of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs), UNM, and a broad spectrum of Santa Fe individuals, families and businesses who are making this project possible.  To learn more about the project visit http://littleglobe.org/SantaFeBusOpera

This Thing Circles Like A Halo on the Ground

A series of spoken word performances by Artstreet poets/performers (including Valerie) as part of the La Onda de la Palabra/Wave of the Word Project, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. Together with artists/writers from the Artstreet studio, Valerie created a collaborative performance poem performed on the streets of Albuquerque in May, 2011. Click on "Community" for full info.

Artstreet is an open studio space where art serves as both connection and community-building for those without and those with homes.

An excerpt from thecollaborative poem/text, "This Thing Circles Like a Halo on the Ground:"

JEN/TED:                                                                                       JIMMY:
Why was I born into this body?                                                  We are many, collected,
To travel across another school of learning?                             Grasping the pleasures of air.                                                  

CAITLIN:                                                                                       LESLIE:
Pushing through the door to messages                                     I see the universe in a spiral,             

from the other world—piedras negras,                                     A tiny swirl, swirling

piedras blancas, piedras grises.                                                  to create a huge vision.
                                                                                                         Is that what we find at the center?
KIM/MINDY/VALERIE:                        
Dreaming a body of water,                                                          JULIANNA:
a body of peace.                                                                            Spiral nebula,
                                                                                                         Spit curl
ALL:                                                                                                A place to land.
This thing circles like a halo on the ground.                            The universe in a spiral.

WILLIAM:                                                                                     ALL:
We are many, collected,                                                              Infinity!
Hands together, we till the earth,
                                                                                                         JAY/JIMMY:
KEYONNIE:                                                                                  This body of work I derive from the dreamworld.
Seeds of light sown by night.
Peace and harmony prevail.

Oval pods like rain, falling.            ►

Five Poets Respond: Mujeres y Mujeres
Saturday, March 19, 2011
National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque
 

Poets Valerie Martínez, Lauren Camp, Jasmine Cuffee, Jamie Figueroa and Shelle Sanchez present a collaborative performance inspired by "Women & Women," a photographic exhibition at the Instituto Cervantes (NHCC) through March 31, 2011 as part of Women & Creativity Month 2011.  The exhibition features work by five contemporary women photographers from Spain.

"Why "Women & Women?"--because the best contemporary Spanish photography is, in large measure, the work of women."--Instituto Cervantes
 

Women and Creativity is an annual month-long series of events that celebrates women's creativity across the disciplines.

Opening Reception, Thursday February 3, 2011, NHCC

For more information, contact Milly Castaneda-Ledwith at (505) 724-4777 or cenabq@cervantes.es
 
 

World Premiere:  Santa Fe 400th Symphony

October 10, 2010

Lensic Performing Arts Center, Santa Fe

Composer and Flute: Brent Michael Davids

Third Movement Lyrics by: Valerie Martínez, from the poem "And They Called It Horizon"

Ensemble: Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra & Chorus

Acoustic Guitar Soloist: Anna Marie Cardinalli

Commissioned by: The Santa Fe 400th Anniversary, Inc.,

with additional support from The City of Santa Fe and

The Center for Indigenous Arts & Cultures

Where:  Lensic Performing Arts Center, Santa Fe, NM

World Premiere:  "New Mexico Fragments"

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

United Church of Santa Fe

Composer:  Stephen Bachicha

Lyrics:  Valerie Martínez, text of her poem, by the same name, in And They Called

It Horizon: Santa Fe Poems by Sunstone Press, 2010.

Mezzo-Soprano:  Susanne Mentzer

Pianist:  Brian Connelly

Additional Performances

Salve is a spoken word and musical performance that explores the insights, perspectives, and reflections of women who are returned war veterans.  The performance allows the audience to bear witness to the lives and sacrifices of warriors and their families, the realities of returning to life after military service, and the costs of war on everyone.  The spoken and sung text of the performance comes directly from interviews with women war vets.  Produced by Littleglobe, Valerie is a writer and performer for Salve.

Lifesongs (the Santa Fe Opera Education and Community Programs and Littleglobe) is an arts-in-community project that generates original musical works created by people in nursing homes and hospice care.  Elders work with New Mexico composers, musicians, visual artists, and writers over a period of months to create new pieces that are performed by local musicians and choirs including Young Voices of The Santa Fe Opera; Dolce Suono of the University of New Mexico; Your Song, a threshold choir;  and other performers.  Valerie is a writer/librettist for Lifesongs, working with composer Jeff Brown. 

Learn more about Littleglobe projects and performances at www.littleglobe.org

What Will You Remember? (2010) was an ekphrastic performance in response to “Form and Function,” a group exhibition at 516 Arts featuring the work of artists and designers who explore sustainability, reuse, decoration, tradition and innovation.  Poets Jasmine Cuffee, Jamie Figueroa and Lauren Camp joined Valerie for this collaborative performance.  Sponsored by Littleglobe as part of Women & Creativity Month, 2010.
 

Capitalism: Fueled by Envy and Greed (2009) was a poetry/spoken word/musical/improvisational performance by poets Valerie Martínez, Maureen Seaton, and Jasmine Cuffee--a response to sheri crider’s installation, of the same name, which included a scale replica of a section of a 1946 Albuquerque home constructed with materials (destined for landfills) culled from local construction sites. Sponsored by Littleglobe as part of Women & Creativity Month, 2009.
 

As Kingfishers Catch Fire: A Celebration of the Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins (2009).  Valerie joined other poets, dancers, musicians and artists responding to poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Theaterwork, James A. Little Theater, Santa Fe.

Heart of the Goddess of Corn, a one-act play. Written by Valerie Martínez.  Staged readings March 8, 2008, National Hispanic Cultural Center; March 17, 2007, Southwest Playwrights Festival; March 1, 2006, Greer Garson Theater, Santa Fe.
 

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