Miracle Theatre Group Hosts Latino Artists Conference, 2/19

On Saturday, Feb. 19, 2011, Miracle Theatre Group will host the first Latino Artists eXchange (Intercambio de Artistas Latinos), a gathering of Latino artists for a day of workshops, presentations and discussions designed to foster communication among artists as well as determine the artist community's needs for professional development and how Miracle Theatre Group and other organizations can provide support.
 
Miracle Theatre Group's longstanding commitment to the community has inspired regional and national leadership to view it as the epicenter of Latino arts and culture in the Pacific Northwest.  Earlier this year the Portland Mayor's Office, in conjunction with a region-wide survey and inventory of arts organizations and individual artists in support of regional funding initiatives, contacted Miracle in an effort to reach out to the Latino artistic community.  Miracle leadership recognized that while it has a strong list of theatre artists, its information about visual, literary, media and other disciplines needed strengthening. 
 
In July, 2010, we invited artistic leaders representing a variety of disciplines to meet and share their advice, networks, and leadership, planting the seed for a collaborative group. This group unanimously agreed to hold a gathering to acknowledge the Latino artistic movement occurring in Portland and the Northwest: the Latino Artists Exchange (LAX), also known as the Intercambio de Artistas Latinos (IdeAL), an assembly that would fuel collaboration, strengthen individual careers, and nurture future artists.
 
On the morning of Saturday, February 19th, discussions will be held on several topics, such as "How are we making art in challenging times?" while technical workshops will address topics such as "Working as teaching artists", "Where to find grants for artists" and "How to promote the work". The afternoon will feature cross-discipline artistic workshops in which artist teams of two different artistic disciplines will intertwine the disciplines, pushing the limits of expectation through non-traditional collaboration. Sample workshops include:

Author Emma Oliver and musician Gerardo Calderón will merge fiction writing with music of the traditional Mexican corrido

Inspired by meaningful objects, Cindy Williams Gutiérrez will mix poetry in collaboration with photography by Ivonne Saed

Susana Espino will bring her paper maché sculpture techniques in collaboration with mural techniques of Jesus Kobe
 
In the evening, artists may attend a performance of Pulitzer Prize-winning play Ana en el trópico by Nilo Cruz, Miracle Theatre's Spanish language production (presented with easy-to-follow supertitles in English).  Throughout El Centro Milagro, Latino visual art will be on display, including the screening of Object Stories, Latino documentaries created with NW Film Center.
 
ABOUT MIRACLE THEATRE GROUP
The Miracle Theatre Group has been dedicated to bringing the vibrancy of Latino theatre to the Northwest community and beyond for more than 25 years. In addition to its national tours, Miracle provides a home for Spanish and Latin American arts and culture at El Centro Milagro, where it enriches the local community with a variety of community outreach projects and educational programs designed to share the diversity of Latino culture. For more information about the Miracle Theatre Group, visit www.milagro.org or call 503-236-7253.

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