Jenny's View

Film & Performance 

This fall brings us Littleglobe ¡Presente! at the Lensic. A treasure of Santa Fe’s arts community, Littleglobe is committed to interdisciplinary, collaborative art projects that foster life-affirming connections across the boundaries that divide us (Oct. 5).

The Met Live in HD series continues with Turandot (Oct. 12 & Oct. 17). Two of opera’s most thrilling dramatic sopranos, Christine Goerke and Nina Stemme, reprise their fierce portrayals of the title princess. Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes the podium to conduct Franco Zeffirelli’s dazzling production of Puccini’s final masterpiece. Then it’s Manon (Oct. 26 & Nov. 4), with exhilarating soprano Lisette Oropesa as the irresistible title character, the tragic beauty who yearns for the finer things in life, in Laurent Pelly’s revealing production. Tenor Michael Fabiano is the besotted Chevalier des Grieux, whose desperate love for Manon proves their undoing.

The Lensic features Gauguin in Tahiti: Paradise Lost (Oct. 21) tracing the legendary life story of artist Paul Gauguin.  Learn about his journey from France to Tahiti in search of lush nature, visions and color.

Santa Fe Opera’s newly commissioned, all-ages Sweet Potato Kicks the Sun gets its world premiere live at the Lensic (Oct. 26). Follow the galactic mishaps caused by the title character and a journey to set things back on course. Featuring a cast that includes beatbox artist Nicole Paris, this work explores opera’s ability to intersect with other art forms, while also offering contemporary storytelling for today’s audiences.

The Lensic’s NT Live in HD series’ October entry is a classic, reinterpreted. Shakespeare’s most famous romantic comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is captured live from the Bridge Theatre in London. Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones), Oliver Chris (Green Wing, NT Live: Young Marx), David Moorst (NT Live: Allelujah!) and Hammed Animashaun (The Barber Shop Chronicles) lead the cast. (Oct. 28).

The 11th Annual Santa Fe Independent Film Festival promises an outstanding program filled with 2019’s top foreign films and American independents (Oct. 16-20). Native Canadian Actress, Tantoo Cardinal will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award and introduce the film Falls Around Her, a biopic centered on the life of legendary singer and Anishinaabe musician, Mary Birchbark.  The film is directed by Darlene Naponse (also Anishinaabe). Iconic actress Jane Seymour will also receive a Lifetime Achievement Award before introducing the film Somewhere in Time. Get your festival pass now!

Then celebrate Halloween a few days early with a special screening of Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride (Oct. 29). Stop by the Lensic to pick up your tickets to this fun community event.

Teatro Paraguas presents Elliot: A Soldier’s Fugue as part of a collaboration with Ironweed Productions and the Santa Fe Playhouse to bring Quiara Alegría Hudes’ three-play cycle, The Elliot Trilogy, to Santa Fe. In Elliot: A Soldier’s Fugue (thru Oct. 13), Hudes takes a poignant look at the way war permeates our lives, speaking to the personal cost of war across the ages, spanning three generations of a Puerto Rican-American family.

Water by the Spoonful, the second of the Elliot Trilogy (Oct. 3-20), is a searing 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winner, grappling with the cost of war and addiction on human lives and explores the healing and redemptive power of family. Then head to The Happiest Song Plays Last (Oct. 10-27). At the dawn of the Arab Spring in an ancient Jordanian town, an Iraq War veteran struggles to overcome the traumas of combat by taking on an entirely new and unexpected career: an action-film hero. At the same time, halfway around the world in a cozy North Philadelphia kitchen, his cousin takes on a heroic new role of her own: providing hot meals and an open door for the needy.

Adobe Rose Theatre stages Hostage, a new play by Michelle Kholos Brooks (Oct. 10-27). The time is 1979, the place Tehran, where 40 years ago this fall a group of Iranian college students took over the American Embassy and made hostages of the fifty-two U.S. diplomats and citizens inside.

Out & About

Head out to El Rancho de las Golondrinas for the #2 Best Fall Harvest Festival in the nation (says USA Today), El Rancho’s very own Harvest Festival (Oct. 5-6). That’s just a prelude to the spookier evening gathering they have planned to remember the legendary ghosts who lived and died in the land of enchantment, Spirits of New Mexico Past (Oct. 26).

It’s still art studio tour season, with tours this month in Abiquiu (Oct. 12-14), and Galisteo (Oct. 12-13). Dixon has their own tour (Nov. 2-3), celebrating more than 37 years. What better way to support our local artists than visiting them where they work? Buy local!

Then join a unique Santa Fe weekend celebration right outside the La Fonda doors: Indigenous Peoples Day (Oct. 12-14) on the Plaza.  The celebrates our rich cultural diversity. We remember, honor and uphold our valued Native American neighbors from the 23 tribes, nations and pueblos in New Mexico, our urban Indian citizens and all of the wonderful Native American arts, culture and educational institutions that give Santa Fe such a strong sense of place and make it one of the most popular travel destinations in the world.

Harken back to the day when it was a common occurrence to see artists along Canyon Road plein air painting. The 12^th Annual Historic Canyon Road Paint & Sculpt Out (Oct. 18-19), with plein air demos. Experience art as it comes to life and chat about their creative processes with more than 100 artists creating new works in real time outside.

Nature lovers can visit New Mexico Wildlife Center for its annual family friendly open house featuring live animals, crafts, food and activities (Oct. 5-6). And then Santa Fe Comic Con comes to town (Oct. 18-20), featuring actors (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from Game of Thrones! Denise Crosby from Star Trek: The Next Generation!), comic book artists and more. Cosplay anyone?

Or take a drive to the annual Taos Wool Festival (Oct. 5-6) and see live demos, tools, beautiful handcrafted goods and more. The Santa Fe Fall Fiber Fiesta brings together the largest local show of traditional and contemporary handmade fiber artwork (Nov. 23-24), while the Recycle Santa Fe Art Festival (Nov. 15-17) is the country’s largest and oldest recycled art market, turning trash into treasure for 20 years.

Music & Dance 

Then experience Emily Schoen, the founder of Schoen Movement Company, who has been taking her sinuous, exuberant performances to unlikely spaces: parks, streets, and breweries. Experience an exhilaratingly unique, on-site performance at Rufina Taproom. Prepare for athleticism, humor, and jaw-dropping innovation! (Oct. 9).

More dance, this time flamenco, with Compañia Chuscales y Mina Fajardo presenting Monet’s Moon, a Flamenco Concert inspired by the art of French Impressionist, Claude Monet (Oct. 24-27). Under the direction of choreographer, composer, and dancer Mina Fajardo, Monet’s Moon was first presented by La Companía last year to sold-out houses.

Jazz pianist Chick Corea is a legend, and his Grammy-winning acoustic trio featuring powerhouse bassist Christian McBride and drum master Brian Blade arrive at the Lensic (Oct. 8).

Another legend, Buffy Sainte-Marie, has reinvented herself, creating songs that reveal new shades of an artist already revered as a pioneer. Come to the Lensic for a benefit for Indigenous Solutions, Tewa Women United and the Friendship Club (Oct. 10).

The Santa Fe Symphony’s October line up includes Berlioz, Daugherty, Mussorgsky (Oct. 13), featuring Berlioz Overture to Beatrice and Benedict, Daugherty Fire & Blood, Violin Concerto by Ida Kavafian, and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

Mari Boine brings highly rhythmic songs rooted in the shamanistic musical traditions of the Sámi of northern Scandinavia to the Lensic (Oct. 15). She takes the wordless, yodeling-like vocal style of yoik and infuses jazz, rock, and other ethnic elements, creating a musical mix that cuts to your soul.

AMP Concerts revs up fall with a solo evening with Rufus Wainwright (Oct. 11) one of the great male vocalists, composers, and songwriters of his generation. Then welcome acclaimed singer/songwriter Ryan Bingham from Hobbs as he makes his long overdue return to the Lensic stage (Oct. 20). After receiving critical raves for his first two studio releases on Lost Highway Records, 2007's Mescalito and 2009's Roadhouse Sun, Bingham went on to collaborate with Grammy-winning producer T Bone Burnett on the soundtrack for the film Crazy Heart shot here in Santa Fe. And get your tickets now for Ozomatli (Nov. 13), which will surely sell out.

Paradiso hosts The Brother Brothers (Oct. 15), carrying the folk tradition for a new generation, the Jonathan Richman featuring Tommy Larkins (Oct. 18). The Bridge at Santa Fe Brewing Company brings rock-reggae Tribal Seeds (Oct. 15).

Tumbleroot Brewery welcomes Christone “Kingfish” Ingram (Oct. 20). Gig Performance Space has traditional Irish musicians John Whelan and Brian Conway (Oct. 4), then violinist Jenny Scheinman and drummer Allison Miller (Oct. 5). Adam Agee and John Sousa play their fiddle, guitar and banjo there (Oct. 12).

And at Meow Wolf you can catch the following acts:  Son Volt (Oct. 4), Cuco (Oct. 6), SG Lewis (Oct. 7), Black Pumas (Oct. 10), Cass McCombs (Oct. 13), Rising Appalachia (Oct. 17), Temples (Oct. 19), Black Lips (Oct. 22), Cherry Glazerr (Oct. 23), Maribou State (Oct. 24), Neon Indian (Oct. 25), Spafford (Oct. 29), and Shovels & Rope (Nov. 1).

At the Museums

Musica Buena: Hispano Folk Music of New Mexico opens at the Museum of International Folk Art (Oct. 6 ). The exhibition will focus on the rich history of traditional Hispano music from the arrival of the Spanish through the present.

The solo exhibition, Scott C. Johnson: Fissure, (opening Oct. 11) at CCA’s Tank Garage Gallery, explores the concept of fissures – both their technical and theoretical forms: clefts in the landscape, breaks in social/cultural fabric, the splitting of atoms, and fragments in memory.

The annual Museum of Indian Arts and Culture Collectors Sale (Oct. 12-13) features Native American pottery, jewelry, textiles, paintings, baskets and carvings—vintage and contemporary. This annual fundraiser for the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture's education programs and exhibitions is a unique opportunity for collectors.

There’s still time to visit the New Mexico History Museum’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing (thru Oct. 20). On display will be the Mercury Space Capsule 12B, created as a backup for the mission and on loan from the Smithsonian Institute.

October is also your last chance to see Alexander Girard: A Designer’s Universe at the Museum of International Folk Art (thru Oct. 27). This dynamite, first major retrospective on Girard’s work, organized by the Vitra Design Museum in Germany, opens a door to his creative universe and shows his close relationships with contemporaries such as Charles & Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, Andy Warhol, Rudi Gernreich, and many others. Featured are Girard’s designs in textiles, furniture, and sculptures, as well as numerous sketches, drawings, and collages never shown before.

Speakers

Santa Fe Institute’s Community Lecture series continues with Jessica Flack speaking about Collective Computation (Oct. 22). Flack is a professor and the director of SFI's Collective Computation Group. Flack’s research focuses on the roles of information processing, coarse-graining, and collective computation in the emergence of robust structure and function in nature and society.

Lannan Foundation’s Readings & Conversations brings Deborah Levy, a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, who writes fiction, plays, and poetry (Oct. 30). She’ll share the stage with John Freeman, the author of How to Read a Novelist; The Tyranny of Email: The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox; and Maps, his debut collection of poems.

La Fonda and Santa Fe in the News

360 West:

The Inn Crowd by Michael Heller

Artnews:
Tom Ford on Georgia O'Keeffe: 'I Thought She Was the Strangest Person I Ever Met'

Business Wire:
Historic Hotels of America Announces 2019 Awards of Excellence Nominee Finalists

Santa Fe New Mexican:
Chairman of the Board, Jenny Kimball and Food and Beverage Director, John Cuviello
Recognized in Business People, Oct. 1, 2019

Local Food Eater:
Celebrate National Guacamole (and Mexican Independence Day) September 16!