Safos Dance Theatre is a small emerging non-profit dance company founded in Tucson, AZ in 2009.
We collaborate with other Latinx serving and/or AZ-based organizations to offer programs that fulfill our mission.
Supporting a modern dance unique experience to the US-Mexico borderlands
Safos’ mission is to create contemporary artistic forms that reflect the common experiences of our diverse communities.
Supporting a modern dance unique experience to the US-Mexico borderlands
Animation still by Wesley Fawcett Creigh
Program
2024
CAST
Dancers:
Ruby Morales
Esteban Rosales
Lauren Jimenez
Zarina Mendoza Orduño
David Bernal-Fuentes
Swing Cast:
Delia Ibañez
Artistic Director: Yvonne Montoya
Choreography: Yvonne Montoya et al
Lighting Designer : Clint Bryson
Digital Animator : Wesley Fawcett Creigh
Costume Designers: Kelsey Vidic, Mary Leopo
Stage Manager: Dr. Erica Acevedo Ontiveros
Music: Samuel Peña et al
Rehearsal Assistant: Delia Ibañez, Baylie MacRae
CREW
All events and artists are subject to change without prior notice
From the Director
Stories from Home is the physical embodiment of the oral traditions of Northern New Mexico. This collection of dances embodies stories inspired by my father and were created for my son in honor of our ancestors, our querenica, and our deep deep Nuevomexicano roots. This is an artistic interpretation of my family's histories and stories inspired by and based on, but not beholden to, historical accuracies as time is not linear in this storytelling experience. I am delighted to share my family’s stories and cultural traditions with you.
Preshow Music: Lone Piñon
ACT ONE
Tecolote
Choreographer & Text: Yvonne Montoya
Dancers: Ruby Morales, Esteban Rosales, Lauren Jiménez, Zarina Mendoza Orduño
Music: “ El Tecolotito” by Lone Piñon.
Lone Piñon's 2017 arrangement of a traditional song as sung by Ricardo Archuleta of Antonito, CO on August 4, 1940 for Juan Rael, whose recordings are available online through the Library of Congress. Vocals: Jordan Wax, Lia Martinez, Shae Fiol
Costumes: Kelsey Vidic
Tecolote Redux
Choreography: Yvonne Montoya
Dancer: Lauren Jiménez
Music: Samuel Peña
Costume: Kelsey Vidic
Photo by Dominic AZ Bonuccelli
Mestiza Mulata de Analco
Artistic Director, Text & Performer: Yvonne Montoya
Choreographer & Dancer: Ruby Morales
Costume: Kelsey Vidic
This dance is dedicated to the empty branches on my family tree, especially my many grandmothers, whose casta* classifications were listed in official Spanish colonial documents instead of their names. Although I will never know my grandmothers’ names and stories,
I know that they are me.
*The Casta System: A porous system of racial classification in Spanish colonial society. Casta categorizations mentioned in this dance include India, Mestiza, Mulata, and Coyota/Coyotes.
Criada: From the Spanish verb criar, “to rear.” Refers to Natives who were usually captured while young and raised by Spanish colonists to work in colonizers’ households. A euphemism for an indentured servant.
Genízara: Detribalized Indigenous people who, through war or trade, were abducted and taken into Hispano households as laborers.
Resources
Bustamante, Adrian. "The Matter Was Never Resolved: The Casta System in Colonial New
Mexico, 1693-1823." New Mexico Historical Review 66, 1991. Link to read article
Gonzales, Moises, and Enrique R. Lamadrid, editors. "Nación Genízara: Ethnogenesis, Place, and
Identity in New Mexico." Querencias Series, University of New Mexico Press, 2019.
Reséndez, Andrés. "The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America."
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016. Link to book
Roessel, Ruth. "Navajo Stories of the Long Walk Period." 1st ed., Navajo Community College Press,
1973. Link to book
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This dance briefly references my great-grandmother Manuelita Yazzie who was sold as a child when the Navajo Long Walk stopped in Santa Fe.
Siglos. Sueños. Sefarad.
Choreographer: Yvonne Montoya
Dancers: Ruby Morales, Esteban Rosales, Zarina Mendoza Orduño, Lauren Jiménez, David Bernal-Fuentes
Music: “Morena Me Yaman” by Edith Saint-Mard/Michael Grebil/Bernard Mouton/Thomas Baete, Vincent Libert
Costume: Kelsey Vidic
How does one remember what was hidden for so long? This dance is dedicated to my Sephardic Crypto-Jewish ancestors who took refuge from the Spanish and Mexican Inquisitions in Northern New Mexico.
Resource
Hordes, Stanley M. "To the End of the Earth: A History of the Crypto-Jews of New
Mexico." Columbia University Press, 2005. Link to book
Tecolote Redux
Choreography: Yvonne Montoya
Dancer: Zarina Mendoza Orduño
Music: Samuel Peña
Costume: Kelsey Vidic
Photo by Dominic AZ Bonuccelli
Deslenguadas
Choreographer: Yvonne Montoya
Dancers (in order of appearance): Yvonne Montoya, Lauren Jimenez, Esteban Rosales, Ruby Morales
Music: “Deslenguadas” by Samuel Peña Voice recording of María Graciola Roybal, María Adelia Roybal Baldock, María Aurelia Luján, and a recreation of María Diolanda García’s oral history by Yvonne Montoya
Costumes: Mary Leopo, Kelsey Vidic
Text: Yvonne Montoya with excerpts of Gloria Anzaldúa’s La Nueva Mestiza’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue"
"Why don't you speak Spanish?"
Resource
Parra, Carlos Francisco. "Lessons in Americanization: Educational Attainment and Internal
Colonialism in Albuquerque Public Schools, 1879–1942." New Mexico Historical Review, 2016. Link to Article
Braceros
Choreography: Yvonne Montoya
Dancers: Esteban Rosales (soloist), Ruby Morales, Zarina Mendoza Orduño, David Bernal-Fuentes, Lauren Jiménez
Music: “Braceros” by Samuel Peña
Voice recording of Juan "Johnny" Montoya by Yvonne Montoya
Costume: Mary Leopo
In loving memory of my father Juan "Johnny" Montoya Sena. This dance reflects the time he worked as a Bracero, a migrant farm worker, picking watermelon and cantaloupe in the fields of Southern Arizona and Southern California in the early 1960s.
INTERMISSION
ACT TWO
Tecolote Redux
Choreography: Yvonne Montoya
Dancer: Esteban Rosales
Music: Samuel Peña
Costume: Kelsey Vidic
Photo by Dominic AZ Bonuccelli
Pajarito
Choreography, Text & Performance: Yvonne Montoya
Dancers: Esteban Rosales, Ruby Morales, Zarina Mendoza Orduño, David Bernal-Fuentes,
Lauren Jiménez
Music: “Pajarito” by Samuel Peña
Costume: Mary Leopo
Resource
Gómez, Myrriah. "Nuclear Nuevo México: Colonialism and the Effects of the Nuclear
Industrial Complex on Nuevomexicanos." The University of Arizona Press, 2022
Unspoken
Choreography: Yvonne Montoya
Dancers: Esteban Rosales, Ruby Morales
Music: “De Casa” by Samuel Peña
Costume: Mary Leopo
Silent stories.
Unspoken stories.
Stories whose time has not yet come.
Tecolote Redux
Choreography: Yvonne Montoya
Dancer: Ruby Morales
Music: Samuel Peña
Costume: Kelsey Vidic
Photo by Dominic AZ Bonuccelli
Cómo eres
Choreography: Yvonne Montoya
Dancers: Ruby Morales, David Bernal-Fuentes
Music: "Sobre mis pies" written by Isidro Chavez Espinoza
used by permission of Peermusic III, Ltd.
All rights reserved.
Costume: Kelsey Vidic
A Sonoran borderlands love story
Querencia
Choreography, Text & Performance: Yvonne Montoya
Music & Performance: Salvador Martínez-Montoya
Performers: Yvonne Montoya, Salvador Martínez-Montoya
Dance films: Dominic AZ Bonuccelli
Dance film music: Excerpts of “MonÏŒlogo para Cello” by Maria Granillo performed by Edgardo Espinosa, Musette in D Major, BWV Anh. 126 from Anna Magdalena Bach Klavierbüchlein, 1725 performed by Salvador Martínez-Montoya, and "Walking: A Soundscape" by Yvonne Montoya with Salvador Martínez-Montoya
Costumes: Mary Leopo
Music and movement inspired by the traditional Nuevomexicano dances and music of Northern New Mexico including la Varceliana, la Camila, la Cuna, and the Matachines. Special thank you to Salvador Martínez-Baldenegro and Lucy Salazar.
About Stories from Home
Stories from Home is a series of dances embodying the oral traditions of Nuevomexicano communities in the American Southwest. Choreographer Yvonne Montoya and a primarily Mexican American cast of dancers draw upon personal histories as well as ancestral knowledge, including stories from Montoya’s great-grandmother, grandmother, great-aunts, and father. With palpable theatricality, moving spoken word, a movement aesthetic informed by vibrant ancestral and contemporary sources, and universal themes of love, family, and home, Stories from Home brings these largely underrepresented experiences to the stage.
Montoya, a 23rd-generation Nuevomexicana, began to develop Stories from Home after her father’s passing in 2015; compelled to continue his storytelling tradition for her own child, she turned to dance. Stories From Home is a vessel for personal and specific tales, while also offering a broader look at various cultural traditions throughout the Southwest. The work explores the ways in which geographies, languages, and histories among groups such as Nuevomexicanos, Tucsonenses, and border communities have created shared or dissimilar experiences. The grounded, sometimes incongruous choreography embraces abrupt shapes and connected, fluid shifts, balancing disarticulation with a moody softness.
The cast of Stories from Home originates from communities throughout the Southwest. This intentional geographic spread addresses the isolation of Southwest-based dance artists, instituting a community of Latine dancers. The far-flung group of artists also allows for an embodied sense of the array of landscapes that are integral to the work.
Yvonne Montoya
Artistic Director & Choreographer
Yvonne Montoya is a mother, dancemaker, bi-national artist, thought leader, writer, speaker, and the founding director of Safos Dance Theatre. Based in Tucson, Arizona and originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, her work is grounded in and inspired by the landscapes, languages, cultures, and aesthetics of the U.S. Southwest.
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Montoya is a process-based dancemaker who creates low-tech, site-specific and site-adaptive pieces for nontraditional dance spaces. Though most well-known in the U.S. Southwest, her choreography has been staged across the United States and in Guatemala, and her dance films screened, at Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina and the University of Exeter (U.K.) Under her direction, Safos Dance Theatre won the Tucson Pima Arts Council’s Lumie Award for Emerging Organization in 2015. She is currently working on Stories from Home, a series of dances based on her family’s oral histories.
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From 2017-2018 Montoya was a Post-Graduate Fellow in Dance at Arizona State University, where she founded and organized the five year dance advocacy project Dance in the Desert: A Gathering of Latinx Dancemakers from 2017-2022. From 2019-2020, Montoya was a Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow, and a member of the 2019-2020 Dance/USA Fellowships to Artists pilot program. She was also a 2021-2022 Southwest Folk Alliance Plain View Fellow. Montoya was a recipient of the 2019 National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC) POD grant, the 2020 MAP Fund Award, and the first Arizona-based artist to receive the 2020 New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) National Dance Project Production Grant. Montoya won the Arizona Creative Excellence Award at the 2021 Arizona Drive-In Dance Film Festival. In 2022, her company Safos Dance Theatre received the National Performance Network Creation Fund Grant and the National Endowment for the Arts Grants for Arts Project Grant for her piece “Stories from Home.” Yvonne was also recently featured in KQED’s If Cities Could Dance.
Meet the Dancers
Creative Team
Yvonne Montoya, Director
Jason Lopez, Tour Coordinator
Baylie MacRae, Administrative Assistant
Staff
Michele Orduña
Hope Eberhardt
Salvador Angulo
Board of Directors
Thank You!
Dr. Myrriah Gómez, Dr. Brianna Figueroa, Liz Lerman, Michelle Marji, Lindsey Sandler, Salvador Martínez-Baldenegro, Mary Ann Gale, Abel López, Tony Garcia, Liliana Gómez, Lindsay Sandler, Coley Curry, Teniqua Broughton, Xanthia Walker, Rising Youth Theatre, Nuebox, Julie Ackerly, Halley Willcox, Jordan Wax, Lone Piñon, Gabriela Muñoz, Dr. Hilario Romero, Dr. Lillian Gorman, Caitlyn Hardy, Erin Donohue, Elisa Radcliffe, Diego Martínez-Campos, Emigdio Arredondo-Martínez, Shannon Parrales, Marcela Acosta, Scottsdale Community College, Karryn Allen, Mollie Sutherland, Becky Rowley, our donors, the board and staff, and all the artists’ families and friends who supported them through this journey. Gracias!
Support from Funders
Stories from Home has been in development for many years. The following funders, organizations, people, and artist residencies supported the creation of this work over the years.
National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures
This project is supported in part by the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures through a grant from the NALAC Fund for the Arts.
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Arizona Community Foundation Community Support Grant
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This project was supported by a grant from the Arizona Community Foundation. Established in 1978, the Arizona Community Foundation is a statewide family of charitable funds supported by thousands of Arizonans. Since inception, ACF has awarded over $1 billion in grants, scholarships, and loans to nonprofit organizations, schools, and government agencies. More information is available at azfoundation.org.
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National Performance Network Creation Fund Grant
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Safos Dance Theatre was awarded the 2022 National Performance Network Creation Fund for Yvonne Montoya's Stories from Home. This grant was awarded in collaboration with two co-commissioners, GALA Hispanic Theatre (Washington, DC) and Su Teatro (Denver, CO). Thank you NPN, Su Teatro, and GALA Hispanic Theatre for your support!
The Creation and Development Fund is made possible with support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency), and co-commissioners.
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This project is supported by the National Performance Network (NPN) Documentation & Storytelling Initiative with funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information, visit www.npnweb.org.
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National Endowment for the Arts Grants for Arts Projects
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Safos Dance Theatre was awarded the 2022 Grant for Arts Projects for Yvonne Montoya's Stories from Home. This project is one of 14 projects awarded funding in Arizona. Thank you NEA for your support!
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The MAP Fund
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Yvonne Montoya is a 2020 MAP Fund Grantee for Stories from Home. She is among 171 performing artists and arts organizations grantees who received funding from all over the country in 2020.
The MAP Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Thank you MAP for your support.
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New England Foundation for the Arts National Dance Project
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Yvonne Montoya is a 2020 NEFA National Dance Project Production Grant recipient for the creation and production of Stories from Home. She is honored to be the first Arizona-based artist to receive this award. Montoya and the Stories from Home team is very excited about what this means for Arizona-based dance artists, and Nuevomexicna and Xicana stories from the Southwest being shared nationally. Congratulations to all of the grant recipients and finalists!
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This grant is made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Thank you NEFA!
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Arizona Commission on the Arts
This project is supported in part by the Arizona Commission on the Arts which receives support from the State of Arizona and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona
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This project is supported by the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona. Funded in part by The National Endowment for the Arts, City of Tucson, and Pima County
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Arizona State University
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Projecting All Voices, a program of Arizona State University Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, and Arizona State University Gammage.
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The Projecting All Voices Fellowship, a program of the Studio for Creativity, Place and Equitable Communities at Arizona State University Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.
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The Kennedy Center
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This project was developed as a part of the Kennedy Center Office Hours Page to Stage Residency program at the REACH.