UTEP’s Rubin Center for the Visual Arts in collaboration with the UTEP Center for Environmental Resource Management (CERM) presents Experiencing the Bosque: A Performance at Rio Bosque Wetlands Park. This performance is the culmination of the first phase of Experiencing the Bosque, a multigenerational project radically integrating community organizing, art-making, and environmental stewardship through the activity of creating performances together. The artistic lead on the project is Visiting Assistant Professor Sandra Paola López Ramírez, an established dancemaker and performance activist who specializes in making works that address social and environmental issues in relationship to various communities.

Experiencing the Bosque is a deep investigation of the Rio Bosque Wetlands Park— a 372-acre ecological restoration project of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo valley ecosystem on the U.S.-Mexico border. It is grounded on embodied practices that reconnect us to land and what Robin Wall Kimmerer calls “more-than-human nature.” During this multi-year project, we are offering ongoing public workshops, performances, and other events that use the creative process as a vehicle to bring together faculty, staff, and students from The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) with public schools, non-profit organizations, independent artists, and members of the public.

Rubin Center Director Kerry Doyle notes, “This project reflects the very best kind of artistic leadership and interdisciplinary community engagement, involving a broad range of voices in a dynamic exploration of our desert environment. UTEP students involved in the project are learning how to engage diverse publics and use art as a tool for community-building and environmental stewardship.”

“The Park is a special place to explore what the Rio Grande-Rio Bravo waterscape may have looked like hundreds of years ago. Experiencing the Bosque is an innovative artists-scientists collaboration that explores our connections with water today by interacting with the Park as a performance space. We’re excited about engaging the community in the performance of Experiencing the Bosque and perhaps changing the way we think about how to live in our binational desert region” adds Dr. Alex Mayer, Director of CERM.

This first public performance is an ambitious installation at the Rio Bosque Wetlands Park where the material generated from hundreds of people engaged through a year of monthly artist-led public workshops is being curated by our artistic team into a 2-hour performance. With shows at 11 am and 3 pm, on November 5th, 2022 the public will have two opportunities to experience the Park in a new and multi-sensorial way while fostering a deep understanding of the importance water and the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo has in our region.
For more information and high-resolution images, contact S. Paola López Ramírez at splopezramirez@utep.edu