Countdown to Storytelling Festival
Day(s)
:
Hour(s)
:
Minute(s)
:
Second(s)
Lori Tapahonso
Storytelling Festival
Lori Tazbah Tapahonso (Diné/Acoma) is a storyteller, theater artist, and educator whose work centers Indigenous voice, memory, and place-based storytelling. Rooted in her cultural background as a Diné/Acoma Pueblo woman and in the layered histories and cultures of New Mexico, Lori’s storytelling brings forward narratives of land, community, and Indigenous cultures.
She has performed nationally in theater productions, educational touring performances, and film projects that bring Indigenous histories and contemporary experiences to audiences of all ages. Lori currently performs in Native Vision, a touring educational theater production with Living Voices, and collaborates on creative film and television projects that amplify Indigenous culture and language. Her stage work uses performance as a bridge between storytelling, education, and cultural connection.
Lori’s performance and educational programming includes storytelling performances; storytelling workshops for youth and adults; Indigenous cultural literacy and community engagement programming; speech and public speaking workshops; acting for theater workshops for K–12 students; and Native theater education and programming.
Major Jackson
2027 Keynote Speaker
Major Jackson is the author of six books of poetry, including Razzle Dazzle: New & Selected Poems (2023), The Absurd Man (2020), Roll Deep (2015), Holding Company (2010), Hoops (2006) and Leaving Saturn (2002), which won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize for a first book of poems. His edited volumes include: Best American Poetry 2019, Renga for Obama, and Library of America’s Countee Cullen: Collected Poems. He is also the author of A Beat Beyond: The Selected Prose of Major Jackson edited by Amor Kohli. A recipient of fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, John S. Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Major Jackson has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and has been honored by the Pew Fellowship in the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress. He has published poems and essays in American Poetry Review, The New Yorker, Orion Magazine, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, Poetry London, and World Literature Today. Major Jackson lives in Nashville, Tennessee where he is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and serves as the Poetry Editor of The Harvard Review.
Photo by Beowulf Sheehan
Michael ”Ya-Schay” Garcia
Storytelling Festival
Michael ”Ya-Schay” Garcia is from the Pueblo of Tamaya (Santa Ana Pueblo). He found his calling as a language teacher for his people. Michael teaches his Keres language through the power and beauty of storytelling and song. Students learn about their identity, spiritual selves and how that connects them to the land, people, language, culture, and traditions. Michael is the creator of the podcast, “Life of a Dog on the Rez”; a place where he shares funny, cringe-worthy, and inspirational stories from his beloved Pueblo homelands and Turtle Island; stories that uplift the soul, provide us hope, and heal our spirits. He is also a traditional song composer, moccasin maker, traditional artist, and is instrumental in revitalizing the traditional game of Shinney stick, back into the Pueblos.
Sylvia Rains Dennis
Poet Laureate
Beyond an extensive career in botany and forest biodiversity focused on the Southern Rocky Mountains, my creative pursuits interweave a love of language, creative arts, music and memory. Poetry and wordsongs preceded writing during my upbringing, threading my understanding of connection to wild mountain homelands, while also visiting relatives in the northern reach of the Great Lakes woodlands and the boreal/mixed forests.
Current projects include finalizing two full poetry manuscripts, editing a dramatic lyric/poetry hybrid narrative piece, and compiling more recent poems for collections. In response to a devastating loss of biodiversity in our shared homelands, I recently completed the final draft of a five-act play, Keystone Cascade, which includes poetic and sung lyric and an opportunity for community engagement during performances planned for several mountain communities in northern New Mexico and western Colorado.
Recent poetry, narrative and lyrical compositions have appeared in SeedBroadcast (SEED:
Climate Change Resilience), Sonora Review, and the New Mexico Poetry Anthology (2023).
Among the many to show encouragement and support, I would like to recognize New
Mexico Writers, the Bread Loaf School of English, The Shakespeare Institute, Orion
Environmental Writers at Middlebury College, the Society for Ecological Restoration, Denver Women’s Press Club, the Ecological Society of America, and small communities belonging to the Institute of American Indian Arts, the University of New Mexico, as well as to all encountered by heart. Much gratitude to SOMOS for encouraging the creative voices of the land-based communities and cultural traditions of Northern New Mexico.
Having long served as faculty at the University of New Mexico at Taos and Colorado Mountain College, I have an extensive university and teaching background in forest biology, biodiversity and botany with a focus on the natural sciences and conservation-in-practice (Colorado State University, Oregon State University and the University of California at
Davis). Additional research in theater and multicultural literature include a Master's in English (Middlebury College; Oxford, Vermont and Santa Fe, New Mexico) and PhD studies at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, Great Britain.
Upcoming Events
Open Tues-Sat 12pm-4pm 575.758.0081 108 Civic Plaza Drive
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 3225, Taos, NM 87571
THANK YOU TO OUR FUNDERS
SOMOS programs are made possible in part by these organizations: New Mexico Arts, a Division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts • Taos Community Foundation • The McCune Foundation • The National Endowment For The Arts • The Virginia Wellington Cabot Foundation • Taos County Lodgers Tax • TaosNetLLC for high speed internet service • Lions Club • Milagro Rotary Club • New Mexico Humanities Council • Nusenda Foundation • Witter Bynner Foundation • Amazon Literary Partnership • Literary Emergency Fund