Please join us for a literary event that celebrates women as ritual healers in Mexican and Mexican American culture. It will be an evening of story and testimonio, and poetry and music.
Joanne B. Mulcahy
Joanne B. Mulcahy teaches creative nonfiction, ethnographic writing and humanities CORE classes at the NW Writing Institute. Her academic credentials include degrees in Comparative Literature, Folklore and Folklife, and Cultural Anthropology. Mulcahy’s writing combines memoir and personal essay with ethnographic exploration. She conducted field research with Native Alutiiq women for over a decade on Kodiak Island, Alaska. After two years with the Smithsonian’s Office of Folklife Programs, she moved to Oregon to direct the Oregon Folk Arts Program from 1988-91. She documented cultural traditions, wrote articles and created exhibits to bring vernacular traditions to public attention. Her commitment to collaborative models of writing and public presentation includes local people and communities in the representation of their own cultures. Mulcahy will read from her recently published book, Remedios: The Healing Life of Eva Castellanoz, about the life of Mexicana healer and traditional artist, Eva Castellanoz of Nyssa, Oregon.
Cindy Gutierrez
Cindy Gutierrez‘ work has been published in Crab Orchard Review, ZYZZYVA, The Grove Review, Minotaur, Open Spaces, among others. Her poetry has been exhibited in People, Places and Perceptions: A Look at Contemporary Northwest Latino Art at the Maryhill Museum in Goldendale, Washington; Women’s Stories: Voices of Eve at Galería Tonantzín in San Juan Bautista, California and in Women against Domestic Violence at La Oferta Review in San Jose, California. Cindy’s poems have won awards from the National League of American Pen Women, Oregon State Poetry Association and Washington Poets Association.
As the founder of the Miracle Theatre Group‘s ¡Viva la Word! program, Cindy produced a bi-monthly Latino performance poetry series and directed the dramatization of contemporary Northwest poetry in Conquista and Rebellion in 2003 and Familia, Food and Fiesta in 2002. From 1997-1999, she was a literary arts facilitator with LifeLines in Menlo Park, California, where she collaborated with five other visual and literary artists to facilitate the creative expression of cancer patients and their families. Originally from Brownsville, Texas, Cindy now lives near Portland, Oregon, with her husband Michael and their two furry friends.
Gerardo Calderón
Originally from Mexico, Gerardo Calderón is an award-winning composer and the musical director of Grupo Condor—Latin American Folk Music and Nuestro Canto. He is also a Drammy-nominated sound designer for ballet and theatre companies. Gerardo has toured throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe with folk ensembles, world music ensembles and choirs. He plays a variety of Latin stringed instruments and pre-Hispanic percussion and flute, including teponaztles, huehuetl, tambores de agua, tenabaris and silvato de viento. Gerardo studied classical guitar at the Escuela Superior de Música in Mexico City and theory and composition at Portland Community College.
Gerardo will accompany Cindy’s poems inspired by healers and the women in her life and by the “flower and song” of the ancient Aztecs.
7 p.m., Three Friends Coffee House,
SE 12th and Ash, Portland, Oregon
