Species In Peril - 516 ARTS. 2019.

516 ARTS - Species In Peril website

“As the snow melts in the mountains and runs to the rivers, water and climate change experts look to the Rio Grande, which for the first time in memory became dry for miles in 2018. In There Must Be Other Names for the River, six singers embody the Rio Grande physically and spatially, singing a score based on historic river flow data through the present day, and then projecting possible futures. Scrutinizing human decisions and their impact on the flows, they communicate directly our trajectory with this lifeline of water in the desert.”

The Rio Grande has become a fragmented river. From its headwaters in the San Juan Range of the Colorado Rockies to the Gulf of Mexico, the Rio Grande draws from 11% of the continental U.S., with much of that being drought-prone land. That vulnerability is aggravated by scores of dams and irrigation diversions, which have left significant portions of the river dry. There are 15 dams on the Rio Grande, many of them in New Mexico. Flows are significant until Elephant Butte Reservoir in New Mexico. Most of the water for the city of El Paso comes from this reservoir. Downstream, at the American Dam, much of the flow in the Rio Grande is diverted for irrigation and municipal uses in both Texas and Mexico. From here, the Rio Grande has little or no flow until joined by the Río Conchos and the Pecos River. Further downriver, additional withdrawals for agricultural and municipal use, coupled with the relatively low influx of water from tributaries, reduce the flow. In some years, the Rio Grande flow does not even make it to the sea.

Collaboration with Marisa Demarco and Jessica Zeglin for Species In Peril at 516 Arts in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The work will be performance on November 16 at National Hispanic Cultural Center.