Lara Manzanares & Joe Hayes

AMP is pleased to partner with Instituto Cervantes and the National Hispanic Cultural Center to present the second edition of the Oralidad Festival. Oralidad is born with two essential purposes: to promote the oral tradition of storytelling and to establish a collaboration between artists from New Mexico, Spain, Latin America and the rest of the United States to create new works together and contribute to the improvement of storytelling.

The oral tradition of storytelling is a powerful language throughout the world, and is deeply rooted in Spanish culture. These oral traditions have permeated Latin American and Hispanic culture, from flamenco palos to the Vaqueiros de Alzada and the tradition of the juglares (minstrelsy), as well as having a broad impact on Latin American literature. New Mexico is an especially important place for storytellers, due to the mix of Hispanic and indigenous cultures, specifically the oral traditions and histories of the Pueblos.

Lara Manzanares is an award-winning bilingual singer-songwriter of Northern New Mexican heritage. In addition to singing the Mexican boleros, rancheras, and corridos of her sheep-ranching childhood, Lara also composes her own style of music in both English and Spanish. Through a combination of storytelling and songs both playful and sincere, Lara draws on her rural New Mexican roots and her urban experiences across the U.S. and abroad as she sings about love, loss, a sense of place, and her own connection to the land.

Joe Hayes has been traveling up and down the country, back and forth across the country, telling stories of the Southwest for over 40 years. He was the pioneer of bilingual Spanish-English storytelling. Joe has published over twenty-five books, many in both English and Spanish.

Joe has delighted and inspired children in thousands of schools and was the resident storyteller at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe for 39 years. Many parents and teachers of today's kids heard Joe's tales when they themselves were children.