Culture Shock

\ Apr 15, 2004

3 min read

For the last two decades, the fine folks at the Albuquerque Arts Alliance have honored the best and brightest lights in the Albuquerque arts community by bestowing them with the prestigious Bravos Award. This year the awards ceremony will be held at the Albuquerque Marriott.

Choreographer, performer and UNM professor Lana Kroth will receive this year's award for excellence in dance. The Bravos visual arts award goes to Mary Carroll Nelson, founder of the Society of Layerists in Multi-media. The music award goes to James Bratcher, former director of Albuquerque Opera Theatre, now known as Opera Southwest. Bratcher also founded the Albuquerque Symphony Chorus and the Albuquerque Community Chorus. The theater arts award goes to UNM professor James Linnell, co-creator of UNM's Words Afire theater festival. Joe Simon Sando, hailing from the Jemez Pueblo, gets the literary arts award, in part for his retelling of the oral stories of the Pueblo Indians through the written word.

The excellence in arts education award goes to VSA Arts of New Mexico this year. This organization, founded in 1981, fosters creativity among both children and adults with special needs. The North Valley's Adobe Theater, currently in its fifth decade, gets a nod as this year's Outstanding Arts Organization. Karen Turner, who along with Janis Timm-Bottos, established the OFFCenter Community Arts Project, will be honored as this year's Outstanding Arts Volunteer or Philanthropist. Finally, the radical architect Bart Prince, who lives in that pretty-as-heck UFO house on Monte Vista (he hates when people call it that), will be bestowed with this year's President's Award.

Although it's too late to make reservations for the awards dinner, and most of you couldn't afford the hefty ticket price anyway, now is an appropriate time to honor these worthy contributors to our city's thriving arts scene. Congratulations to all the winners.

Culture Shock

Tap fans will want to swing by the Outpost Performance Space this Saturday, April 17, at 8 p.m., or Sunday, April 18, at 6 p.m., to check out the sixth Annual New Mexico Tap Dance Jams. With performances by phenomenal tappers like Bril Barrett, Bill Evans, Acia Gray, Mark Yonally and others, this is the biggest tap dance show of the year. Tickets are $18 general or $13 for Outpost Members. You can purchase them either by calling the Outpost at 268-0044 or by swinging by the Book Stop on Central in Nob Hill (3410 Central SE, 268-8898).