WomenFest will feature visual art and live music

WomenFest will include activities like learning yoga techniques. Melissa Begay and Tierra Candelaria demonstrate.
Submitted photo

SOCORRO – Socorro is known for its scientific research and for the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge and its wonderful birding opportunities.

But the county also is home to an amazing number of artists, both visual and musical (not to mention the wonderful Performing Arts Series run through the university.)

NM Tech’s Women’s Month is highlighting some of that now, both in the month-long art exhibit at Macey Center and for the afternoon WomenFest on Saturday, March 26 from 1-7 p.m. outside Macey Center.

A reception for the artists at the Macey Center exhibit is slated for Friday, March 25 at 6 p.m., before the PAS concert. The art exhibit,  open for viewing all month during regular business hours, features some well-known artists including Skeeter Leard and Sharon Fullingim, some professional artists who have recently moved to the area and some emerging artists, some from the PAS-sponsored paint parties, as well as some well-known Socorroans whom one doesn’t usually think of as artistically inclined.

The free Saturday afternoon event will feature a variety of arts and crafts. Attend a demonstration on the south lawn:1 p.m, Yoga with Marisa Wolfe; 2 p.m. Self-Defense with Dug Corpolongo, NMTech Tai Chi Instructor; 3 p.m., Yoga and Energy Techniques with Melissa Begay, NMT Recreation director. Or learn mandala painting with Nicole in the Macey Center lobby at 1:30 or 3 p.m.

In the upper lobby, short demonstrations on a variety of subjects will be conducted including theater games with Theresa Apodaca, NM Tech’s theater professor, 1 p.m.; “Freeing the Writer Within…Fast Writing” with Karin Williams, 2:30 p.m. (bring paper and pencil or pen); and  Purposeful Travel with Vannettta Perry, certified travel director, 3:30 p.m. For a full schedule, visit the PAS website: nmt.edu/pas.

A vast number of “inspiration stations,” vendors and exhibitors will be outside, north of Macey Center all afternoon including Socorro General Hospital, the NM Department of Health, NRAO, NM Tech Women in STEM, Positive Outcomes, City of Socorro and SCOPE.

While viewing demonstrations and exhibits, people will be entertained by local musicians including Julie Ford, whose day job is a professor of Mechanical Engineering at NM Tech; Shelbi Etscorn, a Socorro native who most recently has been playing with Flat Note Society; and Terri Sunflower, former nurse turned singer-songwriter, who will perform with Malcolm Moore in a duo they are calling Heartsleeve.

Also performing will be Crystal Gutierrez, a Socorro native known to many in her role as news anchor with KRQE News 13; Val and Ben, a couple who write music and explore a variety of music genres; a group calling themselves Colleen Gino’s Horror Chick and Lunatics, who will perform excerpts from an original rock opera.

Also on the stage will be Socorro High School Dance Team; Aditi Natesa – NMT Belly Dance Troupe, a Tech club led by well-known belly dance instructor Julie Johnson; and Zumba with Studio Z, a new business in the city.

The afternoon finishes with Tuesdays @ 2, a Magdalena group and the popular Tori Murillo Band.