Almas de la Plaza

The following is a press release for an event that I encourage everyone to attend. This project has been up on the plaza since December, and has been getting rave reviews. Please comment here about your experience if you have already gone, and your thoughts about how it impacts our community.

Press Release Courtesy of New Mexico Highlands University Media Arts Department:

"Please join the New Mexico Highlands Media Arts Program on the Old Town Plaza in Las Vegas New Mexico on Wednesday, February 11th at a farewell reception for the spirits of Ida Ilfeld, Teddy Roosevelt, Eugenio Romero, Archibishop Lamy, Big Nose Kate, Doc Holliday, Las Gorras Blancas, Stephen W. Kearney, Fabiola C de Baca, Billy the Kid, Giovanni Maria D Agostino, the Harvey Girls, and Felix Martinez. The show starts on the Plaza at 6:30, followed by refreshments in the Plaza Hotel.

Following the reception, the spirits of these historic characters and others will depart forever from the Plaza, where they have been making nightly appearances since mid-December in the windows of the Plaza Hotel Expansion thanks to seven students from the class Design Projects for the Community and their instructor Robert Drummond, who created this multi-video public art installation as a class project.

Almas de La Plaza/Spirits of the Plaza was one of the first projects in the state to receive a grant from the New Mexico Humanities Council as a lead up to New Mexico s Centennial of Statehood in 2012. These projects are intended to serve to educate and remind citizens of New Mexico about the diversity, creativity, commitment, perseverance, enthusiasm, and enchantment that together form the unique character of this state. Community support came from the Plaza Hotel, the Las Vegas/San Miguel Chamber of Commerce, the City of Las Vegas Rough Riders Museum, and MainStreet Las Vegas.

Before the students could produce the installation, they had to research the characters, write scripts, and audition actors from the local community. What was interesting for all of us as a class, and the community, was to find out who people were, how they came here, what significant values they brought to Las Vegas. Having to research, finding out the fact from fiction, and trying to give these characters that lived way back an identity, trying to depict their life, trying to give the certain character a soul, essentially bring them back from the dead."