“VISIONARY ARTISTS …“

photo courtesy of Audrey Derrell , of Confluence’s collaborating artists including Xeric Tlaloc Meraz, Laura Yohualtlahuiz , Humlåo Evans, Vannia Ibarguen , Cynthia Paniagua, Rulan Tangen, Jennifer Turner, Gabriela Wachi Sharpfish

DANCING EARTH’s Confluence Performance Ritual

at Santa Fe Art Institute

June 10 2026

a review by KATHLEEN KINGSLEY-BIAZ

Recently in mid-town Santa Fe, a gathering of visionary artists presented  an immersive evening of dance that invited audience involvement and reflection. Artistic Director Rulan Tangen, in collaboration with the artists, assembled  an evening-length work weaving together personal explorations of individual identity, ancestry and collective human experience.  

The  performance/ritual aptly named “The Confluence” was a profoundly moving exploration of the power of dance to communicate feelings, memories, and images, while evoking the same from us. Themes of pain, joy, questioning, remembering, introspection, compassion, healing and celebration felt at once deeply personal to the dancers but also universal.

The evening began as we all gathered quietly outdoors at the entry of Santa Fe Art Institute. Rulan, and later Vannia Ibarguen, made their way weaving from the building entry and down the sidewalk, clearing the space and preparing the audience. 

Following this, and announced by the sound of Humlåo Evan’s resonant, searing vocals, a procession of dancers entered single file, a presentation of characters, with each dancer dressed differently, moving differently, and each carrying a different story. 

Cynthia Paniagua, blowing a white conch shell to the 4 directions, opened the space/ritual event, calling the ancestors, paying tribute and preparing us to enter into what would come. The dancers became a frieze atop the concrete blocks that stand in front of the building wall. Then they left the way they came, Vannia gesturing us to follow.

The evening’s work involved moving the audience from the outdoors, to the inner first room of the building, to the hallway, then finally to a bigger theater space. The audience was large and fitting us all into the first room and hallway to observe what was happening was a tight fit. However, even if we could not see everything, the energy in the space and the music composition by Kino Benally drew us in regardless. From here we were directed into a bigger theater space where there were chairs as well as standing room.

Here began a series of dances/personal expressions that flowed one to the next, a confluence of artistry, coming from the heart. It is difficult and ultimately reductive to try to describe each dance, but there were moments of imagery that were stunning and will stay with this observer. 

Xeric Tlaloc Meraz, head and face covered with dark cloth and wearing a ceremonial skull face mask, perhaps evoking death, life, impermanence, the unknown. Again an acknowledgement of and dance for the 4 directions of the medicine wheel and what they might represent. Laura Yohualtlahuiz, witnessing and supporting with rattle and drum.  Kino Benally’s evocative music.  Now a blue mask — perhaps invoking water, calm, inner reflection, and harmony.

 Cynthia, birthing herself and embodying her ancestry through shifting dance styles —  Peruvian Indigenous, now an Andean folkloric mix of Spanish and Native, to African influenced movement from the coastal regions. These transformations developing into a lively coquettish and playful engagement of the audience. 

Humlåo, in contrast, voice and body powerful, full of visceral anguish and overwhelming despair-an intense presence crawling towards Rulan, who is calling them from a space behind the audience. A compassionate healer, mother and wounded child. An instantly recognizable archetype.

Gabriela Wachi SharpFish, wrapped in the fabric written on by many in response to the question “What is America to you?”, and then dancing, with deep intention and commitment, her personal response to those responses, some recorded, against a projected backdrop of the fabric. An initial foray into what has promise, to this observer, to be a much longer work.

Laura, moving trance-like, wearing coyoleras, the leg rattles worn in many Indigenous Mexican dances, accenting her movements with rhythmic sound, and spiritual connection.  Embodying potent matriarchal warrior energy, and drawing visions for this observer of the powerful female deities of pre-Columbian Mexico. 

Vannia Ibarguen, dressed in a black, full tulle skirt and lying on the floor-lit from the ground up against a white background casting a  shadow that looked like a tumbleweed-dust cloud-haboob, a miasma out of which first a bird (her hand) peeked out and withdrew, and then 2 arms reaching out and a head, evoking simultaneous images of working intentional magic and also being caught or trapped. La Llorona came to mind. Then a major shift to self-realization, free of feelings of “not good enough”, and to an almost “so there” ending of acceptance and humor — a reminder that if we know who we are, it doesn’t really matter what others think. 

Jennifer Turner, a humble presence embodying echoes of northern forests in another place on earth — a reminder of pre-patriarchy when women practiced healing magic, before it was renamed as witchcraft.  A moving contact duet with Humlåo followed.  

Xeric again, skull mask entity, closing the evening’s ceremony with Laura on flute, drum, and rattles-always rattles on her legs. Jade Whaanga appearing at the end as Warrior Hunter spinning and brandishing her fighting staff.  

And Rulan, Spider Woman-like, her compassionate presence felt throughout, entering and exiting unobtrusively. At once a creator, dreamer, weaver, connector, and always a watcher. 

A last image of dancers in a final frieze against the wall, reminiscent of Mayan or Egyptian stone carvings,  echoing the frieze at the beginning  on the concrete blocks. Full circle. Passage of time. Timeless. Lights dim, Benally’s music score fades. Silence for a moment. Deafening applause.

 Kathleen Kingsley Báez