CALA Presenta

CALA organizes programs with local, national, and international artists. Artists present public programs and community engagements as part of CALA Presenta.

2025 Programming

Carving Pathways /// Agua Es Vida

PHASE ONE //// Flow
PHASE TWO /// Control, The Illusion of
PHASE THREE /// Long Tap Roots

Carving Pathways is based on archival maps and photographs sourced from the Rio Salado Restoration Project.

This is an expansion of the National Water Dance - Rio Salado performance created with community members. during "Make and Meander" Walks. Funded through Phoenix Flash Grant support.

In partnership with El Laboratorio and the School of Transborder Studies, CALA Alliance led a collaborative initiative to raise awareness about water conservation through Agua Es Vida—an arts and science-based campaign that blended storytelling, research, and community engagement. Focused on Latino communities across the Phoenix Metro Area, especially in South Phoenix, the project drew from the Agua Es Vida research and WaterSIMmersive to highlight Arizona’s water challenges in an accessible, fully bilingual format.

A central artistic highlight of the campaign was Carving Pathways, developed in collaboration with multidisciplinary artist and dancer Delia Ibañez, movement artist and activist Zakiya Johnson, and percussionist Israel Solomon. Together, their collaboration transforms water’s essence into movement, sound, and narrative, offering a powerful artistic interpretation of our collective connection to water.

José Villalobos /// Del Mismo Aire

Jose Villalobos, performs “Del Mismo Aire”, January 25th, Phoenix Art Museum. Photography by Pure Devotion

In collaboration with Amplified Vol. 4 at Phoenix Art Museum. January 25th, 2025

Accordions are box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type, producing sound as air flows past a reed in a frame. In “Del Mismo Aire,” Jose Villalobos performs with an accordion, creating loud, uneasy sounds that overwhelm his voice, resulting in a paradoxical sense of silence. This performance underscores the silence of queer voices within the BIPOC community. Queer and trans people of color face ongoing oppression and violence, including murder, at the hands of the United States government. Villalobos’s choice of the accordion is deeply personal, reflecting his connection to his father, a musician who also played the instrument, as well as its significance in norteño conjuntos.

2024 Programming

Art Talk /// Legacy And Innovation

On Monday, November 4, 2024, Chef Rene Andrade in partnership with CALA Alliance hosted a dinner and discussion with local artists and community members to honor the life and literary work of Phoenix’s own, Chef Silvana Salcido - Esparza (Barrio Cafe). Phoenix Culinary chefs Chef Silvana Salcido, Chef Rene Andrade (James Beard Award) and Chef Antonio Padilla (Huarachis) shared insights on Mexican cuisine and traditions in the United States, and the importance of legacy and innovation in the culinary art space moderated by Stephanie Roman, executive director at CALA Alliance.

2023 Programming

Art Talk /// Constellations – Artistic Responses, Migrating Identities, and Displacement

On Wednesday, September 6, 2023, the Phoenix Art Museum in partnership with CALA Alliance hosted a discussion with artists Carlos Martiel and Luis Rivera Jiménez, and Irasema Coronado, director and professor of the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University, in a conversation about artistic and aesthetic responses to migration, immigration, and displacement, moderated by Alana Hernandez, executive director at CALA Alliance and curator of LatinX art at the ASU Art Museum.