ALTO: Arts Integration

Arts Integration is an approach to teaching in which students construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form. Opera includes elements of all art forms, so ALTO teaching artists give students creative tools in Dance, Theater, Music, Poetry, Visual Arts or Media Arts while students engage in a creative process to make original art that expresses their understanding of something else they’re learning in school. Since 2010, ALTO teaching artists have led over 300 arts integrated multi-session residencies in the Santa Fe Public Schools. Current residencies are listed below, some of which are also available (as noted) for students in Albuquerque Public Schools on a limited basis.

Residencies Workshops General FAQ’s Family Info Past Residencies

2024-2025 – Arts Integration Offerings

Residency Descriptions

STEM Connections (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math)

NEW! Arroyo Songs! — Songwriting meets Science
5 sessions, Grade 4
Aligned closely with state and district standards, this hands-on residency integrates science, literacy, and the arts to meet educational objectives in an engaging and interdisciplinary way. In this residency, students write a song from the perspective of plants or animals in the arroyo. Students engage in a collaborative creative process that encourages critical thinking and synthesis of knowledge, transforming scientific ideas into expressive, memorable songs that they then record and share. E. Ivy Ross, master teaching artist and musician, leads this inviting and engrossing exploration. Teaching Artist: E. Ivy Ross

NEW! — Cosmic Calendars: Charting Sun, Moon, and Seasons
8 sessions, Grades 4-6
Students learn about celestial tracking of the sun, moon, and seasons, and the origins of the Western calendar as it relates to our solar system. With colored papers and mixed-media collage, students will create a giant calendar wheel of the four seasons and moon cycles while exploring the artist’s tools of color, geometry, and composition. Through classroom activities and the artistic practice, students will understand celestial patterns and develop a greater awareness of our relationship to the cosmos and how nature’s rhythms govern our experience of time. Artist educator Moira Garcia leads this exploration which aims to inspire wonder and creativity in the ways we observe and engage with the natural world and ourselves. Teaching Artist: Moira Garcia

NEW! — LOOK AT THAT FLOWER!
Calling all Scientists and Artists to join forces and Explore visual problem solving through botanical illustration!
6 sessions, Grade 4
Making realistic drawings can seem like a scary task to the average 4th-grader, and many assume that it is a matter of elusive talent rather than a skill process that they can learn. In this residency, students will learn to closely observe plants and insects native to Northern New Mexico and beyond. They will apply a variety of drawing techniques to create realistic illustrations of their choices of flora and fauna. As they work to finish their final product, they will also reflect on their process and create a written artist’s statement explaining the scientific discoveries and artistic choices they made along the way. They may discover that Artists and Scientists are really very similar. Liberty Yablon guides students through this creative and reflective approach to understanding symbiotic relationships, photosynthesis and habitat protection through thoughtfully constructed botanical illustrations. Teaching Artist: Liberty Yablon

Mathematics Gets the Blues
5 sessions over 2-3 weeks, Grades 1-2 (on a limited basis, this residency is also available for APS educators)
Students will work together to write a blues song using the established lyric and musical pattern of that form. Along the way they will create and discover patterns and repetitions in groupings of 4, laying the foundations for addition and multiplication. By practicing these musical patterns within the metric framework, students will connect with these basic mathematical concepts in an entirely new way, cementing a greater, longer lasting understanding. Teaching Artist: Beth Ratay

Dry Bones Dancing
5 sessions, Grades 3-5 (on a limited basis, this residency is also available for APS educators)
In this arts integration residency, students explore musculoskeletal anatomy through improvisational movement and choreography. Students gain an understanding of the human skeleton as they engage in a process of creating choreography, tuning into their own bodies. The residency culminates in small group presentations of choreography created and performed by students. Led by experienced dance educator Julianna Massa, students will discover how their bodies are ideal tools for learning and creativity. Teaching Artist: Julianna Massa

NEW! — The Music of Math and the Science of Sound
5 sessions over 2-3 weeks, Grades 3-5 (on a limited basis, this residency is also available for APS educators)
In this residency, students will explore various ways that sound can be created, and how math and measurements work together to create multiple pitches on a single musical string (monochord). When students actively determine how sound and pitch work, they will make important scientific connections, while exercising their measurement, data collection and data organization skills. The exploration of the monochord also serves as an introduction to or review of fractional representation. After learning how a single string can be divided to create different pitches, students will create a short piece of music using the newly discovered properties of the monochord. Dr. Ratay, musician, composer and educator, leads students on this journey of discovery and creation. Teaching Artist: Beth Ratay

Finding the Math in Musical Patterns
5 sessions, 25 minutes each for Pre-K; 3 sessions, 45 minutes each for K (on a limited basis, this residency is also available for APS educators)
By identifying and creating musical patterns, students connect with basic mathematical concepts in an entirely new way, cementing a greater, longer lasting understanding of patterns and how they shape our world. Students will identify patterns in familiar songs, and create and share simple patterns using body percussion. Dr. Ratay guides students through this creative process, while demonstrating how mathematics and music intertwine to create patterns pleasing to the mind and the ear alike. Teaching Artist: Beth Ratay

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English Language Arts Connections

New! Jungle Night — Developing Literacy through Sound and Movement
5 sessions, Pre-Kindergarten

Through the portal of Sandra Boynton’s bedtime book “Jungle Night,” accompanied by Yo-Yo Ma on cello, PreK students will move, vocalize, and express their preferences for a variety of animals, including monkeys, red river hogs, crocodiles, tigers, and frogs. Students will develop their spatial awareness and their ability to manipulate space for artistic expression using their bodies. They’ll delve into the social-emotional characteristics of self-confidence, self-efficacy, and self-regulation. They will learn specific oral vocabulary in English and Spanish, and will become familiar with the cello, piano, and the exquisitely tender music of Erik Satie. Orff- and Suzuki-trained arts educator and musician Leanne DeVane, a music teacher and administrator of PreK-12 arts education programs in Santa Fe since 1998, will lead this expressive, creative, and eminently musical experience. Teaching Artist: Leanne DeVane

Be Your Own Poet Laureate
5 sessions, Grades 2-12
2021-2023 Santa Fe Poet Laureate Darryl Lorenzo Wellington will help students strengthen their language skill and cultivate imaginative and creative abilities, facilitating a 5-session residency where students read poems, discuss poem, critique poems, and—most importantly — write their own. Students learn to ask “Why?” — what is a poem, why is a metaphor successful, and why does a line of poetry appeal to me? The residency plan can adapt for both elementary school students and higher grades, including high school students studying literature, or students in dance, music, gymnastics history, social studies, or science, who are interested in writing cross-disciplinary poetry. Teaching Artist: Darryl Lorenzo Wellington

Poetry as Narrative Writing
5 sessions, Grades 3-12
Often, constructing a written narrative seems challenging to students who may struggle to see the main ideas in a sequence of paragraphs. Applying the principles of narrative writing to poetic forms and conventions, students learn to tell evocative stories, both fictional and non-fictional, in their own words. Santa Fe Poet Laureate Darryl Lorenzo Wellington leads this creative approach to teaching narrative writing with joy, inquiry, and discovery. Teaching Artist: Darryl Lorenzo Wellington

Poetry As The Means We Need
Spoken-word and Performance Poetry Residency
5 Sessions, Grades 6-12
Seen as a “step-child” of academic poetry, spoken-word/performance poetry (or slam poetry) is a poetry form that is infinite and accessible to all students. This type of poetry, most importantly, opens the door for poets to use their whole body, and space, to make a poem come alive! In this workshop, through different writing exercises, students will write their own spoken-word poems and will be exposed to different performing styles and will learn memorizing techniques to recite their poem like a seasoned poetry slam poet. This workshop will ask students to explore the power of their own story as a means to create change, not be forgotten, and inspire others to do the same. This residency is suitable for all humanities classes. Teaching Artist: Alejandro Jimenez

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Social Studies Connections

Maps in Motion
5 sessions, Grades 3-6
Map reading is increasingly a lost art, yet maps can give us so much perspective in multiple ways. In this residency, students learn the tools of mapping to create written maps and then put them into creative movement choreography that gives a sense of place and belonging. Multi-disciplinary teaching artist Tamara Johnson guides students through the steps to create their own artistic maps in motion. Teaching Artist: Tamara Johnson

Migration: Movement and Meaning
5 sessions, Grades 3-6
Once students have a grasp of basic mapping skills, they can use maps to show their understanding of changes in their local community or region over time. Students in this residency focus on migration patterns of the various peoples who live and have lived in northern New Mexico, and then create original choreography to demonstrate their understanding of migration. Tamara Johnson leads this engaging and discovery-packed residency. Teaching Artist: Tamara Johnson

Exploring New Mexico History through Song
5 sessions, Grades 5-12 (on a limited basis, this residency is also available for APS educators)
When students create a piece of music about a historical subject, they greatly increase their comprehension of the subject, and gain important learning skills. In this residency, students will work together to create a corrido (ballad) about Rafael Chacón in the Battle of Valverde, or any important figure or event in New Mexican history. Dr. Beth Ratay, an experienced composer and scholar of world musics, leads this session, focusing on students’ ability to synthesize historical facts into a deeper understanding of how these events shape our collective and individual lives. Teaching Artist: Beth Ratay

Social and Emotional Learning

NEW! Inner Compass
5 Sessions, Grades pre K-2 (3-5 coming soon)

Students often struggle with stresses that make it difficult for them to engage with learning in the classroom; practicing a creative process can help them find ease and calm within themselves, so they can focus on their studies. In this 5-session residency, students learn how to embody the practice of “Learning without the Noise.”  That “noise” can be other students’ behaviors, transitions from one activity to another, negative self-talk, frustration, or comparing self to others. Through movement, vocal expressions, art and daily rituals, students will develop an awareness of how capable they can be with managing their inner and outer environment. Teaching Artist Delia St. Louis is an Albuquerque-based educator with a Master’s Degree in the Science of Education and has worked extensively with young learners in academics through the arts.

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Teaching Artists

Randy Barron has classroom teaching experience dating back to 1980, and he served as a touring Kennedy Center Teaching Artist from 1995-2021. Randy has led hundreds of professional development events for teachers and teaching artists, in forty US States, as well as in Singapore. Randy danced and choreographed professionally with dance companies from Boston and New York City to the Midwest, and he served as a founding Artistic Director of City in Motion Dance Theater in Kansas City, Missouri. Randy has a wide range of experience in education. He has been a charter school founder, a charter high school director, a curriculum writer — and even a school bus driver. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology, and he is also a former volunteer firefighter and EMT. Randy has received the Coll Award of Distinction from the New Mexico Art Education Association. He lives with his wife on the Santa Fe Trail near Las Vegas, New Mexico, just an hour’s drive from their twelve-year-old, identical twin grand-daughters.

Wendy Chapin is a theater artist who began teaching in the Santa Fe public schools in 2001 independently as a theater teacher, working with integrated arts for the Alto Program, and working for Artworks a Lincoln Center Program sponsored by Partners in Education. She has taught theater arts to all ages from 7-70 for 40 years. Wendy is a theater artist who believes in collaborating with teachers to find ways to embody learning as well as creating opportunities for students to develop empathy as part of their interpersonal and intrapersonal experiences inherent when using drama in combination with curricular areas of study. Wendy has a BA in theater and history from the University of Colorado and an MA in Art Therapy from Southwestern College. She worked in professional theater on and off Broadway for 11 years.

Leanne DeVane is a musician, music educator, arts administrator, and horsewoman. She recently completed five years with Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival as Director of Education, where she oversaw multiple music education programs for students, PreK-12. Prior to her work with Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, she served the Santa Fe community for twelve years as Music Education Coordinator for Santa Fe Public Schools. Leanne finished her undergraduate study in Piano Performance at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and her graduate study in Music Education with Eastman School of Music. She completed coursework in Educational Leadership with New Mexico Highlands University. Leanne formerly taught elementary music and choir on the Navajo Reservation in Fort Defiance, Arizona, as well as eight years of elementary music and choral teaching at Ramirez Thomas and Sweeney elementary schools in Santa Fe. Leanne is recipient of the New Mexico Music Educators ’Association Administrator of the Year Award (2017), the City of Santa Fe Mayors ’Excellence in the Arts Award (2016), the New Mexico School Board Association Leadership in Student Achievement Award (2012), and in 2011, was recognized as a leader in music education on the nationally broadcast public radio arts show “From the Top.” Leanne’s personal passions include equitable access to vibrant music education for all youth, piano, Spanish, telepathic animal communication, and animals of all sizes, predilections, and shapes.

Moira Garcia is a visual artist and bilingual educator. She is a New Mexico native and has worked in Santa Fe schools for over a decade. She holds a BFA in Studio Arts with a focus in Printmaking from the Institute of American Indian Arts, and a MA in Latin American Studies with concentrations in Art History and Indigenous Studies from the University of New Mexico. Her artwork is a visual language of symbol, color, and metaphor that often references and interprets ancient culture and cosmologies. As an educator, Moira is dedicated to meeting the needs of each student and guiding the expression of their unique and creative genius.

Michelle Holdt is an enthusiastic arts integration specialist and leader with a strong commitment to leading an arts rich life and making creative practice available for all children. She has over 20 years experience in arts education as a drama teacher, professional development leader, and arts administrator in a wide variety of educational settings. She was the Arts and Restorative Learning Coordinator at the San Mateo County Office of Ed and holds a Masters and Credential in Educational Administration from San Francisco State University, an Art Integration Certificate with The Alliance for Arts Learning Leadership, a BA in Drama and Human Development from Harvard University, a Masters in Theatre and Dance from the University of New Mexico, and a clear K-8 multiple subject credential from New College of California in San Francisco.

Alejandro Jimenez is a formerly-undocumented immigrant, poet, writer, and educator from Colima, Mexico, living in New Mexico. He placed 3rd at the 2022 Abya Yala Poetry Slam Championships held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which brought together 15 national poetry slam champions from 15 countries in North, South, Central America and the Caribbean. He is the 2021 Mexican National Poetry Slam Champion, he is a two-time National Poetry Slam Semi-Finalist (US), multiple time TEDx Speaker/Performer, and a regional Emmy-nominated poet. In 2022, he was featured in TIME Magazine as one of 80 Mexican artists shaping contemporary Mexican culture. His work centers and touches on cultural identity, immigrant narratives, masculinity, memory, and the intersections of them all.

Tamara Johnson is a dancer, educator, and writer. She has been designing and facilitating experiential education programming for over a decade. She is passionate about the power of dance to overcome language barriers and cultivate empathy. Tamara is currently the Executive Director and Co-Artistic Director of MoveWest and a Course Development Specialist in the Institute of American Indian Arts department of Online Learning.

Kathleen Kingsley is a dancer/choreographer/dance educator. As co-founder of City in Motion Dance Theater in Kansas City, Missouri, she choreographed for and danced with the resident company, as well as working as an artist in education with Kansas City Young Audiences. She also initiated the first of four children’s dance theaters. She is a graduate of Anne Green Gilbert’s Summer Teacher Institute in creative dance. Her work in dance straddles both the teaching artist and school educator roles. As co-founder of the Río Gallinas School for Ecology and the Arts in Las Vegas, New Mexico she developed and taught the dance curriculum for grades 1-8. She established the dance department at the United World College of the American West (UWC-USA) and developed their International Baccalaureate Degree Program dance curriculum. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Latin American studies. Currently Kathleen is co-founder and executive artistic director of MoveWest Center for Movement Exploration in Santa Fe and serves as ALTO’s residency program coordinator.

Julianna Massa (she/they) is a dance artist based in Albuquerque, NM, trained in modern/contemporary dance. Her work centers around a love and respect for the messy imperfection of human bodies moving together in space, asking how dance can bring us towards shared visions of the future. Recently, Julianna was on the faculty for the inaugural Albuquerque Contemporary Dance Festival. Julianna has experience teaching dance and creative movement to children and adults with Albuquerque Public Schools, Harwood Art Center, OT Circus Arts Connections, and Keshet Dance and Center for the Arts.

Beth Ratay is a versatile composer who is able to craft music using a wide variety of styles and techniques. From music possessed of a quiet, understated grace, to music based on mathematical concepts, to emotive and hilarious opera, Ratay’s music is engaging, charming and beautiful. Dr. Ratay has had her music performed by diverse ensembles from across the United States. Her studies on the relationship of text to music in the work of Leoš Janáček and symmetric or layered musical structures in the music of Harrison Birtwistle strongly informs her own compositions. Beth also has been teaching music to people of all ages for over 25 years. Her experience includes individual instrumental and compositional instruction, music fundamentals and general education music courses for adults, and music basics for kids for all ages. Beth believes that learning music teaches many important and fundamental skills including social/emotional skills, math skills, and problem solving skills.

Ivy Ross is devoted to a collaborative and creative vision of an emergent equitable world. She is a nationally recognized facilitator, musician, writer, and educator who addresses challenging social and environmental issues with compassion, critical thinking, playfulness, and flexibility, and she currently serves as the Director of Education for the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. She has served as consultant, facilitator, and performing artist for a multitude of organizations nationwide including: Children’s Defense Fund; Columbia Hospital For Women; Teachers & Writers Collaborative; Young Audiences; Children’s Cancer Association: MyMusicRX; the Anti-Defamation League, and The Boys & Girls Club. She is a certified Mindfulness Meditation Instructor, Hatha Yoga Teacher, Student Success Coach, and A World Of Difference Institute Trainer. Classroom teacher Emily Wahl says of Ivy, “She brings an attentive, gentle, cheerful, and patient attitude to teaching. It is clear that she finds inspiration in the responses of the children to the music, and gladly and adeptly incorporates their ideas. She is a joy to work with and the children respond with great affection and enjoyment to her sweet and fun style of teaching.”

Delia St. Louis is an educator with a Master of Science in Education. She has classroom teaching experience dating back to 1999 in the New York City Public Schools and later starting in 2013 at Albuquerque Public Schools. She’s also the founder of Learning Without The Noise, a practice in which children learn tools and exercises that give them a unique advantage in learning and in life.

Darryl Lorenzo Wellington is the 2021-2023 Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, NM. He also writes a syndicated editorial column for The Progressive Media Project. Since 2016, he has been a Writing/Communications Fellow with Center for Community Change, a Washington DC-based organization that supports low-income people of color. Last year, he presented talks and workshops on poetry at over fifteen Santa Fe elementary, middle and high schools.

Liberty Yablon is a sculptor, photographer and illustrator, born and raised in Santa Fe. She’s Also lived in Los Angeles where she worked in fashion design and film production. She loves to sew and design extravagant costumes. In downtime she crochets and loves time in nature. Before becoming a workshop leader with the Alto program, as well as ArtWorks, she taught art and theater full time for SFPS. She was an early member of art collective Meow Wolf and created immersive art experiences with them for 5 years. She’s passionate about teaching and loves working with students of all ages and backgrounds.