Vidas Perfectas was an all-new Spanish-language version of Robert Ashley’s ground-breaking “television opera” Perfect Lives (1983). With Ashley’s blessing, Alex Waterman directed this production from a Spanish translation by Javier Sainz de Robles.

The singer-songwriter Ned Sublette starred as the opera’s narrator “R,” in the role originated by Ashley. Playing with him was “Buddy, The World’s Greatest Piano Player,” a unique all-piano role for Cuban virtuoso Elio Villafranca. Composer Peter Gordon, who collaborated with Ashley on the original incarnation of Perfect Lives, returned as music producer, to play live electronics and mixing. The chorus was Elisa Santiago (appearing as Isolde, Gwyn, and Ida) and Raúl de Nieves (appearing as Will, Ed, and The Captain of the Football Team).

Perfect Lives was originally commissioned for television by The Kitchen (NY) in 1979 and was completed in 1983, co-produced by The Kitchen and Channel Four in Great Britain. It was aired on Channel Four in 1983 and in 1984, and subsequently on German, Austrian and Spanish television. Perfect Lives’ innovative combination of chanting, storytelling, meditation and ecstatic revelation, challenges the ways in which we perceive the relationship between language and music. It has almost single-handedly changed the way we think about opera, television, and performance.

In July 2014, Vidas Perfectas traveled “on location” for theatrical stagings in Marfa, Texas and on-site performances in Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, TX. All seven episodes were then compiled and edited for television. At the completion of all seven episodes, Vidas Perfectas toured internationally, accompanied by a full recording to be released on CD and DVD.

Ballroom Marfa presented Bonnie “Prince” Billy for an intimate music performance at the Crowley Theater.

The man who acts under the name Will Oldham and sings and composes under the name Bonnie “Prince” Billy has, over the past quarter-century, made an idiosyncratic journey through, and an indelible mark on, the worlds of indie rock and independent cinema. With his highly individualistic approach to music-making and the music industry, one that cherishes intimacy, community, mystery, and spontaneity; his brilliance has captivated fans and made Bonny one of our most influential and beloved songsmiths.

For our fifth annual DJ camp Ballroom Marfa welcomed DJs Bigface and Faith Gay back to the Big Bend. The two veteran DJ mentors offered essential guidance in real-live party-rocking skills. Class participants received hands-on DJ instruction, holding it down on the dance floor, and designing flyers to promote their DJ party for parents and friends.

This five-day program was a hands-on experience, with students learning directly on DJ equipment and experimenting with mixing songs and sampling music. The classes were designed to engage the imagination of students from all musical backgrounds, and throughout the week our instructors highlighted other aspects of DJ culture, such as dance and visual art. While getting practical experience on the equipment is a core component of the camp, Bigface and Gay also presented DJing as an art form with a rich culture and history, with portions of each class covering the history of the DJ and basic music theory. During the week, students created DJ personas and design posters for display at the final event.

Classes took place at the Capri and the camp concluded with a free public performance by the student DJs at Padre’s Marfa on Saturday, July 5, 2014. 

DJ camp 2014 was open to all area students, and there was no fee to attend.

As part of Marfa Independent School District’s Summer Shakeup program, Ballroom Marfa hosted Music Moves U, a workshop led by Dr. Kahil El’Zabar and his band, the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble. Led by Dr. El’Zabar, students built homemade instruments and then practiced playing and improvising on these instruments. After practicing, the group performed a final show with the band. Students investigated the properties of rhythm, ensemble performance, melodic and harmonic sensibilities, and improvisation while learning about the history of music, team building, and personal expression.

The class was free to attend and open to all students 10 years and older.

Ballroom Marfa hosted a free performance of Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks in the Ballroom courtyard with an opening performance from Party With Death. Slasher Flicks is comprised of Avey Tare, Angel Deradoorian and Jeremy Hyman, names you may recognize from Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors and Ponytail. Their album, Enter the Slasher House, was originally composed by Tare on acoustic guitar, then fleshed out with Deradoorian’s keyboards and Hyman’s drums. Attentive listeners may detect distinctive signatures of each members’ previous affiliations, but the Slasher Flicks sound is a world unto itself.

Enter the Slasher House is available on Domino. It’s currently streaming with Abby Portner’s pleasantly overwhelming album-length video of damaged VHS cartoon and horror movie imagery (see below).

Ballroom Marfa presented a free concert by guitarist Marisa Anderson who played her latest songs behind the Marfa Studio of the Arts building. The concert was free and open to the public.

Combining boundless creative imagination with a deep reverence for American folk, blues and country music, Marisa Anderson’s guitar playing is fluid, emotional, dexterous and original. Signal to Noise magazine calls Anderson’s guitar work “Utterly fabulous”, Time Out London refers to her playing as “Stunning…haunting and evocative”, Pitchfork calls her latest record, Mercury, “Brilliant” and Wire Magazine says, “Her sound has strength in restless variety…Anderson’s playing is heartfelt and utterly American, free from grandstanding and steeped in respect for the old tradition.”

Recording primarily on the Mississippi Records label, Anderson’s work features improvisations and compositions inspired by Delta blues, West African guitar, Appalachian mountain music, vintage country and western, gospel, noise, rhythm, cycles, mortality, and praise. In performance, Anderson channels the history of the guitar and stretches the boundaries of tradition.

Before landing in Portland in the late nineties, Anderson dropped out of college at age nineteen to walk across the United States and didn’t stop traveling for fifteen years. Her music is a direct result of Anderson’s peripatetic existence, reflecting years of living in cars, tents and buses, traveling to Mexico with a circus, walking, hitchhiking and always playing guitar. She played guitar in the Dolly Ranchers and the Evolutionary Jass Band before going solo in 2009. In the past two years, Anderson’s music has landed her festival appearances in Europe and the United States and opening slots for artists including Godspeed You! Black Emperor, The Devil Makes 3 and Sharon Van Etten. In August 2013, KBOO Community Radio released a split 7″ featuring Anderson and Elizabeth Cotten.

As part of the Presidio County Fair, Ballroom Marfa presented a concert by The Doodlin’ Hogwallops on April 12, 2014 in Marfa, Texas.

The fair occured on April 12 at the big red barn on Golf Course Road in Marfa and featured contests in painting, collage, photography, breads, cookies, cakes, canning, pies, outdoor challenge, ranch horse trail, vet science, textiles and quilting. All those contests also had youth divisions.

That evening, starting at 6pm, folks were treated to performances by Presidio school mariachi and folkloric dancing troupes. Following those performances, from 7-9pm, was a free bootscootin’ dance for everyone by Big Bend favorites, The Doodlin’ Hogwallops. 

The fair was sponsored by the Presidio County 4H Parent Leader Association, a group of volunteers who help local 4H kids achieve their goals and dreams through different projects.

Marfa Book Company, Interdimensional Music and Ballroom Marfa presented the excellent duo, New Bums, consisting of cult-heroes Ben Chasny and Donovan Quinn, formerly of Six Organs of Admittance and Sky Green Leopards, respectively. The show took place in the Highland Annex in Marfa, Texas.

New Bums were started in 2013 by guitarist/songwriter Ben Chasny, known best for Six Organs of Admittance (and a member of Rangda, Comets on Fire and many others) and Donovan Quinn, a key member of the psychedelic folk group Skygreen Leopards. The duo came together to form the minimal project, New Bums basing their sound around dual vocals and spare instrumentation providing a cerebral and skewed look at the tradition of American folk-blues.

Marfa Myths was an annual music festival and multidisciplinary cultural program founded in 2014 by nonprofit contemporary arts foundation Ballroom Marfa and Brooklyn-based music label Mexican Summer. In 2014, the first year of the festival, Ballroom Marfa invited five bands from the Mexican Summer label to play for one day under the big sky at El Cosmico. As the festival grew over the following six years, the two organizations brought together a diversity of emerging and established artists and musicians to work creatively and collaboratively across music, film, and visual arts contexts. 

Ballroom Marfa presented a free concert by acclaimed songwriter Tish Hinojosa and her band on March 1, 2014 in Marfa, Texas.

When it comes to finding inspiration, sometimes you have to put a few miles between yourself and your hometown, or, even your country. This is exactly what Tish Hinojosa did for her 2013 album After the Fair.

Originally from San Antonio, Hinojosa spent nine years living, writing, composing, collaborating, and exploring in Hamburg, Germany. Moved by this funky corner of the world where the Beatles lived and performed, Hinojosa strolled the streets of the red light district, retreated to cafes, traversed the harbor, and paid homage to the museums and theaters dedicated to music appreciation which is never far from her heart.

The disc introduces her fans to a rich, layered sound of soul-satisfying brass, brings her children into the creative fold – her son, Adam Hinojosa Barker, wrote “Cobblestones” and her musician daughter, Maria Cristina, was the inspiration behind “Infinity Times Ten.” Hinojosa also serenades her idol, Paul McCartney, by translating and singing “A Certain Softness” in Spanish.

Having completed her album, After the Fair, with acclaimed Berlin musician and producer Moe Jaksch Jacksch, Hinojosa reestablished her Texas roots by settling back into Austin, her true home since 1988. The Austinite label is one she welcomes with open arms, not just for the triumphant return to margaritas at the Cedar Door, proper Mexican food, and quality thrifts thrift stores, but for the representation of a homecoming after an extended journey of exploration and self-discovery. Said Hinojosa of her return, “Austin will always be my home now.”