Radio Healer is directed by: Cristóbal Martínez and Randy Kemp

Radio Healer is produced by urbanSTEW

Contact Information: Cristóbal Martínez, phone - 480-291-4475, email - christopher.m.martinez@asu.edu

Cristóbal Martínez (Chicano):  American Indian Flutes, Circuits, Digital and Analog Machines

Cristóbal Martínez, born in Santa Fe, New Mexico , was raised in the Española Valley community of Alcalde. He is a music composer and Media, Arts and Sciences Ph.D. student at the Arts, Media and Engineering Program (AME) at Arizona State University. As an artist, Cristóbal focuses upon developing music arrangements and other works that consider digital experiential media. Cristóbal resides in Arizona and produces work while under the spell of his Northern New Mexican heritage, Latin American literature and the influence of his childhood fascination with science fiction.

His works include music compositions such as Count, commissioned for modern dance at the Bonnie Bird Theatre at the Laban Centre in London, and multimedia operettas such as La Gran Barrera, performed at Gammage Auditorium in Tempe, AZ. Cristóbal co-directs the performance troupe Los Humanos in a musical production titled Radio Healer. This production is also co-directed by artist Randy G. Kemp (Choctaw Euchee-Creek). Radio Healer examines the relationships between indigenous tribal life, and technological paradigms. This work has been performed and presented to local and international audiences.

A member of the Burning Wagon Art Collective directed by John Jota Leaños, Cristóbal's compositions include music for the opera Imperial Silence. He has completed the score for three acts titled Act I: Los ABCs: Que Vivan los Muertos!, Act II: Dead Time Stories with Mariachi Goose and Friends!, and Act III: DNN: The Dead News Network. Imperial Silence has premieried at museums, galleries and festivals that include the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, and 2007 Festival de Cannes, World Theater, Monterey Bay, CA, Brava Theater, San Fransico, CA. and Mission Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA.

As a Graduate College, Doctoral Enrichment Fellow at AME, Cristóbal researches and constructs multi-user interactive environments to create culturally sensible social spaces that encourage sustained creative interpersonal behaviors. These spaces are envisioned to support multi-user goals that may include applications for art and music making, ritual, learning, play, storytelling, peacemaking, support group rehabilitation, social justice awareness, policy development, and the development of sustainable cross-cultural partnerships.

Randy Kemp (Choctaw-Euchee-Creek):  Design, American Indian Flutes

Randy is an Alumnus of the Katherine K. Herberger College of Arts at Arizona State University, recipient of a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree specializing in Painting. Before coming to ASU, Randy earned an Associate of Arts degree from the reputed Bacone Junior College in Muskogee, Oklahoma. There he studied under the artistic leadership of prominent American Indian artists: W. Richard West, Sr., Solomon McCombs and Ruthe Blalock Jones. His artwork has been exhibited in museums, galleries and private collections throughout the world. “My work includes both the traditional flat, two-dimensional depictions of tribal life, as well as works in contemporary Indian themes and views.”

Design and painted a wall mural (7’x 50’) entitled “Morning Star” for Native American Connections with the help of 30 volunteers from Make a Difference Foundation in the greater Phoenix area. A founding member of the Mayo Clinic Hospital “Sonata del Sol” music program, providing flute music for Palliative Care patients and families. He was selected by the Big Brothers Big Sisters foundation of Arizona, the Casino Arizona and the Salt River Pima and Maricopa Indian Community to design and paint a 10-foot tall fiberglass replica of a Fender Stratocaster guitar for “GuitarMania”. The guitar name Tribalcaster: Tribal Language Rocks! As a member of Actor’s workout Inc., created a one-man show of “I will fight no more, forever” the incredible anti-war speech of Chief Joseph (Nez Perce), a story of triumph and tragedy. He traveled to Australia (Aboriginal/Korrawinga) and New Zealand (Maori/Taranaki/Puniho Pa) communities as a part of an Indigenous Cultural and Arts exchange program through Scottsdale Community College (adjunct instructor). Film projects include acting credits in a short film by Doug Howard, “Chief” filmed on the Pima Indian reservation. Additionally, a self-directed video/film short “Metropolitan Rezervation” in partnership with PBS television series “We Shall Remain”, a citizen storytelling program.

Meredith Martinez:  Choreography, Contemporary Dance Performance

Meredith Martinez is a writer, choreographer, and dancer interested in different forms of storytelling. Originally from Vermont, she has been living and working in the Phoenix metropolitan area since 2002. She holds a Bachelors of Arts in English Literature and a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Dance Choreography from Arizona State University, as well as a Professional Diploma in Dance Studies from the Laban Centre in London, UK. She is currently studying for her MFA in Creative Writing at Warren Wilson College.

Jessica Mumford: Choreography, Contemporary Dance Performance

Jessica Mumford, a native of Kalamazoo, MI. She completed her BA in dance and psychology at Hope College and recently completed her MFA in Dance and Interdisciplinary Digital Media at Arizona State University. Her work with movement and media includes dance for camera, audio/visual installations with movement sensing, electronic wearables, and dance/music performance with movement-based control of media. While Jessica's current focus is in creating new forms of movement-based media, she also performs on a regular basis. She passionately continues to practice, perform, and participate in the contemporary dance community. Jessica is currently a company member in CONDER/dance and Aaron McGloin Dance. During her dance career, Jessica has had the opportunity to perform with artists such as Nora Chipaumire, John Mitchell, Todd Ingalls, Mary Fitzgerald, Karen Schupp, and Steven Iannacone. In efforts to bring her work to the greater Phoenix community, Jessica is also one of four board members for a non-profit organization for media art called urbanSTEW. urbanSTEW is a not-for-profit collective that creates art and innovative technology for use by communities.

Robert Esler: Percussion

Dr. Robert Esler holds degrees from the University of California - San Diego, Yale University and the Cleveland Institute of Music. He currently teaches at Scottsdale Community College as well as other courses in music history and technology in the Phoenix area. Dr. Esler is a trained percussionist and has been a member of several chamber ensembles and orchestras throughout the world. He performs regularly with the Phoenix ensemble, Crossing 32nd Street, which has been hailed as one of Phoenix's best new classical music ensembles. He is a performer on several albums for the Canteloupe, CIEM, Rochester University Press and Tzadik labels. Dr. Esler is also one of a few percussionists ever featured in a full length documentary to be released in the next year. The film documents one of Dr. Esler's renegade performances in the Alaskan tundra. Dr. Esler is an author of numerous articles for the ICMA (Int. Computer Music Assoc.) and is currently producing an article for a book to be released next year. Currently, Dr. Esler is also part-time faculty at Arizona State University, Polytechnic.

Lisa Tolentino: Percussion and Circuits

Lisa Tolentino is an experimental musician/percussionist and experiential media designer pursuing a Media Arts and Sciences PhD in the Arts, Media, and Engineering Program (AME) at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on developing embodied and digitally mediated learning scenarios that support constructive social interaction for students with exceptional needs. Prior to ASU, Lisa earned her BS in Computer Science and MA in Contemporary Percussion Performance from the University of California, San Diego. While in California, she performed regularly as a member of the redfish bluefish percussion group, under the direction of Steven Schick; and the Pakaraguian Kulintang Ensemble, an indigenous Southern Philippine gong ensemble. Her music has been heard worldwide in performances at the Agora Festival in Paris; Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella Series; Ensenada, Mexico; the La Jolla Music Society’s Summerfest; CalArts’ Dog Star Orchestra (directed by Michael Pisaro); Phoenix Experimental Arts Festival; and Tempe Center for the Arts. Her recordings can be found on Mode Records and in an upcoming documentary about Alaskan composer John Luther Adams. Currently, Lisa actively performs with Phoenix's premier contemporary music ensemble, Crossing 32nd Street.

Stjepan Rajko:  Dance and Computation

Stjepan Rajko is a Ph.D. student in Computer Science and an M.F.A. student in Dance at Arizona State University, and holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science from Iowa State University. His research focuses on the analysis of human movement, with an emphasis of recognition of patterns such as gestures, or inference of certain movement qualities. He is also an active software developer, recently having the honor of participating in the Google Summer of Code program with projects for the Boost library community and the WikiMedia community. Stjepan has also had the pleasure of choreographing and performing dance works at ASU and ISU, and with the Scorpius dance company in Phoenix. His work Unreal was selected to represent ISU at the American College Dance Festival in 2004.