A San Antonio artist plans to incorporate historic concrete structures into her musical performances in March.
Pamela Martinez is a musician who makes music that works best in very specific places outside.
“I make immersive performances. So I love music, but I really love being engaged in the community and different spaces and interacting with space and audience in an exciting way,” she explained.
Her latest project is rooted in San Antonio's past.
“The project I'm working on right now is called Dam! D-A-M exclamation point, and it was inspired by the Espada Dam originally,” she said. “That dam is over 300 years old, and it was built for the Espada Mission to get the acequia, which is a gravity driven irrigation ditch, down to the farmlands of Espada.”
Few manmade items still do what they were designed to 300 years ago.
“I was just kind of awestricken. So once I kind of was hit by the mystery of it, I wanted to tell other people about it,” Martinez said.
That was how the DAM! series was born. One performance is on March 4 at the 19th Street Dam at Lake Elmendorf. Another performance takes place at the Roosevelt Tunnel Outlet Park near Southtown on March 25.
Martinez looks forward to hearing how those hard concrete surfaces will bounce music back into the crowd.
They do. Oh, my goodness! And the sound just reflects right back at you,” she said. “So it's this sonic experience.”
Martinez plays piano and harp, and she won’t perform alone.
“There's some musicians coming in from Austin. So there's a choir. I could go on! There's at least 20 people involved in this,” Martinez said.
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