Frederick Hammersley Fund, New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation.

.New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

and Viewers Like You.

FOR 100 YEARS, THE BURNING OF ZOZOBRA IN SANTA FE HAS PROVIDED A POWERFUL RITUAL OF RENEWAL THAT REMINDS US OF OUR SHARED HUMANITY.

THE KRAVIS CENTER BLOCK PARTY OF WEST PALM BEACH THROWS OPEN THE DOORS WITH A CELEBRATION WHERE EVERYONE BELONGS.

THE "TIMELESS" EXHIBIT AT ARCHBOLD BIOLOGICAL STATION BLENDS ART AND SCIENCE TO EXPLORE AND PROTECT FLORIDA'S WILD ECOSYSTEMS.

IT'S ALL AHEAD ON COLORES 100 YEARS OF ZOZOBRA >>Ray Sandoval: The name Zozobra means gloom or anguish.

Zozobra is created from us every time we let ourselves down and we create gloom in our lives or we create gloom in other people's lives.

We put out this negative energy and that negative energy accumulates until you have this 50 foot specter.

Tony Hillerman, who's a very famous author, he once said that you know if Zozobra didn't burn, the aspens may not turn yellow, winter may never come.

You know, for us Zozobra is Santa Fe's New Year.

People tell me that they make resolutions the day after Zozobra, right?

It's, it's kind of crazy, but it's that importance of renewal.

[Music] The tradition was started by a man named Will Schuster.

He was born in Philadelphia, got drafted into World War 1.

Went to France and was mustard gassed in the trenches of France.

Came back to Philadelphia and was told that he had about six months to live.

His lungs were so bad, and so he had a choice.

He could either stay in Philadelphia and die, or he could move out west and see if he could live.

So he moved to Santa Fe and Schuster became part of what was called Los Cinco Pintores.

And it was really the artists that really started Santa Fe down the path of becoming the art enclave that it is today.

And it's pretty funny because when they started, of course, there was not really a market for art, and so they were very poor.

And so the five painters lived together and the locals would call them "five nuts in a hut".

Well, on Christmas Eve of 1923, Schuster sold a sculpture that he had been working on for about six months.

And so he goes to his compatriots and he says, Hey, you know what?

I'm tired of eating rice and beans.

This new hotel, La Fonda just opened up downtown.

Let's go have tequila and have actual steak.

So they get to La Fonda and they're drinking and they're eating, and everyone's just in a really bad mood, and Schuster's really upset with this.

And so he grabs a sketch pad, which he always carried with him, and he takes out pieces of paper and he hands it to each of his compatriots.

And he demanded that they write down what was bothering them.

And after some convincing, they did it.

And then he gathered it up in the middle of the table.

He grabbed the candle and he lit it on fire.

And he declared that all their gloom was gone.

And so this was kind of the spark in Schuster's mind that you could physically write down what was bothering you and burn it away.

He just needed kind of a vessel in order to do this.

And so the first Zozobra takes place in Will Schuster's backyard, and it's only five feet tall.

But by 1926 now, Zozobra has grown to 20 feet, and it's on the banks of the Santa Fe River with the cathedral over Zozobra's shoulder.

And so Schuster is starting to think about how do I get a deeper meaning into this?

And so that's when he invents these other characters, the gloomies and the torch bearers and the fire spirit, and it all comes together in this mythology that we have today.

I think that he understood, even back in the 1950s and 1940s, that there had to be an opportunity for people to have to come together as a community.

But also an inflection point for just looking back and kind of thinking about what it means to be a human being.

And as we've gotten into our social media, TikTok 40 second World, we just don't interact as humans anymore.

And so I think anything that takes us out of that and just pushes the pause button on that and puts us back with our community and gives us an opportunity for self-reflection, I think that that's really, important.

>>Ray Sandoval: Traditions live and breathe by the fact that you have people who are involved.

We have like four or five young men, nine years old, eight years old, 16 years old, that are coming to help us construct.

That's going to be the future of this tradition.

And so any way that we can incorporate the community we want to, because Kiwanis is the legal title owner, but New Mexico is the equitable owner of Zozobra.

And so they have to be involved.

They have to be able to touch and feel and do those things because without that, our tradition would die.

[Cheering] What was really important to Will was the fact that Zozobra was not a martyr.

He wasn't somebody that was just going to sacrifice.

We had just, as we created him, we had to do him in.

We had to show up.

We had to give that fire spirit that juice to be able to destroy him.

And if we don't, Zozobra will win.

Part of what's really important is still this idea of writing down your gloom.

It's something that's really sacred.

And people will bring us old love letters.

They'll bring us divorce papers, they'll bring us wedding albums with people cut out.

I've seen all these sorts of things.

But I will tell you that my most emotional gloom was a Zozobra day where a security guard came and got me and said that there was this woman there and she asked if she could see me.

And as I approached her, I thought she was holding this little blue blanket in her hand.

When I got there, she explained to me that she had Stage Four cancer and that her doctor had basically said that this is it.

She needed to make preparations for passing away in order to emphasize the point, he pointed to her hospital gown and said, that'll be the last article of clothing that you ever wear.

And hearing that did something inside her where she decided she was going to fight back that she wasn't done living.

And so she actually went into remission and she'd been in remission for two years.

And it wasn't a blue blanket, it was her hospital gown.

And she was asking me to put it inside Zozobra.

She said, is that okay?

Can I put it in?

I said, "No!"

She kind of looked shocked.

I said, "No, you need to put this into him."

And so I walked her to Zozobra and she put that hospital gown.

And I remember that year as I ignited him, I was able to see that hospital gown burn.

It was quite emotional.

Zozobra is not the embodiment of evil.

He's in the embodiment of gloom.

And I love that word because gloom is kind of, it's in the gray scale.

It's not black.

It's not white because there's lots of things that cause you gloom, right?

And so what that says to me is there's a belief that in as human beings, we are good, but we do these things that cause ourselves worrying and anxieties, and we do these things that cause other people that.

And so if you're able to then take a step back every year and say, "Okay, am I going to be more like Zozobra and continue to put gloom into the world, or am I going to be more like the fire spirit and put light and hope into the world?"

You look around our nation, you look around our world, there's all these things that divide us, but there's so much more that actually unites us.

And when we come together and we interact just as human beings, we realize that again, that we're all in this together.

We only have a little limited time on this small rock.

We all want to be loved.

We want shelter.

We want to be cared for.

And when you have a community event that does that and places people together, it reminds them of our humanity.

And I think that that's critical to everything that happens going forward.

So I think that if Schuster were here, I think he'd be very proud of us.

MUSICAL CONNECTIONS [Drums] Music is all about communication.

And when you get to communicate with kids like that and break through on a very close, personal level, it's super cool to see that energy and be able to play with that.

It's always really rewarding and fun.

I've been teaching for well over 20 years now and that never gets old.

I love it every time.

This is our first ever inaugural community block party.

We've basically just thrown our doors open to the entire community with about 30 free events and some great food trucks.

We're very fortunate to have such a wonderful space and a great campus.

And so, it just seemed like the right thing to do and to bring all of the other regional organizations, which is part of our mission and mandate, to bring them in here.

We have the symphony, we have the ballet, we have dance schools, we have dance classes.

And to be able to have all those people under one roof, creates a really nice atmosphere for the community.

We'll have outside performances, music from all over the world.

We want it to be a welcoming place.

We want everyone to feel like they belong here.

I've seen little ones who are barely walking, and I've seen people who need walkers, and everybody seems to be having a great time.

[Drums] Miamibloco is the samba percussion community.

We are a teaching ensemble.

We bring people together to learn how to play drums and become a community of neighbors and friends where they would be strangers otherwise.

The drums are just an excuse to come together with a purpose, to learn all the rhythms that are present in South Florida so that we are more connected to ourselves and to the different cultures that are present in our city that makes us the vibrant community that we are.

I think so often you kind of separate and divide based on, you know, audience and ages, da, da, da, but music should be for everybody.

We have our musical petting zoo.

We've got percussion instruments; we've got some keyboard, string instruments.

We've got a half-sized cello for little kids to try out.

We have two different sizes of violins for them to try.

We have percussion instruments.

We have percussion that's also like keyboards, so there's like a xylophone.

There's bells and tubular bells.

What's really interesting is that when an instrument gets in a person's hands, they start to understand what it takes to actually play an instrument.

And even adults are trying out the instruments.

So, the goal is really, you know, for them to have fun, really, and experiment.

Experimenting is something that we don't always have the time to do.

So, this is their chance to experiment.

Young and old, you know.

Palm Beach Opera offers its main stage productions here at the Kravis Center.

We saw kids who are excited about the singing part.

We have also seen kids who are very excited about helping us out with costume design.

It's one of the exciting things about opera, is that there's something for everybody.

Today, Young Singers is doing a community singalong.

We usually do a big choral concert, but today, we invited the community to come along.

We're joined by Holy Trinity Episcopal Church and the United Methodist Church of the Palm Beaches, along with our high school ensemble of singers.

[Singing] We're now in our 21st year.

Started with 75 kids, we now have 350 in our core program, which actually meets here at the Kravis.

And then we have a south county choir and then we have two choirs out in Belle Glade as well.

And we have afterschool choirs that serve about 2000 kids a year.

[Singing] We believe everybody can sing.

And so, today, is the time to come together and just have a good time and as a community, plus the parents get to sing with the kids.

[Singing] My name is Lula Rios and I'm with Elastic Bond.

I'm a vocalist songwriter.

[Music] Our music is like a fusion of various styles.

Like we blend our Latin roots with a lot of influences we have of like soul and funk and hip hop.

[Music] You know, we get people to dance a little bit and also like, you know, tell a message with our song.

So, we love to share that with all kinds of people.

Always shine your light, you know, whatever it is that you are, wherever it is that you come from.

[Music] My name is Mickerson Desir and today, I was doing the beatbox class.

Mostly percussion and teaching children how to take certain syllables phrases and turn 'em into sounds.

The part of the show is literally the kids and their involvement.

I can't do what I do without them being who they are.

So even if it's a short little five seconds that they have of percussion that they learned from the class, that's perfect.

That's all that I need, 'cause I will take off with that and I'll feed off of it and we will make a beautiful sound together.

To see the joy on somebody's face when they're like, yes, I can do something, and you know that you taught it to them, it makes you feel great and whole as a person because you're like, yeah, same spark that I have inside of me, you have inside of you now.

So now let's share it with everybody else and let's, you know, try to bring in the entire crowd.

It's encouraged that parents get on and actually like, you know, try to participate because it literally brought more children into the circle and said, hey, if that person's mom can do it, then that means my mom can do it too, and that means I can do it too.

And that encourages them to participate even more.

"Yeah, you guys are a lot more talented and a lot more credible than you guys think.

Like, that was awesome."

[Music] My name is Paige Hernandez and I consider myself a multidisciplinary artist, which means that I do a little playwriting, choreographing, directing and performing.

"This one's for you, abuelita."

As a part of the block party, I am doing one of my solo shows, which is called "Havana Hop!," which is a children's story that's based in confidence and culture and how you find those things by finding out more about yourself and your family's roots.

[Performance] "Havana Hop!"

is extremely interactive, so it's a dance party from the beginning of the show.

There's also bilingual with Spanish and English.

There's also lots of talk about biology, specifically with the identity of a flower.

So, there's artful learning and engagement kind of all wrapped in to one.

And it's a solo show, so I represent three different women in my family.

[Performance] There's a lot of intentionality in this show just about keeping everybody moving to just keep the audience active and to experience a story in a different way.

I'm just elated and thrilled to be a part of the block party in particular, which really is about bringing the community out, especially for free performances that have fantastic representation, that are mindful of culture, and that really just allow for a party to happen in a performing arts space like this.

It's really exciting.

MYSTERY OF NATURE [Soaring Music] The best part of my job is being able to see the things that would otherwise be mysterious.

The natural world is cryptic, it's right under our noses, but we often don't understand what we're seeing, and I love trying to understand what we're seeing, and I love to try to be close to the things that are mysterious to us.

Archbold Biological Station is an independent science organization, it's a field station, that is based in Highlands County, Florida.

It's designed to host long-term ecological research, so by long-term, I mean decades long.

Artists, scientists, educators come from all over the world to Archbold to try and understand and get a glimpse of the very unique, highly biodiverse ecosystems that Archbold hosts, and understands and collects data on.

- The Wild Space Gallery was opened by the Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation.

The foundation is a collaborative mission to save the Florida Wildlife Corridor.

So, the corridor is 18 million acres of connected landscape and waterways that support wildlife and us people here in the state of Florida.

- Wild Space Gallery is established to really, I guess, to bolster, and get out the message of the Florida Wildlife Corridor.

- From our beginnings, we have incorporated storytelling, and also artwork.

Our founder, Carlton Ward, Jr., is a National Geographic photographer, and through his images, he has, and continues to, raise awareness of the wildlife corridor, and so here at the Wild Space Gallery, we hope to bring that piece of art and storytelling that has been the true vein of our values and our mission from the beginning, and spread it to the people, to bring more awareness to the corridor.

- There's a strong relationship between science and art, so, in some ways, that's the inextricable link between science and our creative mindset, is what fuels both scientists and artists.

And often, you find those skill sets and those sensitivities in the same person, and Archbold's very lucky that we attract those types.

[Upbeat Music] The title of this exhibit is Timeless: Art, Science, and Nature at Archbold Biological Station, and each piece connects to that in some way.

- I'd have to say that my favorite piece is the ant lab, which it sort of reproduces the workspace of Dr. Mark Deyrup, who was an entomologist, and has been studying ants in Florida since 1982.

And so, his area, I could never decide if it was an artist's studio or a scientist's laboratory.

- We have microscopes, and you can see the little hairs on the ants, so it brings in the science down to a really small level.

And then you have the woodcut prints that show the landscape, and it pulls you back.

It pulls you in, and it pulls you back, and the farther you stand away from it, the more 3D it looks.

Then we have the people in the field, too, that do the art, science, and are in nature, so combines all three, and it gives a perspective of how many levels that nature can give us, and how much we are connected to nature.

So, scientists are artists in themselves in what they produce, and we put that on display here.

- A lot of different kind of artists and scientists have worked at Archbold over the years.

One, I think, of the most unusual, would be Evelyn Gaiser, and Evelyn is a professor, she's a limnologist.

Limnologist means one who studies freshwater.

There's a lake at Archbold called Lake Annie, and so over a year's time, she studied the temperatures in Lake Annie.

And she is also a classically trained musician.

So, she looked at those data points, and she said, "Huh, that looks kind of like a musical score."

So basically, she created a musical score from, using the data points.

It's curiosity, it's passion for figuring out what's going on, it's a leap of imagination.

So, I think that scientists and artists have that very much in common.

Evelyn's work sort of exemplifies what happened there.

- Archbold is embedded in the corridor, and the values of that landscape, and the values of the people in that landscape, are sort of distilled in the art that you see here.

- [Liz Nail] What we do here at the gallery is try to connect people through art to nature, no matter where they're from.

- [Joe Guthrie] But our hope is that you can get that little boost of inspiration and curiosity to take you out to the field to try to experience it.

[Soaring Music] The award-winning arts and culture series ¡COLORES!

is now available on the PBS App, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and at NMPBS.org.

From classic episodes to brand new shows, ¡COLORES!

is everywhere.

Watch now on your favorite NMPBS platforms.

Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Fund, New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation.

.New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

and Viewers Like You.