Coming up on State of the Arts, colossal spirit animals from Mexico City, a dancer's show-stopping career, and the power of music education.

These stories from around the country on this edition of State of the Arts.

Hello, I'm Mary Paul.

This week we start by taking you to Reno, Nevada where eight larger-than-life spirit animal statues from Mexico City brought color and light to the streets of downtown in a captivating public arts project.

Right now we're on the Pioneer Plaza where we have all of our spirit animals.

They are Alebrijes made in Mexico Oaxaca.

They were originally made with wood carvings, and it's very traditional in their town to have these kind of things with the vibrant colors and the designs.

My name's Miranda Izquierdo This is Emanuel Zárate We are part of the Patibulario Art I'm one of the team members, and he's one of the artisans.

[Speaking Spanish] I think the dog, personally, in my opinion, looks awesome at night just because he's more of a black and white color.

So when he has those lights, it's more purples and blues and greens, and they're on his ears and his eyes.

I also think the coyote looks amazing at night too because he's got his chest that lights up, and he's got his ears, and the snake on his back lights up.

One of my favorite ones is the armadillo because it has that contrast of the dark whites and grays on his tummy and his arms, and then he's got beautiful colors on his shell, and his little tongue sticking out is just adorable.

The vibrant colors are amazing, and we actually have photos of artists painting these sculptures as they were in the warehouses, and just seeing them hand paint those with the tiny little paintbrush, doing those details is amazing.

Just imagining them doing it with the mini ones, their original types, which are in the post office.

Those were just the inspiration to these big ones here, and they're spot on.

They really kept to that with the colors and the contrast.

It's beautiful.

Every time I drive by, there's already a crowd taking pictures of every single one of them, so it's just really cool seeing how much people are enjoying it because we worked really hard to get these down here.

Romain is awesome at trying to find a way to make it happen.

He also brought down artisans that will work with the workshops down at the basement.

[Speaking Spanish] They are all made of recycled paper mache.

They sit down and they have those already pre-made paper mache for everybody, and they're primed in white.

And then they have all of these paint and paint brushes at the tables.

And you just go through a class.

They talk you through it.

They tell you the background of alebrijes.

They tell you what the colors mean and how it makes you feel, because this is your spirit.

It's your spirit animal.

So you really want to invest your colors and your livelihood into these spirit animals.

[Speaking Spanish] We've gotten a lot of feedback with emotion and happiness, happy tears, just because we are showing a huge part of a cultural side of Mexico that makes Mexicans really, really proud.

Up next, we head to New Mexico to meet dancer Judith Chazin-Bennahum From an early age, Bennahum was interested in the art of movement.

Her training ultimately led her to dancing at the Metropolitan Opera and the Santa Fe Opera, as well as working with legends like Igor Stravinsky.

Here's her story.

How did you begin your journey as a dancer?

First of all, I lived in New York, where dance companies were prevailing.

And I fell in love with the idea of moving, of being active.

I was a very nervous child, very irrepressibly energetic.

My mother didn't quite know what to do with me sometimes.

So she took me to a wonderful studio in New York at Carnegie Hall called Fokine Ballet Studio.

It was the son of the very most famous choreographer at the time, Michel Fokine, who was the choreographer for the Ballets Russes.

I studied in this studio and I just loved ballet.

I think it was because it was so difficult and so interesting.

And it was like trying to be perfect.

And I wanted so much to make my body do what I thought was beautiful.

And also, I wanted to fly.

I wasn't scared of getting in front of an audience.

And the choreographers were quite interesting to me.

I mean, the movements and the way in which the movements expressed emotion.

And then, of course, I had a career as a professional dancer.

And that happened after I went to college.

And from there, one of your first auditions was Goldilocks?

Judith: Yes.

How was that?

Can you tell me about your first audition and that experience?

Oh my God, that was so fun.

First of all, I graduated from college.

I took my diploma and I gave it to my father, who was so happy that I went to school.

Graduated from college.

And then all I did was read Variety, which is where all the auditions took place.

And two weeks after I graduated, there was an audition.

And it was an audition with Agnes de Mille.

She was the choreographer and she was famous because she had done Oklahoma and many other Broadway musicals that were absolutely impeccable and beautiful.

So there was hundreds of people at this audition and all these people on stage.

And I was so scared.

I went in the back and I just said, "Well, this is a good experience.

It's my first audition.

I'll hang in the back."

But one of the kids I went to performing arts with, Peter Saul, was there.

And he said, "Gigi, come on.

Get in front."

I said, "No."

He said, "Yes, get in front."

So he pushed me in front.

And there I was doing this glissade, assemble, tombe pas de bourrée whatever.

And then I heard Agnes say, "Who is the redhead with the long legs?"

And that was why I got in.

She wanted a redhead with the long legs.

So I was just very lucky.

And it was a wonderful show.

The choreography, we had seven dances, seven changes of costume.

I mean, really, some very fast changes.

It was quite exhausting.

But it was a very good experience for me.

But I then decided I couldn't be in another Broadway show.

I couldn't.

It was so difficult to do seven shows, six days a week.

So after that, my friend Nancy said, "There's an audition for the Metropolitan Opera Ballet Company.

And maybe you should go and take a class with Antony Tudor.

He's the ballet director of the company."

So I went to the audition.

I met Mr.

Tudor.

He had the tallest, longest back.

And he taught a very cicchetti class.

It was very smooth, very lyrical, very formulated.

He knew exactly what the combinations would be.

But because he was a choreographer, he played with them.

And they were very complex.

So it was tough figuring out what the combinations would be, remembering them and then doing them.

But he went by me as I was standing at the bar.

And he liked to challenge dancers.

He liked to be kind of naughty.

And he said, "What did you dream about last night?"

And I was right on it.

And I said, "Why you, Mr.

Tudor?"

He loved it.

And that didn't help me at all because the audition went on for hours.

And it was really tough.

But I got into the company.

It was very exciting being at the Met.

The Metropolitan Opera is an extraordinary place to work because there are hundreds of corps, hundreds of musicians, not really, but it felt like that many.

And then we had a pretty big dance company at the time.

And it was a very exciting place to work because every day was a different opera.

And there were ballets in many of the operas.

So we were on stage all the time.

If not rehearsing, then on stage performing.

What was the first performance that you had where you were like the principal soloist?

Aida was my most exciting because it was a very challenging ballet.

There was a split at the end where I'm hiked up, what, with two guys and I had to get it exactly right.

Otherwise, one guy would tip over here or tip over there.

And there was a fantastic lift before that where I had to tumble.

It was really acrobatic.

I had to step onto one of the guy's arms, Donald's arms, and then he would flip me over and then both of them would lift me up.

And it was really not so easy to do, but it was great.

It was exciting to do that kind of movement.

So what drew you to the Santa Fe Opera as a dancer?

And how did that experience help you understand the connection between dance and opera?

I have to tell you, I wasn't too interested in opera, but I became very interested when I got into the Met.

I loved it.

And I would sit in the first wing and listen, even if I weren't in the opera.

So when John Crosby was creating a ballet company along with the Santa Fe Opera, Crosby invited Tommy Andrew to be the ballet choreographer for the ballet evenings we were to do in Santa Fe.

And Tommy came to me after one of the shows.

He was in the Met with me in the ballet company.

And he said, "Do you want to go to Santa Fe?"

I said, "Sure.

I've never been to New Mexico.

Why not?"

So when you were at the Santa Fe Opera, were there particular roles or productions that you felt had a lasting impact on you and your career as a dancer?

Judith: Sure For instance, I know you were lead in Clarissa.

I was the soloist in Clarissa.

And that was a ballet to Ravel's left-handed composition, which was a very beautiful piece.

And Tommy choreographed it.

And it was about a young woman who is taken under the wing of a rather wealthy gentleman and then really not taken care of by him and suffers as a result.

So it was very dramatic and very challenging choreography.

And the music built to a crescendo where you were just totally in the music and you lost sight of everything on stage.

You were just in the piece.

And we worked with wonderful choreographers.

We worked with John Butler and Tommy choreographed beautiful stuff.

He even did Persephone.

And we met Vera Zorina, who was a very famous ballet dancer, and got to know her and her two kids and her husband.

And she was the one who admired my dancing.

The excitement of working in Santa Fe can't be overestimated.

It was a very uplifting and I would say a very educational experience because Mr.

Stravinsky was very critical.

He had a very critical eye.

He was not easy on any singer or any musician or any composer.

He was a character of extraordinary presence.

And his wife also with very good taste and was an artist herself because she designed the costumes for Persephone.

So getting to know them was really a very privileged experience.

And how did it feel having Stravinsky in the audience watching?

It was terrifying.

Yeah, why is that?

It was his opera.

But yeah, because he was like a god.

I think Crosby felt very privileged to have him there the whole summer because music everybody loved, but they didn't necessarily know how it was played and whether the orchestra was playing it correctly.

So coming from Manhattan in the Met and performing in this open air desert place at the Santa Fe Opera, how was that experience?

Going to Santa Fe was astounding.

Not only because it was a desert and there were mountains and we were from Manhattan and all we had was buildings.

I was so taken by the sky and the way in which the clouds were so apparent.

It was like opening up your heart to the world when you went to Santa Fe.

And I think there was much more isolation in New York than in Santa Fe.

That's it.

I felt more isolated in the big city.

And I think everyone felt that way, that we were all at one with each other.

And the operas benefited from that.

So do you have any specific memories of being on the Santa Fe Opera stage?

You know, being outdoors is quite a wondrous thing, especially since you know what the background was, which was Los Alamos and the mountains and the beauty of the whole landscape.

So breathing the air outdoors, it was so full, it was so fresh.

I mean, you never felt you were in fresh air at the Met.

But you had this marvelous sense of breath, which is so important in dance, and you're moving through the space.

So you have that feeling.

Then you also feel nature.

I mean, in Persephone we were nymphs.

So I felt like I was in a forest.

After the Santa Fe Opera, it was Zorina that told you to audition for Balanchine.

Right.

It was a very good audition.

And he said, "You come to Russia with us."

This was for the Russian tour.

And I really, really wanted to go.

But the point work was very, very difficult.

And you had to be on point all the time, even in class, with Balanchine.

And I was having severe pain in my left foot.

But then working so much in ballet, of course, you're on point all the time, I began to feel pain.

And I was so excruciating at times, I realized that I couldn't do the tour.

And it was very sad for me.

I felt really struck by it, struck down by it.

And it threw me into a very kind of sad state, even though I was still dancing at the Met.

I think it taught me that if you fall down, you get up.

And, you know, dance is something that's sort of part of your soul.

It's just part of your body, I guess because it's in the body.

And you can't lose your body, you got it, for the rest of your life.

And the body speaks.

The body tells stories.

The body is history.

The body is amazing as a mechanism for expression and as a tool for your world, for the world you live in.

With the holiday season now in full swing in southern Arizona, let's take a look at some of the more festive arts and events happening soon.

A nonprofit based in Ohio embraces the restorative power of music.

Named Renovare, the group brings music to those in need of community, teaching weekly music classes to incarcerated women at the Northeast Reintegration Center in Cleveland.

Let's listen in on a lesson.

Pretty steady.

One of the things that Renovare does each week is teach in two different prisons.

And we are teaching violin, viola and cello.

For most of these men and women, they've never touched a string instrument before.

Learning to read music is a new thing.

Learning to play in a group is a new thing for a lot of them.

It's just a joy to be part of the musical communities that are formed as we are there for more years and develop more of a community and a routine together.

I am someone that was always into heavy metal rock and roll, you know, never in a million years would I thought that I'd be playing an instrument like this and actually liking that type of music and everything.

But within about three to five months into it, I got off my meds and I have stayed off my meds.

And I really contribute that to this instrument.

It helps build my day with energy.

It helps build my day with positivity.

And I'm able to share God's love through his music and that energy that it brings me.

Under normal circumstances, you don't get opportunities like this to be able to play a string instrument.

Renovare has really given us an opportunity that's truly once in a lifetime.

And I am so grateful for all that they do.

Being part of Renovare, I think, really opened my eyes to how siloed we are.

There's all these communities and it's so easy to stay in your own bubble around people who think and look just like you.

And I'm learning how much that is a bummer.

Like we really need each other and need to be going to other communities and learning from one another.

So first time I went into prison, I was like, "How have I not been doing this?

How have I not gotten to meet some of these amazing people?"

We're seeing all kinds of things I just didn't think about.

We're seeing mental health benefits of women saying that it's changed the way that they maybe use medication or not or find that they can manage their anger that they might have struggled with.

We're seeing people connecting with their kids, whether it's their child was already taking some kind of music class or learning an instrument and now they can bond over that.

Or we've even had kids of folks in our program start an instrument because their parent was playing it in our program.

We've been doing mostly classical, but we also brought in some fiddle tunes just to kind of encourage a little bit of improv and encouraging them to go ahead and think beyond that genre of, "I play violin," or "Viola" or "Cello" and it has to be classical.

Some of the ladies have made requests for things like pop music, heathens or movie music, "Beauty and the Beast," and so we'll make a little transcription for them and simplify it a bit and bring that in so that they can play some of the things that they listen to all the time.

I grew up playing the cello and I love making music and I knew from a pretty young age that I wanted music to be part of my life, but I started to feel this tension inside of myself as I continued on my musical journey because I was spending so much time in fancy concert halls and in places that felt very removed from most people's everyday lives.

And I felt for myself that I couldn't continue on sort of the standard path for what cellists are expected to do professionally.

Performing was the original heart of Renovare's activities and as we've developed our teaching programs and our songwriting programs, we have diversified our offerings, but I would say performing is still a core piece of who we are as an ensemble and how we're seeking to share our musical gifts.

Communities like incarcerated communities often get forgotten of like, "No one thinks to go there and bring the concert or bring this new experience and they don't have the option to go outside and go looking for it."

And so they are always so excited to hear music that maybe they have heard before in some cases and some of them they haven't heard before.

It helps kind of humanize them a little bit, that they're like, "Oh, we're valuable enough as human beings that you think that we deserve this experience just like anybody else out on the street would."

A lot of these women come in broken.

They come in with a lot of trauma in their lives and to have something like Renovare come in, to provide them culturally something different that they've been accustomed to, allows them to really grow in a different way.

I've noticed that the women have really grown as individuals.

They're more confident.

They're able to do something that they thought they would never be able to do and I think it's been a pretty amazing journey for a lot of the women here that have participated in the program.

The name Renovare comes from words in Spanish and Latin and other romance languages that means to renew or to restore.

And that's something that we hope that we are part of as we use our music in different spaces, whether it's our own restoration or those of people who are getting the privilege of performing for or writing songs with or teaching.

There it is.

Nice, nice.

Did you feel that?

Thanks for joining us for this edition of State of the Arts.

We'll be back next week with new stories from around the country.

Until then, I'm Mary Paul.