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While I have researched, developed, and taught in academia, academia did acknowledge my work. I do not fit into its parameters since I am unwilling to conform to its demands.

My research is focused on embodied realities, queer deconstructions, and radical connectivities.

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Displacement as a place in which one is falling out of of and being pushed into; a magical state of being there and not.
Film created by: Amber Ortega-Perez
Dancers: Molly Misgala, Susannah LeMarquand
Voice: Dmitri Peskov

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2nd Dance Film for MFA Choreography.
Inspired by Moholy Nagy for this one.
I know the credits at the end are too fast....still getting to know Premier Pro.

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Mujer Enterrada: Something Happened Here

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The full video portion of "Mujer Enterrada: Something Happened Here," an installation for Centro Cultural Aztlan's Mujeres de Aztlan y El Segundo de Febrero exhibit. Opening Reception 6-9pm, Thursday Feb. 2nd. The work is a collaboration by Laurie Dietrich, Amber Ortega-Perez, and Doerte Weber, with Erik Bosse (who shot, edited, and scored the video).

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An experimental dance film produced by Amber Ortega-Perez and Erik Bosse, with invaluable assistance from Charles Perez and Deborah Keller-Rihn. Shot in San Antonio, Texas. Music by Philip Glass.

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Queer Be-Longing is an experimental documentary series that looks at queer, lesbian relationships through the act of a prolonged embrace. Participants offer their feelings and experiences of belonging and not belonging which is predicated by whether or not a community can see joy in the queer embrace.

Filmed and Edited by Amber Ortega
https://fleshingmovement.blogspot.com/p/current.html?m=0
presented originally as an AR film, "Queer Be-Longing". Experiencing value in queer/lesbian relationships through the lens of 'belonging'.
This work is made possible and in collaboration with Mockingbird Media Arts @mockingbird_media and Artpace Teen Council @artpace and Luminaria Contemporary Arts Festival

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Queer Be-Longing is an experimental documentary series that looks at queer, lesbian relationships through the act of a prolonged embrace. Participants offer their feelings and experiences of belonging and not belonging which is predicated by whether or not a community can see joy in the queer embrace.

Filmed and Edited by Amber Ortega
https://fleshingmovement.blogspot.com/p/current.html?m=0
presented originally as an AR film, "Queer Be-Longing". Experiencing value in queer/lesbian relationships through the lens of 'belonging'.
This work is made possible and in collaboration with Mockingbird Media Arts @mockingbird_media and Artpace Teen Council @artpace and Luminaria Contemporary Arts Festival

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I often feel like I'm exploding.

My universe cracks open and some new THING oozes through the cracks or floats like dispersing lint, or seers me with warmth the way the sun feels when you step into it while moving away from a cold spot.

I know I've been a slow learner
?
Slow to mature.
Slow to understand what I think everyone else understands.

I've always felt like there are a group of 'knowing' people or persons..humans who know things, who understand things like loving, feeling, gravity, being, living; things I've struggled to understand, they 'know' these things, its like common knowledge to them, they practice these things as if it were as easy as drinking water, and I don't like drinking water. I'm in my 40's now and I'm still amazed at the people who 'know'. I'm convinced they speak a secret language. One of them may say to another, "Yeah, it's difficult being outside today, it's so hot", and there will be a pause, and lowering eyes, and some deep breaths before the other person says, "I know, its difficult". And I'm positive they were talking about existential feelings of BEING and I'm listening, not able to get past the 'it's so hot' part.

I want to know this language.

I'm drawn to those who do.

Every time I've confronted someone who I think speaks the secret language of knowing, they deny it, they say they don't know what I'm talking about, of course, I don't believe them.

Now that we are all trapped inside, my mind is spinning and my stomach feels the edge of nauseous, I'm trying to make this a moment where I can devote some time to knowing. I pitched a tent in the backyard, filled it with pillows and sturdy outdoor blankets. My cat Potato loves the tent, he stands at the entrance of it and waits for cats or humans to join him, he takes the best naps when there is another soul next to him.

I sit in the tent and read and then look at my Instagram account and then read again, and then attempt taking notes but then get annoyed by our lack of technology in 2020 that should allow me to take digital notes on a physical 3-dimensional book. And then I search for any possibly note-taking apps that can verge image and handwritten text and well typed commentary, but there isn't such a thing (if you know of an app that does this, DM me). Then I go back to Instagram and then I spend some time on GIPHY and then I eat. Who knows if my knowing has increased or matured.

My partner Brady speaks the knowing language. When she gets home I'll ask her if I make any more sense today than I did yesterday.

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I often feel like I'm exploding. My universe cracks open and some new THING oozes through the cracks or floats like dispersing lint, or seers me with warmth the way the sun feels when you step into it while moving away from a cold spot. I know I've been a slow learner ?

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I'm aware of the space between my head and the ceiling as I walk to the master bathroom.

I can smell the plastic from my shower curtain and hear the polyester in my new pants ordered on Wish.

I just finished breathing heavy over dirt and tool and planting beets. I've started a garden.

In my front yard I check on my potted plants and the small fig plant I thought was dead, my partner had faith, I didn't. Now I threaten it, demanding that it grow into a tree and not a bush. It's not that I have the power but I like pretending I do.

I live in the house I grew up in. Most people think that's quaint and nostalgically beautiful, but it's not. It's been traumatic, depressing, and I'm still leaking residue of that anger.

The house on our left is now up for sale. No one has come to view it since the quarantine. The last people who took a tour came only a week before the stay- at-home order.

I don't know if realty is an essential business but if I was homeless I think I would.

I hear the cars drive up and my little boy says to me, "hey mama, look! Its our new neighbors!" I lean forward from my folding chair situated on my front porch and I watch as the 4 people emerge from their 2 cars. As they each walk toward the entrance of the house, they are adjusting face masks and placing on blue latex gloves, some of them see us and they know we are seeing them with suspicion only because the circumstances have changed and they perceive an air of cautious judgement, 'why are they breaking quarantine to see a house?' But really, my first thought was, "there must be a dead body inside and they're going to investigate". It doesn't take long for me to realize that that isn't the case and this is just what life looks like from now on, blue latex and mouthless faces. The people finally leave.

My little boy sits on my lap and we talk about our leaning mailbox, the many times a car has crashed into our lawn, and what grandma (my mom) used to do when I was little. I tell him that she used to have three yellow rose bushes in the front garden, cut from her mother's garden. I clearly see the images, I can smell the water pouring from the hose, I can feel the space, of my grandma's garden, the proximity between my young skin and the rose leaves, my hands and the succulents, my forehead and the pink crepe myrtle.

Then my other neighbor, who lives on the other side of us, emerges maskless from his home and crosses the street with a plate of Bar-B-Q, he's been grilling since early this morning, he grills for every occasion or holiday.

Today is Easter.

He ignores me, he won't even look at me. I've tried greeting him and he just grunts.

My neighbor hates me. He hates me because I divorced my husband. He hates me because I now have a female partner. I'm not guessing at this, he has said as much in front of my kids to their dad. They no longer let my little boy play with their grandson, they used to be really good playmates. It took my little boy about two years to get over that. The days and nights I would sit with him, holding his gaze as he fought back tears for something he couldn't understand.

I grew up with these neighbors, they moved into their house only months after my parents moved into ours, 1973. I played with their two daughters. We went to preschool and high-school together, we shared life stories, their mom taught me how to cumbia. But their dad, Ramón, was mean. He belittled his daughters and kept his wife imprisoned. He was a tyrant.

When I was still a baby or toddler, my dad would work late and Ramón would get drunk and bang on our front door demanding to see my mom, he was infatuated with her and wanted to rape her. My mom was beautiful. He terrorized her, scared the shit out of my brother and made my sister rage with hate.

I remember him making fun of my dad cuz my dad went to college. He would also make fun of my dad if our house wasn't neatly tended. He would say things like, "you went to college, and you can't even afford to keep your house in good shape, man! " or "you need to cut your lawn, man, you went to college, and you don't know how to do that!?"

He was jealous and it was vitriolic. He haunted my childhood. All the kids who lived on my block knew to stay away from Ramón.

Once when I had my own oldest two children, we watched from our kitchen window as he killed a small oppossom with a shovel. We were stunned, we couldn't move as he kept pounding the shovel down on something, we heard the metal hit something soft and the sound of grunting. My kids had been watching that possum for days, and were excited to have a wild creature to track and make stories about. On that day, after watching the killing, they both looked at me and searched my face for a way to respond. They still remember that Ramón claimed it had rabies.

As I watch this old, small, man cross back to our side of the street, I want to yell at him, to demand his attention, to rage with the fear he made us all feel so many years ago. My jaw tightens and I lean my head against my little boy's back as he sits on my lap, "hey mama, did I ever tell you I saw a car drive down the ditch once?"

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I’m aware of the space between my head and the ceiling as I walk to the master bathroom.

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¿Cuanto Cuesta?

I don't take anything for granted

everything is earned

everything is justified

the value is set

the cost paid

Cuanto Cuesta?

I was raised in a world where my presence and existence had to always be reasoned out

why are you here

who invited you

do you know the owner

I'm always paying

I'm going around calculating the expense of a look, a smile, a handshake, a hug, a kiss, a fuck, a relationship....

each step is weighed;

the measure of a thigh-knee-ankle-hip-bone and its equivalent in visibility

a tag-reference-name drop-letter of recommendation

Cuanto Cuesta?

I'm earning my keep but I'm not sure who's my boss

I'm wasting my time, holding space for that white chick's purse

I'm paying the expense for someone else's experience

I'm generating the lived knowledge for the next text book on marginalized queer Xicana old ladies who used to have achievable dreams

¿Cuanto Cuesta?

I leave my house with good intentions; holding my own space,

loving myself,

forgiving my parents,

acknowledging the ancestral trauma,

staying truthful and honest with my own desires...

all it takes is one gringa like a black hole sitting in a chair

all it takes is one westernized man making assumptions

it takes the end of May to remind me I'm out of a job

taking me to the end of my rope

to the end of my ride

I want to decide

and make a decision

to quit feeling like my life needs to be measured

I want to be active and pro my life

and right now I don't have the means

I spent all my value on paying for my presence up to now

and I'm thinking of reaching in

to carve at the remaining marrow of energy I may still possess

to pay for a way out of this cycle

at the moment though it looks like I don't have anymore left to give

except a heaving last minute effort to push my children off this scale

so they can float

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¿Cuanto Cuesta? I don't take anything for granted everything is earned everything is justified the value is set the cost paid Cuanto Cuesta? I was raised in a world where my presence and existence had to always be reasoned out why are you here who invited you do you know the owner I'm always paying I'm going around calculating the expense of a look, a smile, a handshake, a hug, a kiss, a fuck, a relationship....

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I'm never sad for the night since it always disappears when I'm sleeping...I know another will come.
I mourn the morning hours.
I see it thinking about leaving, I watch it consider its exit.
Each time I'm struck to stillness,
seeing its back, walking away from my company.
When it's gone all I have left is to reminisce and remember how my body felt inside its belly.
How my eyes squinted and pressed closed with pleasure under the morning's heat,
beneath its humid haze,
secure.
I'll long for the morning that's gone and sulkingly trudge through the loud and raucous day.
The day is for socialites.
The day is for talkers.
The day is for people who like to call on the phone.
The day is full of wanderings for me.
I can't ever know what direction I should be facing.
The morning is gone and the night is too mysterious.
It appears of a sudden,
the night.
I'm always surprised by its arrival.
It never tells me when it's coming.
I find it staring in my window when I walk through my living room.
It scares me...makes me think I've forgotten something.
The night makes me worry and regret...I spent my day fidgeting and ruminating, but never did the thing.
Now it's night.
I only have hope when the night swings me to sleep and I'm filled with the soft anticipation of morning.
So much like you.
So much like you.
The waiting and the leaving and the anticipation.
When I have you in my arms.
When I have your lips on mine, I squint and press my body into your warmth.
You leave, I watch you walk so far away...out of sight.
I find a corner and build a nest.
Twining sensations together, twisting smells and lingering touch, braiding sounds and memories around me.
This nest is becoming soft and there is only room for one.

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I'm never sad for the night since it always disappears when I'm sleeping...I know another will come. I mourn the morning hours. I see it thinking about leaving, I watch it consider its exit. Each time I'm struck to stillness, seeing its back, walking away from my company.

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Corporeal Narratives: Queering Contemporary Dance in San Antonio by Amber Ortega

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Corporeal Narratives: Queering Contemporary Dance in San Antonio by Amber Ortega

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San Antonio may be overlooked as it is browner than other major cities in Texas, and although people of color are the numerical majority in the city, there is little ethnic or racial diversity in the field of contemporary dance. Brown bodies are not generally thought to be intelligent, innovative, or having capacity for technology. Corporeal Narratives; an intimate evening of dances, curated by Amber Ortega and sponsored by Palo Alto College's Teatro Palo Alto, intended to make a statement: Our bodies desire and cultivate new futures, possibilities, and opportunities. This unique dance concert intentionally focused on queer voices of color in contemporary dance. The stories that were shared reflected diverse cultural experiences across communities of color in the U.S. This is important to point out because many White Americans tend to expect all people of color within a cultural group or ethnicity to be the same; this is a constant form of marginalization of brown and black artists. Within the arts, we are either unseen or only seen because of an expectation to perform a particular kind of colored-ness that is in alignment with what the outside majority consider to be inherent cultural markers.

The evening-length concert, Corporeal Narratives, an intimate evening of dances, featured international guest artist, Dr. Leonard Cruz, a Filipino-American, San Antonio native and health expert at Folkwang University, Essen Germany; Adel Hernandez, a NY/San Antonio-based artist and PhD candidate at Texas Woman's University; Fabiola Torralba, born in Guerrero, Mexico and San Antonio based activist/artist; and Amber Ortega, San Antonio artist artistic director of W-I-P/Works In Progress, and on the dance faculty at Palo Alto College and UTSA. These are the questions that emerged.
How has San Antonio informed your work for Corporeal Narratives?
Leonard Cruz: Having been raised in San Antonio as a military brat near Lackland Air Force Base and in the Edgewood School District where my mother still lives today, I was exposed to the predominantly Mexican culture with neighborhood barbacoa/taco restaurants, bakeries, auto/tire shops, and colorful piñata/flower stores. My parents exposed me to my Filipino cultural heritage by being involved with the Filipino/Pacific Islander Communities that existed in San Antonio. This is where I first fell in love with dance. I view dance as a celebration of life. It is a ritual of coming together to experience an exchange of diverse stories through bodies..

Adel Hernandez: I was born and raised in San Antonio. My family all resides in the south and out towards Von Ormy. On my mom's side we are Native American from the Lipan Apache Tribe, mixed with Mexican, Spanish, and German. San Antonio has also been this nexus where musical genres and cultures of Latin American descent meet. It's like a party. But what are we celebrating? My work in progress, Bailando Con Las Sombras, is a party of resurgence.
What is the relationship between story and body for you as a choreographer?
Fabiola Torralba: I know San Antonio by its native Payaya Indian birth name, Yanaguana. The name references the once abundant spring waters that identify the small central Texas region. I was born on the coastal city of Guerrero, Mexico and water plays a significant role in my identity and creative work. As an immigrant, I ask what my relationship to other displaced people is. Cuerpx de Agua was created in collaboration with Mexican immigrant and performance-based artist, Eleonor Maciel. The piece is a response to forces of displacement through movement, light, and sound.

Amber Ortega: I'm first generation American on my dad's side and second generation on my mom's. I'm Mexicana and X/Chicana; I remember my parents cringing when in my late teens I told them I identified as Chicana. San Antonio shelters and nurtures liminal spaces in quietude. This city is embedded in my work as an energy and as history, like texture and memory. My new work, LandScaping was an act of visually constructing a landscape as a way to tell the story of how my grandmother said she felt, having to live her life away from her home in Mexico. The process of making this work in collaboration with my son, violinist Topiltzin Perez, was a way for me to share her story with my son in a meaningful way.

AO: We are always performing safely or on the edge of our body awareness. Only my body can tell my story. Only my body can remember my experience. It is important that bodies that normally do not have access to platforms be heard, and are provided with their own spaces so they can feel safe to access their stories.

LC: The relationship between story and body is inseparable and everything! A great artist is always embodied and empowered with many stories that are shared.
What does queerness have to do with your work?
FT: The body is a vessel of knowledge that is derived from many sources. As a working class person, it is important that we see our bodies beyond how we have been defined by colonial powers, as cheap and readily available labor to be exploited for the profit of masters. The body is a powerful medium for building connection. It can express, enact, and materialize meaning through our own agency and from the knowledge that comes from our own experiences.

AH: Dance to me is much more than something you see on the stage. I bring awareness to the body, my body, our bodies including yours because you are also in the space of the work. You are very much involved in the dance as much as I am. We are exploring the journey of, what my colleague Fabiola Torralba says, "Cumbia sexualities."

FT: Water like migration, gender, and sexual expression, is queer because it exists beyond confines. In pushing past inscribed boundaries, we create new pathways that force shifts to occur.
How do you label yourself and your artistic practice?
LC: Many of the roles within the cultural and indigenous dance forms which I danced as a child were gender fluid in that they transformed to different gods/goddesses, animals, deities, and spirits. As an openly gay artist I struggled a lot with my body being very Pacific Islander (meaning broad and muscular). When I first started to take ballet classes in my teen years, teachers always commented about how too short or stocky I was to pursue a career in dance even though they commended the grace and talent that I brought to the studio. So, the struggles influence my artistic work in that I am inclusive and very open to what others can authentically bring to my work as a choreographer and or performer.

AO: I have always been determined to ignore the social constructs of gender in my work, placing humanness over gender is a primary intention for me. Queer is a term that doesn't ever hold still long enough for any social structure to put up its scaffolding. I personally identify as queer because I have a future hope which I am determined to live now; a hope that one day humans will all have equal value and equal space.

FT: As a movement based artist. I see dance as a kind of dialogue that can facilitate awareness, critical engagement, and empathy.

LC: I consider myself a "Contemplative Artivist" or someone that believes in transformation and healing through creativity and the arts by empowering oneself and others. Allowing all voices to be heard and seen through dance is what needs to be elevated because without dance and the arts there would be no joy in life.
-Edited by Fabiola Torralba and Amber Ortega
AH: I have been a queer artist. I have been a ChicanX Artist. I have been a performance artist. This is a complex question for me since I have practiced and experienced movement in various ways and I'm still searching for where my unique dance practice can reside. The work I have been making has been generating out of my research interests in queer futurism and Cumbia dance studies.

AO: I simply classify myself as a movement artist and choreographer. I want to express the importance of access to public platforms for those who are underrepresented. It's important that the expectation or burden of translation be lifted for artists of color. There needs to be spaces where difference can exist as is, simply accepted and not questioned. Corporeal Narratives, an evening of intimate dances accomplished this for us as San Antonio grown, contemporary dance artists. We hope to continue having this event in the future and to add new voices from queer choreographers of color in South Texas.

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Corporeal Narratives: Queering Contemporary Dance in San Antonio Towards Voices of Color

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San Antonio may be overlooked as it is browner than other major cities in Texas, and although people of color are the numerical majority in the city, there is little ethnic or racial diversity in the field of contemporary dance.

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Texas Lens: Leading The Crossings in San Antonio

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Damaris Ferrer describes a bridge as a portal and any path or structure that serves as a connector. The Crossings is her global project which uses a massive, red fabric with eight elastic waistbands for eight movers as a catalyst.

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Embodied Writing Session are hosted via Zoom along with Lauren Tietz. We would like to invite any dancer/embodied practitioners who are interested in embodied writing practices to join us.
The sessions are led by whoever wants to share their practice or experiment with practice.

I will share zoom links on here. The dates and times are not "consistent", but we have been meeting Mondays sometimes around 10am CST or 2pm CST.

You can message me or reply here if you are interested.

We are also gathering a knowledge bank and a writing archives for some kind of publication (live, hard copy, digital, NFT).

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I'm fascinated by digital spaces as places for choreography and habitations for relationship and communication. I do believe that networked, online spaces are not devoid of the senses, and are indeed sites of 'liveness'.

Now, as we are all having to move within the networked spaces, I am hopeful for new awareness while at the same time, wary of the future holding anything for laborers of the body.

Now I do most of my investigation in this realm as a member of MotionDAO