Theme: On a Mountain of Love

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized (subject to certain rules and regulations).

Philanthropy Theatre
125 Pioneer Plaza
El Paso, Texas, 79901
United States

Alejandra Dozal

Alejandra Dozal is a Licensed Professional Counselor, a Registered Play Therapist and a Shamanic Curanderismo Practitioner. Native El Pasoan, relocated to the DFW area in 2020 where she services a variety of populations, in its majority Hispanic children and adults experiencing trauma. Alejandra found a profound connection with nature and the healing practices of curanderismo and studied at the Escuela de Curanderismo, with curandera Athena Wolf in Arenas Valley, NM. As a practicing psychotherapist, she continues on the search of the integration of the ancestral healing knowledge and practices and the modern therapeutic process. Alejandra self identifies as a therapist, a curandera, an artist, and La Terremoto for her family.

Andrea Gates-Ingle

Andrea Gates-Ingle and Stephen Ingle are co-founders of Creative Kids – a twenty-four-year- old nationally recognized youth development program. Shortly after graduating from UTEP, they had a vision of positively impacting the El Paso region through the arts, in which both Andrea and Stephen Ingle have made an indelible impact. “In the beginning, and even now,” the couple says, “we are the only non-profit visual arts education institution that serves a broad base of youth in our region, ranging from pediatric oncology patients, to migrant youth, to children living in public housing, to families directly affected by the mass shooting at Wal-Mart.” Currently, they are working on eight alebrije-style animal sculptures with their youth participants that will be permanently placed at La Nube Children’s Museum. Although Creative Kids has been their baby for several years, the couple is most proud of raising their own creative kid, daughter Avelina.

Angie Reza Tures

Angie Reza Tures has worked in independent film since 2003 after graduating from the University of San Francisco with a B.A. in Media Studies and minor in Music. For twelve years, she worked as a producer, director, and editor in the Bay Area working with award-winning documentary filmmakers. Since 2011, Angie has lived and worked in El Paso, Texas. She founded the Femme Frontera Filmmaker Showcase in 2016 and serves as Executive Director of Femme Frontera. In 2020, the organization began receiving support from the Ford Foundation, Sundance Institute, Perspective Fund, and Constellations grant from the Center for Cultural Power. In 2023, Angie will complete her first feature narrative script. She is a 2022 Rockwood Documentary Leaders Fellow, a fellowship supported by the Ford Foundation.

Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Benjamin Alire Sáenz is an award-winning American poet, novelist and writer of children's books. He was born at Old Picacho, New Mexico, the fourth of seven children, and was raised on a small farm near Mesilla, New Mexico. He graduated from Las Cruces High School in 1972. That fall, he entered St. Thomas Seminary in Denver, Colorado where he received a B.A. degree in Humanities and Philosophy in 1977. He studied Theology at the University of Louvain in Leuven, Belgium from 1977 to 1981. He was a priest for a few years in El Paso, Texas before leaving the order. In 1985, he returned to school, and studied English and Creative Writing at the University of Texas at El Paso where he earned an M.A. degree in Creative Writing. He then spent a year at the University of Iowa as a PhD student in American Literature. A year later, he was awarded a Wallace E. Stegner fellowship. While at Stanford University under the guidance of Denise Levertov, he completed his first book of poems, Calendar of Dust, which won an American Book Award in 1992. He entered the Ph.D. program at Stanford and continued his studies for two more years. Before completing his Ph.D., he moved back to the border and began teaching at the University of Texas at El Paso in the bilingual MFA program. His first novel, Carry Me Like Water was a saga that brought together the Victorian novel and the Latin American tradition of magic realism and received much critical attention. In The Book of What Remains (Copper Canyon Press, 2010), his fifth book of poems, he writes to the core truth of life's ever-shifting memories. Set along the Mexican border, the contrast between the desert's austere beauty and the brutality of border politics mirrors humanity's capacity for both generosity and cruelty. In 2005, he curated a show of photographs by Julian Cardona. He lives and works in El Paso, Texas.

Christopher Kazanjian

Christopher J. Kazanjian, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at El Paso Community College. He is author of Empower Children: A Multicultural Humanistic Approach (2021) and Creating Meaning in Young Adulthood: The Self-Actualizing Power of Relationships (2023). Since 2015, Dr. Kazanjian has served as program director of the after-school program Kidz n’ Coaches-El Paso.

Garrett Thompson

Born and raised in El Paso, Texas, Garrett is a creator on the forefront of art and technology. Through his work in the film and video game industries he has become an expert in motion capture technology and practices, which he has also leveraged to great effect in his voice acting and animation work. Combined with his musical background as a violist and composer as well as his projection design work in theater for venues all over the world, he is constantly finding new ways to combine and expand the individual mediums to create spectacles far greater than the sum of their parts. Heavily steeped and educated in classical traditions, he loves collaborating with other artists and performers to help bring stories to life in ways people have never seen before.

Lucía Durá

Lucía Durá was born in Mexico City and grew up in Ciudad Juárez and El Paso. After studying and working in different parts of the United States for ten years, and realizing the creativity life in the desert inspires, Lucía made a conscious decision to return to El Paso. Each day she appreciates the ability to speak two languages and to experience the world through multiple lenses and cultures. Lucía is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Writing Studies in the English Department and Associate Dean of the Graduate School at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). In her research, Lucía focuses on understanding and leveraging community assets to solve complex problems. She facilitates productive dialogues about risk and to design sustainable social and organizational change. To do this Lucía collaborates with local and global organizations. She is a member of the Hispanic Servingness Research Council at UTEP and co-edits the Technical Communication and Social Justice journal with Jerry Savage. She is also chair of the Texas Center for Legal Ethics board of trustees. Lucía finds teaching and mentoring students an especially gratifying aspect of her career, both in the context of everyday work and in witnessing the impact of UTEP alumni in and outside of El Paso. Lucía is committed to doing her part so that people of the region have access to what they need to reach their dreams and aspirations.

Mitsu Overstreet

Mitsu Overstreet is an accomplished and recognized artist specializing in public art. His mission is to connect with different communities through the creation of art installations that connect people by helping them learn, heal, and grow as well as express their identity. Drawing on his unique cross section of experiences with graphic design, education and public art, he continues to challenge himself creatively by applying it to make an impact in his community, his artistic growth, and in his current work for the University of Texas at El Paso where he collaborates with a creative team and faculty to produce innovative teaching and learning experiences. He graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA. Mitsu has effectively executed and exhibited installations in Santa Fe, San Francisco, Atlantic City and just completed a widely acclaimed, 7,500 sq ft, mural installation for the City of El Paso.

Pablo Martinez Coronado

Pablo Martínez Coronado is a Ph.D. candidate in Borderlands history at the University of Texas at El Paso. His academic and journalistic work has centered on exploring this region because he has lived most of his life on the border. Since he was a child, he has been a passionate fan of lucha libre and the culture that surrounds it. His enthusiasm led him to explore other wrestling expressions, such as European catch, American wrestling, and Japanese pororesu. He has collaborated with digital magazines writing literary chronicles. In 2020 he won the Voces al Sol award from the Universidad Autonoma de Ciudad Juarez in the chronicle category with his book Postales, which he co-authored.

Stephen Ingle

Andrea Gates-Ingle and Stephen Ingle are co-founders of Creative Kids – a twenty-four-year- old nationally recognized youth development program. Shortly after graduating from UTEP, they had a vision of positively impacting the El Paso region through the arts, in which both Andrea and Stephen Ingle have made an indelible impact. “In the beginning, and even now,” the couple says, “we are the only non-profit visual arts education institution that serves a broad base of youth in our region, ranging from pediatric oncology patients, to migrant youth, to children living in public housing, to families directly affected by the mass shooting at Wal-Mart.” Currently, they are working on eight alebrije-style animal sculptures with their youth participants that will be permanently placed at La Nube Children’s Museum. Although Creative Kids has been their baby for several years, the couple is most proud of raising their own creative kid, daughter Avelina.