Martita is a performer, choreographer, curator, and teaching artist from the frontera city of Tijuana, México. She holds a Bachelor in Fine Arts from San Diego State University and was awarded Alumna of the Year in 2014.
Martita has worked with artists and companies throughout México, South America, and the US, including Lux Boreal, Cristina Baquerizo, Kim Brandt, Yanira Castro, Yoshiko Chuma, Rebecca Davis, Milka Djordjevich, Allyson Green, Jennifer Monson, Mina Nishimura, Cori Olinghouse, okwui okpokwasili & Peter Born, David Thomson, and Will Rawls & Andros Zins-Browne. Martita was part of the cast for Simone Forti’s Dance Constructions as well as for the Handles exhibition by Haegue Yang at the MoMA.
Before moving to NYC, she was a PECDA Scholar as a Young Creator and received a national fellowship from FONCA (Mexico) to study dance and to make work in New York City. When she moved to NYC in 2013, she was selected for the Fresh Tracks Residency at New York Live Arts and has served as a mentor for the NYFA Immigrant Artist Program for many years. Her work has been seen at the Chocolate Factory, New York Live Arts, “Sunday Service” at The Knockdown Center, Sundays on Broadway (Cathy Weis) Movement Research at the Judson Church, New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), HERE Art Center, Centro de Arte Contemporaneo in Ecuador, Potiker Theater at UCSD, Casa de la Cultura Tijuana, and site-specifics throughout NYC and Tijuana.
At the beginning of 2023, she embarked in the Dance and Process residency with The Kitchen in partnership with The Institute of Arts and Letters where she shared IV Cuadras in two shows in June. Martita is now a Movement Research Artist in Residency with support of the Mertz Gilmore foundation.
As a curator, Martita co-curates In/Between, the yearly exhibition for Immigrant Artists originally created in 2019 by artists Yanira Castro, Martita Abril, and Poppy DeltaDawn. This annual immigrant artist group exhibition is at New York Live Arts in partnership with NYFA’s Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program. She has also curated the Movement Research Fall Festival 2018: MR at 40: Looking Back, Looking Forward Open Performance ^3 at MR@Danspace Project. Martita has also curated Food for Thought at Danspace Project in 2020 and the Secret Journey: Stop Calling Them Dangerous symposiums for Yoshiko Chuma in 2019.
During the Spring and Fall seasons, Martita teaches workshops in Spanish for the recently arrived families as part of the iLAND (Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature and Dance) program by Jennifer Monson in collaboration with El Puente in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
Martita currently coordinates the Movement Research at the Judson Memorial Church on Monday nights, she is Trisha Brown Company Manger, and coaches in the NYFA’s Coaching Program for Immigrant Artists, resides in Greenpoint, with her partner and 29 plants.
