Ivette Román-Roberto
Ivette Román Roberto is an experimental voice performer, activist, and founder of the Collective of Puerto Ricans in Houston. Her career began in California in the 1980s as part of the emerging generation of Latine performance artists. In the 1990s, she joined the “Performeros de los 90s,” a group of multidisciplinary avant-garde artists. She has performed at international events such as the Bienal de Poesía Visual at the Chopo Museum of UNAM, the Sia/Poesia gathering at the University of Bologna, the Bâtie Festival in Geneva, and NYU’s Hemispheric Institute encounters in Peru and Mexico.
Since settling in Houston, Texas, in 2005, Ivette has been an active member of Nameless Sound as a performer and instructor. In 2019, she produced RÉQUIEM, a lab-based community singing project resulting in a multimedia performance with Puerto Ricans in Houston. This project addressed the mourning and loss experienced by the community during their relocation to Houston after Hurricane Maria and later the COVID-19 pandemic. The Multicultural Education and Counseling through the Arts (MECA) sponsored RÉQUIEM with funds from the National Performance Network.
In 2023, Ivette became part of the NALAC Art Advocacy cohort and a member of the Boricuas Holding it Down project of the National Coalition Power 4 Puerto Rico. In 2024, Román-Roberto was nominated for the Nameless Sound’s Resounding Vision Award. Her goal for 2025 is to launch the Puerto Rico Community Center at MECA and to direct her new musical project, the Cantata for Progress.
