5th Annual Loisaida Festival TheaterLab 2018

Co-produced by MEZCOLANZA NYC & Loisaida Inc.

Starting at 12:00 pm on La Plaza Cultural Community Garden

[Read Press Release here!]


The Loisaida Festival’s Theater Lab, a production of Loisaida Inc. with Mezcolanza NYC, returning for the third year to the Plaza Cultural on the SW corner of 9th Street & Avenue C in the East Village as part of the annual Loisaida Festival on Sunday, May 27th. Among the highlights of the program is the New York premiere of ¡Ay María!, a play that explores the post-Maria reality for an isolated group of neighbors in Puerto Rico that must come together after the storm.

The play was initially written to provide catharsis to performer and audience alike following the devastation of Hurricane Maria. In turn, members of Mezcolanza NYC will be among those discussing the role of contemporary theater and performance in post-Maria Puerto Rico as part of a panel discussion organized by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, which will take place days before the festival, on Thursday, May 24th at 6pm.

Loisaida Inc. remains committed to the voices of Puerto Rican playwrights and performers in wake of Hurricane Maria. Following a special one-night only performance of Pateco, el sepulturero by acclaimed Puerto Rican actor Teofilo Torres this past December, the Loisaida Center will again host another timely theatrical work that addresses the aftermath of Hurricane Maria with humor, improvisation, satire, and introspection.

This creative window into the island’s trauma and the resilience of local communities is also an extension of the theme of the annual Loisaida Festival: “Bridging Resurgence: From Sandy to Maria.”


Schedule:


12:00 pm. Fernandito Ferrer / DJ /

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the artist: Fernandito Ferrer is a soulful singer-songwriter of nueva trova and folk fusion from Sabana Grande, PR. This year at Loisaida’s TheaterLab he will be spinning an eclectic mix of reggae, pop and soul to jump start the afternoon. Fernandito is a long time Loisaida contributor and once again we have been fortunate to have him as  TheaterLab’s  stage manager. His services as a stage manager are very underrated as he’s experience spans over 20 years in the industry.


12:25 pm. Julián Garnik / Performance / 2018 Loisaida Theater Lab Emcee

Title: A mis Amigos de la Locura

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the artist: Julián Garnik is an actor and director from Puerto Rico based in New York City. His theatre credits include Jacob in Morning at the Bridge Theatre in Manhattan and El actor tiene permisos part of the III Festival del Monólogo Latinoamericano in Cienfuegos, Cuba. As a director, his short films La Secadora and Tessellation have been screened in several festivals around the world, such as the Puerto Rican Heritage Film Festival and the Durham Regional International Film Festival.


12:35 pm. Anthony Rosado / Performance /

Title: Hatuey’s Dream

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the piece:  For the sake of revealing true stories, archiving indigenous & contemporary Caribbean practices, and sharing methods of ancestral commemoration, I will facilitate interviews. As part of the Native Caribbean Heritage Preservation Project, the interviews function to provide future generations with the inherent understanding of where they come from, so they may know who to become. Interviews with historians, contemporary practitioners, and other descendants of Caribbean peoples will be recorded in effort to (1) act as a digital archive with printed transcriptions and (2) portions of each interview will be presented in a solo performance where I embody each interviewee. This form of oratory storytelling descends from Native Caribbean communicative modes of information sharing and is glorified in Hatuey’s Dream.


12:50 pm. Calle Joroba / Clown Theatre /

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the artist: : Calle Joroba es un colectivo de clown teatral, teatro físico, circo y títeres creado por el mimo, teatrero y maestro Luis Oliva en el año 2014. La misión del colectivo es poder exponer a través de estas técnicas temas universales como lo son la creación, la escasez del agua, la contaminación del aire, entre más. Su repertorio de piezas incluyen “Am i Ea” (2015), la primera pieza que estrenó el colectivo en el Circo Fest En el 2015 y “Wata” (2016) también presentada en el Circo Fest, que luego estuvo de gira por diferentes escuelas en Puerto Rico. .


1:15 pm. Casa Cruz de la Luna / Theater /

Title: The Marquis de Sade is Afraid of the Sea (second movement)

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the piece: A re-visitation of the 1918 legendary earthquake in the South West of Puerto Rico; bodies resurrected from the flood; agitation of the masses, and the peaceful violence of quotidian life meet in the staging of this text by Aravind Enrique Adyanthaya. Featuring: Alejandra Morales, Christopher Cancel, Laura Mercedes and Caridad del Valle.


1:35 pm. Teatro 220 / Improv Troupe /

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the artists: Grupo de jóvenes actores latinos que por medio de la improvisación teatral, llevamos comedia, música y entretenimiento para toda la familia. Nuestro fin es llevar alegría, risas e impactar a su audiencia con un mensaje refrescante y positivo. El grupo está compuesto por: Andrés López-Alicea, Gilberto Gabriel, Zuleinette Ralat y Venuz Delmar. Teatro 220, significa que somos ese conducto de 22O voltios de locura por el cual transmitimos alegría y carcajadas a nuestro público.


02:00 pm Mezcolanza NYC Performances 


1. Kairiana Núñez / Performance / 15 min

Title: Chiquita

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the piece: In Chiquitita, Ms. Miller Parachute Woman is a character that moves between ridiculous and reality. Between the joke and the speeches that have us cornered in the dependency.
She is a right-wing military officer. She is a recalcitrant Republican. She repeats neoliberal spiels as if there were critical ideas she owns. The fact is that many military were part of the so-called “Reconstruction” of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. They took over the streets along with the local police. The military returned, as they always return.

En Chiquitita, la Sra. Miller Parachute Woman es un personaje que se mueve entre el ridículo y la realidad. Entre el chiste y los discursos que nos tienen acorralados en la dependencia. Ella es una oficial del ejército de derecha. Ella es una republicana recalcitrante. Ella repite el discurso neoliberal como si tuviera ideas críticas que le pertenecen. El hecho es que muchos militares fueron parte de la llamada “Reconstrucción” de Puerto Rico después del huracán María. Tomaron las calles junto con la policía local. Los militares regresaron, como siempre regresan.

About the artist: Actress taurine and Puerto Rican. Graduated from the Drama Department of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, (2009). She began his career in 1996 with Pedro Santaliz, and later became a founding member of the theater group in the streets Jóvenes del 98 under the direction of Maritza Pérez Otero. Later she continued his training with Puerto Rican teachers and artists Rosa Luisa Márquez, Teresa Hernández, Viveca Vázquez, among others. In Argentina, she trained at Sportivo Teatral with Mirta Bogdasarian and Ricardo Bartís (2011-2013, Buenos Aires), and was part of the Quinto Piso Theater Companies, directed by Daniel Godoy, and El Rizoma Collective (2011-2016, Buenos Aires) . In 2017 she returns to Puerto Rico, where despite the imbalance, she bets on continuing to grow artistically, professionally and ideologically.


2. Karen Langevin / Performance / 15 min

Title: Fortune

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the piece: An interactive whimsical game of chance that uses improvisational movement to foretell. Fortune winks at the futility of our desire to know the future through the unavoidable presence of the body.

Fortuna, Un juego de azar interactivo que usa la improvisación de movimiento como herramienta para predecir. FORTUNA es un guiño a nuestro deseo banal de conocer el futuro, usando la inevitable presencia del cuerpo.
​diseño camisa: ​Zaida Goveo Balmaseda.


3. Luna y Vecky / Musical Performance / 30 min

Title: Luna y Vecky

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the piece:  After having expanded their audience to more than 15 people, Luna and Vecky decide to make a little concert in ​the Loisaida Theater Lab​. Luna and Vecky studied music at Berkley and fuse their music with different musical genres and performance. They use their music to express their darker feelings. They have been depressed for more than 10 years.

Luego de haber expandido su público a más de 15 personas, Luna y Vecky deciden hacer un conciertito en el Loisaida Theater Lab dentro de la Plataforma Mezcolanza​. Luna y Vecky estudiaron música en Berkley y fusionan su música con distintos géneros musicales y performance. Usan su música para expresar sus sentimientos más oscuros. Llevan en depresión más de 10 años.


03:30 pm ¡Ay María!


4. ¡Ay María! / Short Play / 30 min

 

About the piece:   Some neighbors who did not know each other before hurricane Maria, have joined after the catastrophe, to collect debris, share food and rely on their needs. These neighbors are the actors and actresses. Some of the people / characters represented in the piece are taken from the Puerto Rican reality, people / characters that we find in our neighborhoods, urbanizations or towns. We also parody public figures and politicians who through the media have been part of the hurricane experience.

Cast: Mickey Negrón, Mariana Carbonell, José Eugenio Hernández, José Luis Guitierrez, Marisa Gómez
directed by​: Maritza Pérez Otero​

Unos vecinos que no se conocían antes del huracán se unen después de la catástrofe, para recoger escombros, compartir la comida y apoyarse en sus necesidades. Estos vecinos son los actores y actrices. Algunos de las personas/personajes representados en la pieza son sacados de la realidad puertorriqueña, personas/personajes que encontramos en nuestros barrios, urbanizaciones o pueblos. También parodiamos las figuras públicas y los políticos que a través de los medios han sido parte de la experiencia huracanada.

​Elenco: Mickey Negrón, Mariana Carbonell, José Eugenio Hernández, José Luis Guitierrez, Marisa Gómez
Dirección: Martiza Pérez Otero.


5. Mickey Negrón / Performance / 15 min.

Title: Carpeta

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the piece: A look at the process of persecution that the Puerto Rico Nationalist Party experienced in the past and the current crisis.

​U​na mirada al el proceso de persecución que vivió​ el movimiento nacionalista de PR en el pasado y la ​resistencia actual.


6. Paulina Pagán / Performance / 15 min.

Title: Bestias de paraíso 2 – El fuego y la jicotea*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the piece: In honor of my Caribbean grandmothers, especially Levina Wiltshire (1938-2014) In this piece my body becomes a river, a vessel, a bridge between my ancestors, our island ecology, Puerto Rican bomba, its violent history and the joy of dancing. *The jicotea (Trachemys stejnegeri stejnegeri) is the only native Puerto Rican freshwater turtle. The bomba song “El fuego y la jicotea,” composed by Christian Tonos, ignited this creative process.

A mis abuelas caribeñas, en especial a Levina Wiltshire (1938-2014) En esta pieza mi cuerpo funge de río, de nave, de puente entre mis muertas, la ecología isleña, la bomba puertorriqueña, su sangrienta historia y el placer de bailar. *La jicotea (Trachemys stejnegeri stejnegeri) es la única tortuga nativa de agua dulce de Puerto Rico. La canción de bomba “El fuego y la jicotea,” compuesta por Christian Tonos, fue uno de los detonantes de este proceso creativo.


6. Eduardo Alegría and Desmar Guevara / Musical Performance / 30 min.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the artist: Puerto Rican musician and singer-songwriter, developed in theater and experimental dance, improvisation, democracy and politicization of the body. This amalgam of disciplines informs his work. Part of training as an actor he did with the director Maritza Pérez Otero in the political theater. He is an observer of the country and of society.On this occasion he will sing accompanied by Desmar Guevara on the piano.

Músico y cantautor puertorriqueño, desarrollado en el teatro y en la danza experimental, la improvisación, la democracia y politización del cuerpo. Esta amalgama de disciplinas informa su trabajo. Parte de formación como actor lo hizo junto a la directora Maritza Pérez Otero en el teatro político. Se nombra a sí mismo como: un observador del país y de la sociedad.​ En esta ocasión cantará acompañado por Desmar Guevara en el piano.


Mezcolanza NYC


About TheaterLab co-producers:

MEZCOLANZA NYC 2018 – 13th Edition

Mezcolanza is a cultural platform born in 2013 in the city of Buenos Aires produced by Helen Ceballos. It gathers short pieces of artists and multi-disciplinary collectives in order to maintain a live and open stage for the processes and creations of emerging artists in different cities around the world. We aim to erase distances and expose pieces of author, which account for the social reality that is lived in our changing environments. To date, Mezcolanza has hosted over 250 artists among the cities of Buenos Aires, New York and San Juan de Puerto Rico. On this occasion, Mezcolanza visits the city of New York for the third time and celebrates its twelfth edition. We have convened 14 multidisciplinary artists. These artists work in theater, performance, movement, music, improvisation, construction, musical composition, costume making, sculptures, sound and video art. In this edition of the Festival Loisaida and within the framework of the Theater Lab. Mezcolanza presents the urban interventions of 14 outstanding artists from the local and international scene of Puerto Rico, Latin America and the United States, interlacing the scenic discourses of these creative artists with their status as permanent immigrants.


04:35 pm Community Pageant


Loisaida Community / Short Play / 20 min

Photo by: Ryan John Lee

 

About the piece:   The pageant is a large scale outdoor performance, using giant puppets, painted flats, masks, costumes, music and dance performed by and for the community to tell the their own story.


#LoisaidaFest@LoisaidaFest

The 31st Loisaida Festival

The 2018 Loisaida Festival

Sunday, May 27th 2018

11:00am – 5:00pm

Avenue C Corridor / Loisaida Avenue / Alphabet City.


The Loisaida Festival is the largest ethnic community pride festival in the Lower East Side. On the Sunday before Memorial Day, over 29,000 converged on Avenue C— Loisaida Avenue to participate in last years amazing street fair event. More locals, citywide, regional and global visitors pack the Avenue every year. The Loisaida Festival offers diverse manifestations of the Puerto Rican and Latino cultures expressed through music, dance, live theatre performances, cuisine, and the arts and crafts of the many artisans that are our prime vendors. Besides delivering top-notch live musical entertainment that features well-known names, the event is also a venue for local artists and emerging talent. It also serves as an important vehicle to disseminate educational, wellness and community services information to its visitors.

The Loisaida Festival, along with the colorful and expressive Artist/ Community Parade that precedes and kicks-off the day-long event, have become the annual signature Loisaida, Inc. production that brings together all cultures to celebrate the inclusive spirit of the LES. Funds raised go directly to our non-profit for programming and community services that are based out of our new Loisaida Community Center on 9th Street and Avenue C, where we now enjoy a long-term lease [50 years] for our 10,000 square foot facility. Our corporate, public and individual supporters that contribute generously to the event appreciate that the Sunday, May 27th Festival is a true culmination of a year-long community curated program of workshops, residencies, intergenerational activities and partnerships that are the foundation of, and create the energy and impetus behind the Festival.

Your support guarantees innovative cultural and community development programs in media and technology, healthy living, as well as our culinary arts component in development of our upcoming teaching commercial kitchen, plus much more, it keeps our community thriving!

From contract to cleanup, the Loisaida team aims to meet sponsor expectations at every level providing an excellent opportunity to engage thousands of festival visitors on the day, and display branding Logo throughout social media, and beyond, for many preceding and subsequent months.


Noche de Bohemia with Joe Louis

Joe Louis returns with his experimental bohemia to NYC from PR. Come and enjoy a night full of stories to wait for the end of the world and face it. Come to love and be loved with music and vocal improvisation. Swimming in the “Río Piedras” had never been so far away. (https://soundcloud.com/user-553207317/rio-piedras-vol-1-joe-louis-y-los-bohemios)

Suggested $10 donation.

Joe Louis regresa con su bohemia experimental a la ciudad de Nueva York. Vengan a disfrutar una noche llena de historias para esperar el fin del mundo y afrontarlo. Vengan a amar y ser amados con la música e improvisación vocal. Nadar en el “Río Piedras” nunca había estado tan lejos. ( https://soundcloud.com/user-553207317/rio-piedras-vol-1-joe-louis-y-los-bohemios)

Donación sugerida de $ 10.

El Semillero Benefit Event

Tuesday, February 27th 2018 – 6:30 pm

Doors open at 6:00 pm – Loisaida Inc. 710 East 9th Street New York, NY 10009


El Semillero

El Semillero is what we call the new 2018 Media & Technology component at the Loisaida Inc. Center. It is an idea-activator, a makerspace for creative cross-training, prototyping, and multi-disciplinary collaboration. The community can make use of our low and high-tech equipment and facilities in addition to the roster of workshops we’re offering for personal and professional development.

Creativity and its profound effect on our own well-being and that of the world are bound together. Therefore, art, culture, fulfillment, and productivity are interdependent. We believe that neighborhoods should act as their own cultural developers and sustainable economic engines. El Semillero is a space for our youth and elders, mentors and mentees, artists and scholars, experts and beginners. We welcome students, young professionals, local entrepreneurs, parents, and grandparents. We’re building an accessible idea incubator where all Loisaida community members can come together to dream, collaborate, and create. El Semillero is for our future-makers.


Loisaida has survived these past 38 years because of the support of the community. In this, our first ever fundraising campaign, we’re asking you to invest in El Semillero, our programs, and projects that support the resilience of our Latinx community footprint and legacy.


Purchase tickets to event:



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Artist Level Perks

We are here for you! As an artist-level contributor, you can gain access to the fundraiser celebration, enjoy libations and eats from local vendors, and exercise your right to party to the sounds of D’Marquesina.


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Seedling Level Perks

Make us grow! Dig in at the seedling level and your contribution gives you all of the “Artist” level benefits, plus a signed limited edition print by artist Adrián “Viajero” Román.

adrian viajero roman


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Germinator Level Perks

You are truly making us blossom! At this level, recieve all of the “Artist” level benefits, plus the first six Germinators get a pair of tickets to their choice of either Shakespeare in the Park’s Othello, Twelfth Night, or The Public’s run of Quiara Alegría Hudes’ Miss You Like Hell. All other Germinators will receive an autographed print by photographer Máximo Rafael Colón.


Silent Auction Now Live!

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EVENT HONOREES:



* After completing the PayPal/Credit/Debit card transaction to purchase tickets above, depending on pledge level, further instructions and information will be provided. Please note that no tickets will be mailed. You will receive confirmation that your contribution has been received. If you have questions about making a credit card donation, please contact or email us. If you are interested in Sponsorship Opportunities at the Presenting level or for any other questions, please fill out contact form below:
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Teófilo Torres es: Pateco en Loisaida

Thespian Maestro, TEOFILO TORRES, performs about post-hurricane María crisis in specially commissioned X-mas show. One night only @ LOISAIDA CENTER.


NEW YORK, NY, DECEMBER 15, 2017 – Puerto Rico’s most treasured monologist, Teófilo Torres, whose acting career spans over 40 years ––will perform at Loisaida Cultural Center on December 28th with his new creation: Pateco el Sepulturero (Pateco the Gravedigger).

Pateco’s character is borrowed from an old Puerto Rican folk tale. Legend has it that in 1899, after the deathly devastation of hurricane San Ciriaco, so many people died in the island -both during and in the hurricane’s aftermath- that dead bodies were left piling up at the gate of a local cemetery. The gravedigger was called Pateco, it is said. From then on, after someone has passed away, the people in the island have been known to say that ‘Pateco took them under’, ‘a fulano se lo llevó Pateco’.

Torres’ take on Pateco comes back to life in 2017, this time after hurricane María devastated Puerto Rico, to take to the grave those “dead bodies” and zombies now piling up all over the island. Torres’ Pateco character is portrayed as a half-drunk, half-political pundit, that has found a new devotion to singing jíbaro folk music “Décimas”. He is a jokester, however a complicated character that takes a swing at killing us (the audience) softly with his rhymes, and makes us aware of the current political and fiscal crisis facing the Caribbean island.

You can find more information online at loisaida.org/events

Loisaida Inc. has produced many performances throughout this year, some that recasts the current fiscal crisis of Puerto Rico, and more recently others hosting visual artists, musicians and academics interpreting through their work the impact on Puerto Rican communities in the wake of the 2017 hurricane season. Loisaida keeps the creative diaspora stemming from the Caribbean island to present a forward-looking merger of eco-urbanism and art-based community making.
                                                                                   


Teófilo Torres (born 6 March 1954 in Ponce, Puerto Rico) is a Puerto Rican actor, director and professor of theatre. He has acted for both television as well the big screen, and has performed in Puerto Rico and internationally.


Tale 53;Snowhite

Loisaida Inc. & Maskhunt Motions proudly present:

Tale 53;Snowhite

with: Deborah Hunt & Shanti Lalita


Tale 53; Snowhite is a sinister story told inside an intriguing wooden artefact that houses a toy theatre (with two- dimentional painted puppets moving on tracks), objects, a kamishibai (for backdrop changes) and a cranky or moving panorama. It is based on “Snowhite”, the creation of reknowned Spanish author and illustrator Ana Juan.

Deborah Hunt, (theatre maker, maskbuilder and operator, puppeteer, teacher and autor) has adapted and directed the tale and manipulates the puppets and backdrops. Shanti Lalita, (cellist, poet and performer) is the composer and live musician.

Far from the disneyesque version of Snow White, our tale relates the life of a young woman who falls prey to a blood thirsty stepmother, an hostile city, hustling dwarves and a rapacious prince. Based on the original story Tale 53 (The Little Snow White) of the Grimm Brothers published in 1812, the story of Ana Juan offers a biting and pertinent stare at the situation of women still relevant to our times. Justaposed with the beauty of the puppets, objects and painted backdrops, Tale 53;Snowhite promises a unique theatrical experience.

Toy theatre is a kind of theatre in miniature that flourished in the 19th century in Europe. The small theatres, scenery, backdrops and characters were printed on paper, painted and cutout and the stories were presented in the salas and drawing rooms of private houses, often accompanied with live music.

Hunt has presented the work in Puerto Rico (San German and San Juan) at the Odin Teatret in Denmark and now in New York. It will be presented at the Festival Internacional de Títeres de Matanzas en Cuba in 2018. Additionally I can offer a daylong workshop using the artefact of the show (toy theatre, kamishibai, cranky) as a point of departure. Participants work in groups creating short stories using these techniques.



Fantasy Island – Exhibition Performances

For Shey Rivera Ríos and Huáscar Robles, Hurricane María is an atmospheric manifestation compounded by the fiscal crisis troubling Puerto Rico’s urban landscape. The installation and performance Fantasy Island is an experience that explores how tourism and consumer culture sell a “fantastical” luxury lifestyle, a tropical paradise twisting crisis into “opportunity”. A door opens into a real estate office selling dreams of luxury and reconstruction and the viewer delves into a dizzying spell of animated gifs, performance and altars.

For Fantasy Island, Rivera transformed Loisaida’s space into a real estate office surrounded by a black and white grid that envelops visitors while monitors flash GIFs that borrow aesthetics from the vaporwave movement. In one image, a hand waves a wad of cash to a “Puerto Rico” neon sign while icons of the Virgin Mary and a ram, both cultural symbols of Puerto Rico’s syncretism and colonial history, spin in an enticing, dizzying spell. Viewers are also inspired to reflect on how natural disasters such as the path of hurricanes affecting not only Puerto Rico but also our Caribbean neighbors maybe twisted into “opportunity” after the crisis subsides.

For the Loisaida Center, a cultural enterprise with deep roots in the Nuyorican and Latinx New York community, Fantasy Island stretches the island to New York and its Puerto Rican and Caribbean diaspora as it hits common issues they all grapple with.

StormWater performance:

For Shey Rivera Ríos and Huáscar Robles, Hurricane María is an atmospheric manifestation compounded by the fiscal crisis troubling Puerto Rico’s urban landscape. The installation and performance Fantasy Island is an experience that explores how tourism and consumer culture sell a “fantastical” luxury lifestyle, a tropical paradise twisting crisis into “opportunity”.

Shey Rivera:  

Ixchel performance. Video projection and audio of poem.

Pick 5 poems from Hienas y Los buitres.

La jíbara bruja performance, with reading from “Naty and my chaotic stench”

Huáscar Robles performs:

“Héroes del estéreo”

“Salt and wine”

“Pupilas y gaviotas”

“Drenched”

“Las manos del campo”

Video projections: Sharks, Hurricane, Beach floor and photos of the devastation, sent by friends and family.

Audio files: Cocoon poem, Coquis by Fofe, Rain storm


Exhibition Viewing Hours: Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm and by appointment.


Throughout the fall, and beyond, the Loisaida Inc. Center’s programming will provide opportunities to pledge support to the relief and recovery efforts in the Caribbean.

 

Fantasy Island: Panel Discussion

Puerto Rico’s economic spiral has spread uncertainty on the island. A 120 billion debt in bonds and pension responsibilities has been deemed un-payable while a U.S. Fiscal Supervision Board suggests further austerity measures. About 170 schools have closed and a third of the island’s real estate is unoccupied. Puerto Ricans keep fleeing en masse while foreigners move in, altering the urban and cultural landscape.

Artists, scholars, activists, and other thought leaders from various sectors are in conversation throughout the diaspora with the intention of creating awareness and dialogue that can generate solutions. How can art further push to inform socially responsible urban development and shed light on inequitable real estate practices that cause displacement and economic disparity? What about this cult to tourism and its implications on the field?

This panel discussion will focus on the role of the arts in community development, the economic crisis in Puerto Rico, its implications and parallels with other cities/countries, tourism economy, real estate development, and disaster capitalism.

Speakers:

F. JAVIER TORRES  ArtPlace America

f. javier torres

Latest Blog Post: Reflecting on the Interstate’s Impact on an American City

F. Javier Torres is the Director of National Grantmaking at ArtPlace America. In his role he is responsible for building a comprehensive set of demonstration projects that illustrate the many ways in which arts and culture can strengthen the processes and outcomes of the planning and development field across the United States. Thanks to ArtPlace he has travelled across 48 states in the last 3 years and visited a wide variety of community contexts. This travel has expanded his interest in the networks and knowledge sets necessary to sustain creative placemaking as a practice over time.

Prior to his role at ArtPlace, Javier was Senior Program Officer for Arts and Culture at the Boston Foundation where he led an exploration of the role of culture as a tool for transformation, sustainability, and as central to the development of vibrant communities. Javier spent six years as the Director of Villa Victoria Center for the Arts, a program of IBA, a community based multi-disciplinary arts complex that operates as a regional presenter and local programmer for Latino arts. Currently, he is a board member for Grantmakers in the Arts and an advisory board member for the Design Studio for Social Intervention. He has previously served as a board member for the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, MASSCreative, was a member of the MA Governor’s Creative Economy Council and Chair for the Boston Cultural Council.

 

ED MORALES  Journalist and Writer

ed morales

https://edmorales.net/

Ed Morales is a journalist who has investigated New York City electoral politics, police brutality, street gangs, grassroots activists, and the Latino arts and music scene.  He has been a Latin music Newsday columnist and longtime Village Voice contributing writer whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Miami Herald, San Francisco Examiner, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Jacobin, and The Nation. He was a contributing editor to NACLA Report on the Americas a frequent contributor of op ed columns for The Progressive Media Project.

Ed Morales is currently writing Latinx: The New Force in American Politics and Culture, a definitive view of how Latin@s matter in the US’s race debate, to be published by Verso Press in Spring of 2018. In March 2002, he published his first book, Living in Spanglish on St. Martin’s Press/LA Weekly Books. A second book, The Latin Beat: From Rumba to Rock, was published on Da Capo Press in 2003. Morales is also a poet whose work has appeared in Aloud: Voices From the Nuyorican Poets Café (Henry Holt, 1993) and various small magazines, and whose fiction has appeared in Iguana Dreams (HarperCollins, 1992), and Boricuas (Ballantine, 1994).

He has participated in residencies as a member of Nuyorican Poets Café Live, touring as a spoken-word performer in several cities throughout the East Coast, in California, Florida, Texas, Denmark, and Washington, D.C.  Morales has also appeared on CNN, Hispanics Today, Urban Latino, HBO Latino, CNN Español, WNBC-TV’s Visiones, WABC’s Tiempo BBC television and radio, and the Fox Morning News in Washington D.C.

Ed Morales is currently an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, and occasionally appears as a host on WBAI-FM.

 

SHEY RIVERA RIOS is the Artistic Director of AS220.

shey

 

With a professional background in administration, Rivera is also a performance and installation artist, musician and writer. At AS220, she focuses on community engagement, cross-sector partnerships, and strategic planning, alongside a team of program leaders. Rivera was part of the founding team of Festival de la Palabra in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 2010 (the largest literature festival in Puerto Rico, still ongoing), and reactivated the historic Museum House Concha Melendez in San Juan with literary arts programming. She is an Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI) Fellow, Brown University Public Humanities Fellow, and alumni of the Leadership Institutes hosted by the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC) and the National Association of Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC). Rivera is a Certified NonProfit Accounting Professional (CNAP) and has also served on multidisciplinary art grant panels for the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA), NALAC, and Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. Rivera serves in Congressman Jim Langevin’s Art & Culture Advisory Committee and Providence Mayor Elorza Art & Culture Transition Team. She also serves in the Downtown Improvement District and Providence Parks Conservancy Advisory Committees, as the Dept of Art, Culture+Tourism’s Public Art Committee and Providence Cultural Equity Initiative’s Cultural Think Tank. She has been a speaker at Tulane University, University of Puerto Rico, New Bedford Museum of Art, RISD Museum, Philadelphia Mural Arts, and national conferences on art spaces and community development, including Alliance of Artist Communities, Pittsburgh’s Community Development Summit, Congress of New Urbanism, and NALAC, among others.  http://sheyrivera.com

 

Moderator: HUASCAR ROBLES writes and makes art about technology and culture.

He has published with The New York TimesChicago Tribune’s HoyMetro San Juan and other publications in United States, Puerto Rico and Brazil. He was a correspondent in Haití and  published Puertos príncipes: temblemos todos, a journal and photo book on Haiti after the earthquake. He is currently an Op-Ed contributor to Puerto Rico’s El Nuevo Día. 

The Country Under My Skin, Los silencios de Santurce, Portraits of Marassa, are some of his photo and multimedia performances in the U.S. and Puerto Rico as well as the documentary The Invisible Coast, on Haitian merchants’ struggle on Puerto Rico’s Loíza town.

He has participated with The Dart Center’s Ochberg Fellowship (2009), Center for Justice and Journalism’s Urban Fellowship (2009), AS220’s Artist in Residence, and Brunetto’s School cultural exchange in Brazil (2006). His collection Country Under My Skin as acquired by Rhode Island’s Historical Society’s Permanent Gallery.  Robles has an M.F.A. from New York University.

 

 

 

 

Fantasy Island – Exhibition Open

For Shey Rivera Ríos and Huáscar Robles, Hurricane María is an atmospheric manifestation compounded by the fiscal crisis troubling Puerto Rico’s urban landscape. The installation and performance Fantasy Island is an experience that explores how tourism and consumer culture sell a “fantastical” luxury lifestyle, a tropical paradise twisting crisis into “opportunity”. A door opens into a real estate office selling dreams of luxury and reconstruction and the viewer delves into a dizzying spell of animated gifs, performance and altars.

For Fantasy Island, Rivera transformed Loisaida’s space into a real estate office surrounded by a black and white grid that envelops visitors while monitors flash GIFs that borrow aesthetics from the vaporwave movement. In one image, a hand waves a wad of cash to a “Puerto Rico” neon sign while icons of the Virgin Mary and a ram, both cultural symbols of Puerto Rico’s syncretism and colonial history, spin in an enticing, dizzying spell. Viewers are also inspired to reflect on how natural disasters such as the path of hurricanes affecting not only Puerto Rico but also our Caribbean neighbors maybe twisted into “opportunity” after the crisis subsides.

For the Loisaida Center, a cultural enterprise with deep roots in the Nuyorican and Latinx New York community, Fantasy Island stretches the island to New York and its Puerto Rican and Caribbean diaspora as it hits common issues they all grapple with.

The opening and closing reception will include a special performance.


Exhibition Viewing Hours: Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm and by appointment.


Throughout the fall, and beyond, the Loisaida Inc. Center’s programming will provide opportunities to pledge support to the relief and recovery efforts in the Caribbean.

 

Merengue Prieto New York 2017

Loisaida Inc. Center and Afro-Inspira presents:

Merengue Prieto New York 2017

Marily Gallardo, choreographer/artivist and founder of Kalalú Danza Artes Escénicas, has come from Dominican Republic to share with us her work and provide a master dance class, interactive talk and healing circle. All funds are to support Kalalú Danza Project in keep moving forward their mission and work in Los Mercedes, Dominican Republic.

You are coordially invited to:

MASTER DANCE CLASS: Merengue Prieto / rhythm dance session – traveling steps with TAMBORA. Incorporate another perspective that focuses on the origins of popular tradition and its makers through the execution of poly rhythmic-gestural patterns and to enjoy “merengue” afro. 
INTERACTIVE TALK: “Mujeres de la Candela” (Women of the Fire) / pedagogical experience on identity and black women power such as how women power and values are transmitted within the afro-descendant communities, like courage, daily intelligence, and spiritual beliefs, etc.

HEALING RITUAL: Creative full moon circle.

Class starts prompltly at 5pm followed by talk and healing circle.
Suggested Donation: $25
This event is FREE, no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Please bring comfortable clothes and shoes.


Eventbrite -  Merengue Prieto - Master Class

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Mission:

Kalalú Danza, Dominican Republic
For Kalalú Danza, the Afro-antillian concept is presented as one that encompasses and is a synthesis of thought and expression of the socio-cultural diversity of the Caribbean. From that premise, Kalalú’s pedagogical approach affirms a particular study of rhythm and movement, of its oral tradition, and symbolism which influenced by “the Afro” can be found in the popular artistic manifestations of such cultures. Such artistic manifestations provides the basis to generate performance, scenic, and pedagogical proposals which contributes to the development of the local communities as well as the individual and social transformation.