MAPPING FROM OUTSIDE TO THE INSIDE

Loisaida Inc. and The Little Art Workshop present:


MAPPING FROM OUTSIDE TO THE INSIDE:

The program is based on the idea of taking and  the largest object in this case the universe, and begin to construct maps and from there go to the smaller one the brain, in this workshop we make different artistic approaches to maps including the city/neighborhood, the country, the house and the body.

The program is made for kids starting at 5 years going up to 12, designed for groups up to 8 to 10 kids per class.


Register today!


Make it Verde!

MAKE IT VERDE!

DATE & TIME:
  • Saturday, June 24, 2017 10:00 am to 1:00 pm
LOCATION:

On the High Line at 14th St.

In partnership with the Friends of the High Line, join us for a day of dancing, music, and creating with recycled materials. Portions of this program will be offered in Spanish and English.

This program is geared towards children ages 0-12.

RSVP for this program beginning June 7. To be notified, please join our mailing list.

High Line members may pre-register for this event beginning on June 2.

Not yet a member? Join today.

If you’re an existing member and lost your card, send us an email.


Schedule of events:

10 – 11 AM: Storytime for children ages 0-5 years old by Poncili Creacion

10 AM – 1 PM: Ongoing activities: mobile garden with a Friends of the High Line gardener, worm bin exploration, and mural art project led by Poncili Creacion

11:30 AM: Performance by Poncili Creacion

12:00 PM: Performance by Poncili Creacion (repeat)

12:30 PM: Performance by The Brandon Project

All children must be accompanied by a caregiver at all times.

This program is held rain or shine.


SUPPORT

High Line Families is supported, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the New York City Council.

© 2000–2017 Friends of the High Line

Open Community Textiles Workshop

Loisaida inc. is proud to present Tejedoras de Magia with Daniela Fabrizi. This open community textile workshop will be complementing with costumes, banners and flags the Cabezudo and the Parade Making workshops to debut in the Opening Community Parade of the The 30th Annual Loisaida Festival. This collaborative atelier will be open to visitors and the community at large during the whole month of May, all FREE.


Specific Dates by theme:

Re-plasti-cycle your Garments: July 2017 New Dates TBD (3pm-6pm)

Costumes! Banners! Flags! GIANTS!: July 2017 New Dates TBD (3pm-6pm)


Workshop description:

  1. Re-plasti-cycle your Garments

Learn how to reuse plastic and repurpose everyday plastic trash into your own hand-made fabric. We will focus at making fabric from plastic junk, crafting our own textile patterns and building handmade garments and wearable pieces that would be used by individuals at the parade.

This workshop is aimed at younger audiences, who are in the beginning of their journey on their textiles and design interests. Also participants will explore the idea of reusing, recycling and re-inventing with what they have and experiment letting their mind to be their own limit to create new beautiful and usable things.

(Recommended for Pre-teen and Teens)

  1. Costumes! Banners! Flags! GIANTS!

Fabric is one of the most versatile, used and indispensable materials that could transform any parade into a memorable experience within any community. On this workshop we will learn and apply some basic skills on textiles to make costumes, banners, flags and giants. Open to all artists interested in textiles with any experience. In collaboration with Zuleyka Alejandro.

All creations can be part of this year’s edition of the Loisaida Festival Community Parade.

(Recommended for kids, adults, EVERYONE)


Artist Bio:

Daniela Fabrizi. Always inspired by the work of women and her own travels, she is a costumes and textiles lover. Based in New York, and having working experience in Puerto Rico, New Orleans, France and London, she works in all crafts related to this medium: from film, tv and theater to textile arts work with the community and her own independent projects. She enjoys the most working and sharing her craft with the community, while learning and getting inspired from them.

Contact Daniela Fabrizi at dani.fabrizi@gmail.com or call (347) 314-3555

Community Parade & Pageant – Open Workshops

The Loisaida Center logo

The Loisaida Center

proudly presents:

 Community Parade & Pageant – Open Workshops


Workshops begin: Thursday, May 4th 2017
Open daily from 12:00 pm – 3:00 pm (except Mondays)
All workshops held at Loisaida Inc. Center – 710 East 9th Street NY NY 10009
FREE! All ages welcome.
Children under 14 must be accompanied by an adult.


Overview:

Loisaida Inc. has commissioned three masters in the arts of street theater to develop and implement a FREE month-long intensive collaborative atelier of parade-making & pageant techniques to kick-off the Loisaida Street Festival on its 30th anniversary. Daniel Polnau, Pablo Varona and Adam Ende (link to bios below) are three veteran puppeteers and distinct street artists with extensive US and international experience coming together in Loisaida to engage our surrounding community in an exploration of what is possible with humble and accessible materials. They will offer their skills and mentorship in diverse formats of inter-active public art aesthetics, messaging and celebration.


Workshop dates and description by theme:


Tutabanda (Tootophone)

Dates: Thursdays (May 4, 11, 18, and 25) from 12:00pm to 3:00pm

Description: Let’s start a musical street band from scratch! Bring out all of your inner musical joy in a band of wonders and learn how to make your own costume, design your own mask, help build a float, build your own musical instruments (with materials sourced from any local hardware store) and collaboratively come up with a choreography. Open to all artists, specially musicians and dancers.

(Recommended for ages 18 – Adults)

Cabezudos (Big-head puppets)

Dates: Tuesdays (May 9, 16, and 23) from 12:00pm to 3:00pm

Description: This workshop we will celebrate local history by creating an ensemble of big head masks– portraits of the important artists, activists and gardeners who shaped the neighborhood, such as Bimbo Rivas, Carmen Pabón, Tato Laviera, Armando Pérez, and Jorge Brandon aka “El Coco que Habla”, among others.

Participants will learn sculpture techniques with clay, cardboard, and other materials, the finer points of “paper mâché”, and painting skills. No prior experience necessary– all participants will discover that they have the innate skills to make beautiful portraits and caricatures. Included in the workshop will be mask movement and performance, so you will not only make a head, but learn how to embody it.

The creations will be part of the 30th Anniversary edition of the Loisaida Festival’s opening Parade and its Theater Lab.

(Recommended for ages 13 – Adults. No unaccompanied minors will be allowed.)

Giant Tiger and Jaguar Puppets:

Dates: Wednesdays (May 10, 17 and 24) from 12:00pm to 3:00pm

Description: Open to anyone who wants to make wearable-danceable- carry able art and help create. Join our team of guest artists and local luminaries in a highly collaborative and experimental open studio where we spin straw into gold! All levels of experience- from the curious to fluent!

Families, adults, teens, individuals, organizations welcome. See your dreams come to life when we bring our creations to the street in a spectacular parade that celebrates the spirit of Loisaida past, present and future!

(Recommended for ages 6 – Adults. No unaccompanied minors will be allowed.)

Open Community Workshops:

Dates: Fridays, Saturdays & Sundays (May 5,6,7,12,13,14,19,20 and 21) from 12:00pm to 6:00pm

Description: The Loisaida Festival Parade & Pageant counts with workshop space to build anything related to the parade. Any individual or group that would like to use our space, can come in on the Open Community Workshops. If you reach us beforehand, we could also reserve a space in the workshop and help with your designs and craft.

Please note: The parade is on the 28, May 2017, it starts at 10am and finishes at 12pm. We are asking all parade volunteers to be there, at least, two hours before (~8am) the parade starts and to anyone else that is parading with us, at least one hour before (~9am).

(Recommended for ages 6 – Adults. No unaccompanied minors will be allowed.)


Instructor Profile:

Daniel Polnau – Artist, puppeteer, director of Tiny Town artists collective and  Strombolli’s Medicine Show. Daniel Polnau has created puppet parades, circuses, and outdoor theatre spectacles for over 30 years. He specializes in creating larger than life puppets out of recycled junk and up-cycled materials making the mundane become extraordinary. At the heart of each highly collaborative project he strives to demystify the creative process, and quicken the innate creative abilities in all, regardless of age, abilities, or arts experience. His projects and residencies have spanned the globe from Moscow, Bali, Alaska and Puerto Rico.

Pablo Varona – Artist, puppeteer and resident of Casa Múcaro in Las Marías, Puerto Rico. Spends most his time living close to the forested mountaintops of Puerto Rico as the artist liaison of Casa Múcaro, Las Marías. He is amazed by the immeasurable value that the reuse, recycling and/or “forgotten” objects do when it comes to the transformation of urban contexts. His interests revolve around making these issues relevant and accessible to the general audience. Lead artist at Honey for the Heart Parade, Athens, OH, 2015 and Art Director of Loisaida Festival Parade 2016.

Adam Ende – Puppeteer, founder and director of Jawbone Puppet Theater; artistic and managing director of the Islewilde performance festival. He has more than 20 years of extensive experience directing puppet shows, parades and festivals around the US and Taiwan, as well as writing shows, building puppets, performing, and leading workshops in puppet making and performance. His particular specialty is making portraits in puppet.


Even though everyone is welcome to participate in all workshops without previous registration we ask that you to please fill out this form.


Volunteer to give life to the 30th Loisaida Festival Parade, join here!


For any questions please contact: Zuleyka Alejandro (787) 636-4413 or Pablo Varona (787) 412-1220

FREE Community Screen Printing Workshops

mauricio_trenard

The Loisaida Center logo

The Loisaida Center

   proudly presents:

 Community Screen Printing Workshops 


Workshop begun: Wednesday, March 8th

10 sessions – 1 day a week for three months

All sessions on Wednesdays

from 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm 

FREE! Ages 18+


 Overview:

This program aims to bring art and creative place-making opportunities to Asian and Latino immigrant communities in the city of New York. The program introduces participants to a new art form and a vocabulary that can be used to strengthen and communicate to others their understanding of their environment. This program will expose participants to careers in art and design, developing skills and abilities that have transformative for individual growth and development, community beautification and belonging, and cross-cultural understanding. Art will be the vehicle that unites members of Asian and Latino immigrant communities to discuss, create and build the artistic capacity necessary for socio-cultural change. Our goal is to create opportunities to develop important artistic skills while sharing across differences that would not otherwise be possible.

Instructor Profile:

Professional artist Mauricio Trenard, will lead workshops for the project. He has lead design/build workshops for HSC and El Puente since 2010 and has 15 years of experience teaching art in Cuba. Since arriving in the U.S. in 2000, Mauricio has created commissions for the NYC Dept. of Education, Groundswell Community Mural Project and Fifth Avenue Committee. He uses public art as an indispensable tool to show and explore aspects of social reality of interest to him and the community in which he works. His work is in private collections in Europe, Mexico and the U.S. His illustrations for Dance, Nana, Dance received the 2009 Aesop Award.


Students will learn:

• The methodology, techniques and procedures of water base screen-printing for printing.

t-shirts, posters and others on similar types of material;

• How to utilize all equipment, tools, and supplies to produce a quality screen-printed product.

• How to translate their ideas into images – specifically, students will be encouraged to

explore issues of immigrant identity, community, and difference.


Objectives:

• To engage students in the process of exploring their individual artistic vision by

developing personal imagery;

• To create an art project generated by using iconography, social and cultural community

issues;

• To appreciate the enrichment that art brings to his/her own life experience and the

possibilities for career development;

• To create a basic artist portfolio with the work performed during the work shop;

• To develop self-motivation, self-direction and a strong work ethic;

• To think critically, work creatively and collectively across difference.


The Program

Our medium will be water-base screen printing with an emphasis on photo emulsion processes.Students will be exposed to various techniques for making silkscreen prints, will gain basic mastery of these processes, and by the end of the program, will develop a series of their own single, and multiple color edition prints. Students will be encouraged to investigate their own interests and concepts in terms of content and image making in the process of printing. Themes of cultural history and preservation, art and activism, and immigrant identity will all be explored.

Workshop Timeline:
Unit 1: Introduction to Screen Printing
Unit 2: Image Preparation
Unit 3: Screen Preparation
Unit 4: Reclaiming the Screen
Unit 5: Screen Printing Operation
Unit 6: Substrates and Inks

Unit 7: Presenting and communicating to the broader community


Future Now // Futura Ahora (Exhibition Opening)

Atomic Culture in collaboration with the Loisaida Inc. Center as part of the 2017 Art Residency Program at Loisaida. presents:


Future Now // Futura Ahora


Exhibition open from February 4 to March 18, 2017

Opening Reception: February 4th, 2017 from 6:00pm – 8:00pm


Details:

Future Now // Futura Ahora calls to attention the movement of artists reclaiming and reconfiguring their cultural disposition and narratives with society at large. Through sound, installation, literature, and visual arts each artist presents compelling possibilities for the future by embracing and reclaiming their histories, traditions, and present-day experiences.

During Atomic Culture’s curatorial artist residency at the Loisaida Center. They will bringing together 15 artists native to the southwest United States, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and California to discuss futurism and geopolitics. Futurism is not just about technology but an act of self preservation and concern toward the creation and dismemberment of invisible borders, pillaging of natural resources, and colonization. Through decolonization and reclamation of traditions, personal culture, land and natural medicine.

Within the exhibition and workshops each artist addresses these issues blending their complex histories with a contemporary perspective creating a new trajectory.

Future Now/Futura Ahora will host multiple workshops on reclaiming use of the land and the natural remedies she provides you, discussions and screenings on chicanx futurism. The exhibition serving as a catalyst to discuss and initiate thinking and being in a time of increased tension and unknown.

Artists:

Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0, Nani Chacon, Gilbert “Magú” Luján, Ryan Dennison, Zeke Pena, Chico MacMurtrie, Claudia X. Valdes, Ruben Ortiz Torres, William Camargo, Rick Cortez, Lindsay Kane, Delilah Montoya, Cristobal Martinez, Scott Williams, Cultural Workers, and a SSSK Distro retrospective.

The Sustainable Artist Toolkit

We are excited to host FABNYC’s next Sustainable Artist Toolkit workshop,

Artists with Radical Visions: Shifting, Challenging, Thriving!

Before we all break for the holidays, let’s refocus our energies towards realizing our self-determined liberated life. Engage in a strategic dialogue around needs and resources and learn to work together to define boundaries, affirm goals, and stand in our power.

Tuesday, December 13, 7-9pm right here at Loisaida Inc. Center!

RSVP: http://fabnyc.org/archive/artists-rad-visions/

Loisaida’s Mini Fest

Loisaida Inc. Center will be celebrating a Family day we like to call the Mini-Fest “Storytelling Edition” as part of El Festival de la Palabra NYC.


Eventbrite - Loisaida's Mini Fest


Join us:

Saturday, October 29th from 12:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Loisaida Inc. Center – 710 East 9th Street and Avenue C

The MiniFest will have: Creative workshops for kids, fun games and activities, storytelling and a Light Show called “Colorful Animals” with many more surprises.

Mini Fest Program & Schedule

12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

Cuentacuentos – “Storytelling”

With: Tina Casanova and José Rabelo (part of: Festival de la Palabra)


1:00 pm – 3:30 pm

Itinerant stations with diferent activities for kids. Including drawing, painting, creating you own puppet for the older ones. Creative and fun station for toddlers too. Open air activities and games.

  1. Story Workshop: Participants could create their own little story and their own book. Materials: Paper, pencils, crayons. With: Zuleyka Alejandro.
  2. Drawing and Painting Character Workshop: Kids will be able to draw or paint their characters this way helping them to develop the characters. Materiales: Paper, Paint, crayons, pencils. With: Juan Bautista
  3. Theatrical Games: Fun games for the kids to develop and act their characters. With: Zuleyka Alejandro
  4. Open air activities: Bubble making games and a variety of fun games and activities.
  5. Permanent Stations: Clay Sation, Printmaking Station, Games for toddlers.

3:30 pm – 4:00 pm

“Light Show”

Colorful Animals is a Light Show for kids! The story is an effort to learn about accepting each other with our differences. With: Zuleyka Alejandro, Juan Bautista, Daniela Fabrizi y Kevin Pérez.


Sponsored by: UnitedHealthcare ©
 

BRAINLINGO

Loisaida Inc. presents:

BRAINLINGO – A poetry workshop for the body and mind.

With: Edwin Torres

Thursdays, September 15th, 22nd, 29th & October 13th from 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

710 East 9th Street New York, NY 10009

(Joining Edwin on Sept. 22 will be guest artist Will Power, Doris Duke Foundation Resident Artist at New York Theater Workshop)


Eventbrite - BRAINLINGO - Open Sensory Awareness


OVERVIEW:

A Poetry Workshop For The Body And Mind — is a creative laboratory combining elements of theater, collage, and movement structured around language. Participants will explore the performative edges that embody transition as rich tools for transformative work. By cultivating an awareness between the disciplines of body language and archetypes of imagination, the tri-lingual voice, the speaking-seeing-hearing voice, will be nurtured. The four weeks are oriented around opening the sensory awareness necessary for artistic expression.

The workshop is structured sequentially for maximum effect, however each class can be taken individually to fit your schedule. Please enroll online.


September 15th – CLASS 1: GROUND

Poets are creatures grounded in awareness. To establish that ground, we need to see what happens to awareness as it transitions. We activate that trigger by presenting two immersive exercises built to represent the evolution of the creative process as a microcosm of the writer’s experience. The writing that emerges is then shared and a discussion follows, utilizing the newly-charged creative space. This becomes groundwork for transition to become a resource in the creative process.


September 22nd – CLASS 2: BALANCE (with guest artist Will Power)

In this class, we’re lucky to be joined by award-winning playwright and performer Will Power. To nurture creativity is to spark the imagination, to see the world from many viewpoints, to cultivate where balance lies, literally, from one foot to the other. Using alignment to explore movement in theater and performance, we’ll integrate exercises from The Alexander Technique that explore the spine’s relationship to language, and how support is integral to creativity. We’ll then explore improvisation in dialogue on stage and in action by creating brief performances in group settings. Between Will Power and Edwin Torres, an immersive narrative among a range of genres will create an intoxicating blend of creative inspiration for the class to journey by.


September 29th – CLASS 3: SIGHT

Our volume, our mass, the weight of our perception is defined by the movement we attach to it. This week, we’ll take what we explored with Will Power the previous week and interpret music as movement, words as sound, interconnecting the accumulation of classes as possibilities for interpretation. The students will be taking their places with each other to create movement plays, based on word exercises reducing writing into vowels and consonants. Our movements are mapped into choreo-poems, as concrete poetry and collage are explored and assigned, creating new pathways into the visual senses.


October 13th – CLASS 4: VOICE (Please note that the first Thursday in October, Oct. 6th, will be skipped)

To communicate what’s being listening to requires an understanding of border with intention, defined as “voice.” This final class explores the Japanese dance Butoh – which explores energy slowly traveling through the dancer’s body. Butoh will be used to translate the voices within, to interpret listening to unknown voices into action. Mantra and repetition will be used to generate new writing out of trance states, further opening the possibilities of sensory awareness. Collaged pieces will be adapted into new texts, creating a performance of collected works to be presented at The Loisaida Center at a later date in November.


ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Edwin Torres came to poetry as a graphic designer in New York City, becoming a self-proclaimed “lingualisualist,” fluent in the languages of sight and sound. The iconic diversity of the East Village during the 90’s, along with the combined forces of Dixon Place, The Nuyorican Poets Café, and The St. Marks Poetry Project, shaped his multi-disciplinary approach to language. He was a member of the poetry collective “Nuyorican Poets Café Live” that helped revitalize Spoken Word, performing and giving workshops worldwide. He is the author of eight books of poetry, including Ameriscopia (University of Arizona Press 2014), Yes Thing No Thing (Roof Books 2010), In The Function Of External Circumstances (Nightboat Books 2009) and The PoPedology of An Ambient Language (Atelos Books 2008). He’s received fellowships from the DIA Foundation, The New York Foundation for the Arts, The Foundation For Contemporary Performing Arts, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and The Poetry Fund among others.

In 2016, he judged the Andre Montoya Poetry Prize at the University of Note Dame, performed his solo show “Mi Voca Su Voca” at The Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, is part of a 2-year artist’s residency entitled Open Studios at The Drawing Center in New York City, and received a residency fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, Creative Writing Program for the upcoming semester. His visual poetics have been exhibited at Exit Art, EFA Gallery in NYC, and a graphic retrospective “Poesís: The Visual Language of Edwin Torres” at The Center for Book and Paper Arts, Chicago, Il. His CD “Holy Kid” (Kill Rock Stars Records) was part of the Whitney Museum’s exhibit “The American Century Part II.” Anthologies include, American Poets in the 21st Century: Vol. 2 (Wesleyan University), Angels Of The Americlypse: An Anthology of New Latin@ Writing (Counterpath Press), Post-Modern American Poetry Vol. 2 (Norton), Best American Poetry (Penguin), Kindergarde: Avant Garde Poems and Plays for Children (Black Radish Books), and Aloud: Voices from The Nuyorican Poets Cafe (Holt).

Will Power is an award-winning playwright and performer. Plays include “Stagger Lee” (Dallas Theater Center), “Fetch Clay, Make Man”(New York Theater Workshop, Marin Theatre Company, Roundhouse Theatre, True Colors Theater), “Steel Hammer” with SITI Company (Humana Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music), “The Seven” (Lucille Lortel Award Best Musical, New York Theater Workshop, La Jolla Playhouse, Ten Thousand Things Theater Company), Five Fingers of Funk! (Children’s Theatre Company), Honey Bo and The Goldmine (La Jolla Playhouse) and two internationally acclaimed solo shows “The Gathering,” and “Flow.”

In addition to being the Doris Duke Foundation Resident Artist at New York Theater Workshop, Power is also on the faculty at The Meadows School of the Arts/SMU, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Playwright in Residence with the Dallas Theatre Center

#LaSoPA 2016 (Session II)

The Loisaida Center is proud to announce

2016 Summer Loisaida Artists in Residence:

The School of Poetic Arts


#LaSopaNYC: Summer 2016 (Session II)

Session II: 3 Saturdays, TBA from 11:00am to 1:00pm.

Our Session II 2016 edition consists of two writing workshops that will explore and give voice to personal and societal issues from the perspectives of women and men.

Register here.

_________________

Mens group: Exploding Poems, Masculinity, and Privilege

Facilated by: Rich Villar

Workshop description:

We will examine various paradigms of masculinity and how it plays out

in our poetic practices. Among the subjects discussed: fatherhood and

family relations; toxicity, patriarchy, and machismo; and the politics

of the body in poetic discourse. In solidarity with other male

writers, our intention is to create a positive space to examine and

challenge our privilege, to speak frankly about our imagined roles in

society, and to cultivate empathy as a writing practice.

_________________

Womens Group: The “She” in the Poem

Faciliated by: Jani Rose

Workshop description:

We birth these works for as many reasons and in as many ways, as there are facets

to our person. Each poem as unique as the variables that inspire it. Among our

sisters and friends, we discuss this “I am”, that influences our journey. The “She”

 that thinks and speaks. How well do we know her? How do we receive her? Do we

respect this voice? Join us at La Sopa to explore the feminine voice, to read and write

with sisters who know that your voice is a necessary companion to her own.

write with sisters who know that your voice is a necessary companion to her own.

Ages: 17 and over.
Please send 3 samples of your work & Submit your application here!

Any questions or concerns to LaSopaNYC@gmail.com or info@loisaida.org


Eventbrite - La Sopa Bookcase


Overview:

La Sopa is facilitated by established members of the arts community who are seasoned teaching artists. The founders, as poets began the series with poetry workshops, and have plans to expand the series to include many more artistic disciplines. With their finger on the pulse of the arts movement throughout the tri-state area, they have access to professors and teaching artists who are knowledgeable in many different arenas. Their pedagogy is that of a Community S.T.E.A.M. program with a special focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics, as it pertains to adult innovators seeking mastery of arts or entrepreneurship.

Full rollout includes coursework in:

S cience: The use of social sciences in identity and influence, reader/ audience perception, interaction, understanding of community needs, and the development of approaches by which these needs might be fulfilled. * (which will include traditional and social media marketing)

T echnology: The use of cutting edge phone/computer apps and tools for writers and artists along with best practices in use of Social Media engagement.

E ngineering: Sound and Stage Engineering for Theatrical classes and/or Music Production as well as App creation.

A rts: Prose and Poetry Writing, Performance, Acting, Screenplay, Vocal, Live Paint, Comic Book/Graphic Novel art, Web Design.

M athematics: Financial Education Classes with a focus on ground level issues such as credit, saving for retirement, and real estate for first home/condo/co-op.

The School of Poetic Arts (La SoPA NYC) is an educational workshop series from Capicu Culture that provides a communal space dedicated to the development of artistic skill and exploring the core principles of theatrical and literary expression. Join us as the first official class of our Artist residency at The Loisaida Center, Inc! As artists and scholars from historically marginalized communities, we feel that it is important to create opportunities for our stories to be seen, read, and heard. La Sopa provides a platform for those voices to be supported and uplifted, increasing the proliferation of creative works across the artistic spectrum. Our time together, generating and editing works, launching new ideas and projects, is an inspirational way to end each week and begin anew. We look forward to the return of our previous participants, as well as the addition of new voices that will enrich the experience.

The Capicu School of Poetic Arts (La SoPA)

Writers of all levels of experience are welcome to join us for this new Summer 2016 season of La Sopa, at the Loisaida Center, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, NYC.

This multi-level educational workshop series provides a communal space dedicated to the development of artistic skill, while exploring the core principles of theatrical and literary expression. We look forward to collaborating with the Loisaida Center, an organization aspiring to build a connection between community learners, artists, and scholars through affordable education opportunities in cultural fields. As artists and scholars from historically marginalized communities, we feel that it is important to create opportunities for our stories to be seen, read, and heard. La Sopa provides a platform for those voices to be supported and uplifted, increasing the proliferation of creative works across the artistic spectrum.

Our time together, generating and editing works, launching new ideas and projects, is an inspirational way to end each week and begin anew. We look forward to the return of our previous participants, as well as the addition of new voices that will enrich the experience.

Outcomes:

La Sopa is rooted in a vision of the artist as cultural worker, in the longstanding tradition of the creative community of the Lower East Side. La Sopa’s founders, administrators, and faculty all believe strongly in the power of creativity to affect change in society. This program is the result of their shared commitment to provide a dynamic environment for diverse communities of artists to convene, work on craft, develop their voices within community, and publicly promote that work through the use of social media and other technologies. A strong familial dynamic underpins the program’s dedication to quality of content, as well as the reversal of destructive forces within our creative community. As the program expands its support base and builds its community, La Sopa will engage faculty and students similarly rooted in cultural work and community betterment.


Profile:

La Sopa (School of Poetic Arts): is a community-based arts program with its intellectual roots in the poetics of the Nuyorican, Black Arts, and Beat movements. From its home base at Loisaida Inc., a historic enclave for artists and people of color on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, La Sopa serves as an incubator for poets, performers, and other creatives to explore and expand their artistic selves, develop their voices, distribute the works in live performance and exhibition, and promote their works in various media. La Sopa (School of Poetic Arts) is a program of Capicu Poetry & Cultural Showcase, led by Juan “Papo Swiggity” Santiago (Director of Operations), Jani Rose (Director of Education) and George Torres (Director of Engagement), with pedagogical contributions by author Rich Villar.