8 sessions – YOU CHOOSE EITHER: Tuesday classes or Thursday classes;
Monday, 7:00pm – 9:30pm
Thursday, 7:00pm – 9:30pm
FREE!
Ages 16+
Overview:
For a 2nd year, Hester Street Collaborative happy to announce that we are partnering with the Loisaida center to offer FREE Screen-printing workshops for immigrant, Asian and Latino communities on the Lower East Side. All skill levels are welcome, ages 16 and up.
The workshop series will reflect the neighborhood tradition of art activism and cultural preservation. 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.
Workshops will be focused on current social justice issues – from immigrant rights to climate change to cultural identity. We will work with participants to increase their understanding of the built environment, expose them to art/design careers, develop age-specific art/design skills, and actively improve their neighborhood’s quality of life.
Package includes: 4 Sessions, 1 Final presentation – 1pm, Four Saturdays, One Friday March 5 – March 26, 2016. at Loisaida Inc. Center. Transgenerational (ages 15+), bilingual friendly (Spanish, English)
Workshop schedule as follows:
– Saturday, March 5th: Class 1
one (1) hour of pandero instruction (basic seguidor, punteador & requinto),
one (1) hour of güiro instruction (basic rhythm & technique)
and one (1) hour of plena ensemble.
– Saturday, March 12th: Class 2
one (1) hour of pandero accompaniment instruction (seguidor, punteador & requinto for ensemble),
one (1) hour of güiro accompaniment instruction (rhythm & technique for ensemble)
and one (1) hour of plena ensemble.
photo by: Jose Carrero
New Rican Village Alumni Reunion, Round-Table and Reception
(celebrating the Young Lords cultural legacy to the Lower East Side)
The purpose of this activity is to:
1. Recognize the Lower East Side neighborhood legacy of the Young Lords Party.
2. Honor the 25th anniversary of the passing of Eddie Figueroa, the founder of the New Rican Village Cultural Arts center, whose battle with cancer ended in 1990.
3. Offer an opportunity for peer organizations to celebrate a community instrumental in creating an innovative Latin@ arts spirit and institution within New York City.
The New Rican Spirit-A Celebration of the New Rican Village Cultural Arts Center, Eddie Figueroa, and ¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York
Starting with the Young Lords Party’s (YLP) official announcement at Tompkins Square Park in 1969, the ¡Presente! exhibition highlights the important activism spearheaded by the YLP as it operated within the context of the Lower East Side.
One of the institutions that came out of this era was the New Rican Village Cultural Arts Center (NRV) established by Lower East Young Lord member, Eddie Figueroa. The NRV, is an overlooked and under-appreciated Loisaida cultural arts institution that was as an aesthetic laboratory for a working-class, Puerto Rican/Latin@ avant-garde arts community since it opened in 1976 through its closing in 1979 (it continued to exist in other locations throughout New York City).
This art collective’s goals fostered a social surrealism that sought to transform both aesthetic forms and neighborhoods. The inter-arts community of musicians, poets, painters, actors, dancers, sculptors, and visual artists at the New Rican Village envisioned the importance of building community art spaces and political sovereignty by establishing and building an independent, community-based arts institution and also contributing to a Latin@ cultural arts scene within New York City, helping establish a Latin@ Cultural Left that was emerging among various Puerto Rican/Latino cultural arts centers at the time. Finally, the NRV helped to foster a New Rican Renaissance that celebrated a marginalized identity, and also translate the zeitgest of resistance and aesthetic and intellectual exploration into various art forms.
This event would not be possible without the co-sponsorship support of: Lower Eastside Girls Club, AllCare Provider Services, Inc.Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Education Center,Latino Studies Department at Fordham UniversityCarlos Aponte, Lisa Baltazar, Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé,Pepe Flores, Libertad Guerra, Ana Ramos,Wilson Valentín-Escobar.
Loisaida Inc and Plenatorium Project present a double feature:
12:30pm
Sonidos Primarios: a hands-on discussion and presentation by artists who produce kid-friendly cultural content featuring an album of traditional Puerto Rican music for children by Viento de Agua, a Grammy Nominated bomba and plena contemporary band dedicated to de production of new music and projects as well as teaching the traditional rhtyms… Bring the kids! $5 suggested donation
Come share with Grammy-nominee and percussion master Tito Matos about the experience and details of recording a kid’s musical record. Tito and his group Viento de Agua have just released a children’s songs record, Sonidos Primarios, and he comes to share the experience and to perform a few of the songs from the record. He will be joined in the discussion by the members of the band Aclopaditos, who have vast experience in teaching and recording for children. Acopladitos will also perform a few songs for the enjoyment of all. Bring your little ones!
Following the presentation:
2:30pm
‘The New Latinos’ – screening and guided discussion featuring Tito Matos and Tato Torres.
Join us in the viewing of ‘The New Latinos’, episode 4 of The Latino Americans documentary series. This 60 minutes episode, that dwells on the experience of the Caribbean migration (Cuban, Dominican and Puerto Rican) to the United States, will be followed by a hands-on-drums one hour discussion reflecting on the musical aspects of these diasporic groups; the discussion will specifically revolve around the preservation, innovations, and hybridization of the musical traditions of these three groups after their arrival to the continental United States. The hands-on-drums discussion will be led by Grammy Award nominee, the maestro Tito Matos, and Tato Torres, founder, singer and leader of the group YERBABUENA. This viewing and talk are part of the Loisaida, Inc. Center’s Plenatorium Project initiative and part of the American Library Association/NEH Grant The Latino Americans, LA500.
Sponsored by The National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Library Association with Acopladitos and Viento de Agua
Sept. 24th, 2015 – “We refused to cave In”: Gender, Race, Class, and Decolonial Intersectionality in the Young Lords’ Liberation Politics
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Darrel Wanzer-Serrano Assistant Professor, The University of Iowa
Based on a chapter from The New York Young Lords and the Struggle for Liberation (Temple University Press, 2015), this talk engages the process by which the Young Lords shifted from an organization rooted in the idea that “machismo” could be “revolutionary” to one that rejected machismo as a product of a racist/sexist/imperialist/capitalist system. The Young Lords advanced a nuanced and cutting-edge critique of the intersectionality of oppression and extended their analysis from the internal workings of the organization to society at large. The transformation ushered in by this “revolution within the revolution” was not instantaneous, however. Rather, there was significant struggle within the organization that first led to policy and leadership changes. Once the Young Lords advanced the rejection of machismo in their official platform, it opened space for the emergence of a gay and lesbian caucus and coalitional politics with lesbian, gay, and trans* activists, like Sylvia Rivera. Their intersectional perspective was central, I argue, to a kind of decolonial critical politics that eschewed a focus on rights in preference for attentiveness to and claims for liberation. In this framework, which is also advanced by most scholars of de/coloniality, liberation is an alternative to emancipation—the latter of which relies on claims to recognition that fortify the legitimacy of the modern/colonial system. Liberation, then, seeks a liberty delinked from classical liberalism, mindful of affiliations and fraternal connections, and guided by an ethic of decolonial love, even as colonial wounds can never fully heal.
About the book:
The book summary and a blurb by Andrés Torres can be found on the Temple Press website here: http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/2346_reg.html
The publicity manager at Temple is Gary Kramer and can be reached at gkramer@temple.edu.
Author/Speaker Long Bio:
Darrel Wanzer-Serrano (PhD, Indiana University) is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Public Advocacy in the Department of Communication Studies, and founding member of the Latina/o Studies Minor Advisory Board, at the University of Iowa. His research is focused on the intersections of race, ethnicity, and public discourse, particularly as they relate to formations of coloniality and decoloniality in the United States. He recently completed a project on the New York Young Lords with the first scholarly monograph on the organization, The New York Young Lords and the Struggle for Liberation (Temple University Press, 2015). He also edited The Young Lords: A Reader (New York University Press, 2010), a sourcebook of primary texts on the group; and he has published numerous articles on the organization and other topics. Darrel is currently working on a new book project, tentatively titled Possession: Crafting Americanity in Congressional Debates over Puerto Rico’s Status, which examines the formation of coloniality and the rhetoric of Americanity within the first twenty years of US entanglement with Puerto Rico.
Opening Reception and Performances June 12 at 6:00 pm.
A live exhibit which will bring together new young artists— Mckenzie Angelo, Anthony Rosado, Jonathan Gonzalez, Yoira Santos, Adam Echahly, Lamar Stephens, Adam Rhodes, Chazz Bruce, and Stephanie Mota.
Curatorial Statement
en casa afuera –
Think gentrification is completely erasing the hirstory and identities of native New York residents? Think again. Amidst new developments, increasing rents, empty storefronts, newcomers in LES, Crown Heights, Washington Heights, Harlem, & Bushwick, artists are finding ways to claim their stake in the areas, tethering the old soul of these communities. A group of such artists are coming to Loisaida, Inc.’s Center, one of the remaining physical spaces serving the LES and NYC Latino and independent community, to present a series of interactive works paying tribute to the Home(s).
en casa afuera, a live exhibit which will run from June 12th to June 19th, brings together new young artists from the metropolitan New York and New Jersey region spanning the ages of mid 20’s-30’s.— Mckenzie Angelo, Anthony Rosado, Jonathan Gonzalez, Yoira Santos, Adam Echahly, Lamar Stephens, Adam Rhodes, Chazz Bruce, and Stephanie Mota. They came together to investigate the intersections of home and displacement, as well as the potential for art making to reflect and revision these relations. Loisaida Inc., as the performance hub, may then be the home or shelter that localizes this web of creative results.
The process of what initially began as a series of conversations on the shifting dynamics of New York City, the forces that will it, and what is authentic in these urban amalgamations, developed into a need to generate around these lofty queries – what is home? and what remains as the physical departs from what we know it to be? (whether by a stripping of possession or decay.) Lastly, what does this process of transition look like, feel like, for us?
Visitors and members of the community, old and new, are encouraged to the engage in and think about the daily rituals of Home(s). The series of installations range from the symbolic to the banal. One of the works, a collage in the main hallways shows a Nuyorican’s response to gentrification while another shares with audiences the everyday objects our communities use to pamper themselves. Together, all works zoom in and out of the experience of a changing neighborhood.
en casa afuera represents and shines light onto the complex process of change and gentrification in NYC, and celebrates the histories that are passed on from generation to generation and carried everywhere. Above all, they encourage artists and guests to preserving our stories and our communities will follow.
When asked what Loisaida means for them the group responded:
“Loisaida has been an iconic place-maker for both its residents and the world at large. It architecturally houses the pride and cultural breadth of a community, while transcending the energetic embodiment of LES – a location/identity in flux. These dynamics are at the heart of our creative interests and explorations en casa afuera.”
Time frame of Residency @ Loisaida: February 24th 2015 to April 25th 2015
Proposed project for the residency:
Flux Sundays:
Are you an actor, playwright or director?
Join Flux Theatre Ensemble’s unique play development process and vibrant artist community for their weekly workshop, Flux Sundays. Once a week, up to 30 theatre artists gather for three hours in the afternoon to lightly stage new scenes from playwrights in the community. Not a theatre artist, but want to get involved? Feel free to join us for the final hour of Flux Sundays, where we share all of the scenes, and see plays in their earliest stages of development brought to vivid life by a welcoming community of artists.
Official Dates for Flux Sundays: 2/15, 2/22, 3/1 and 3/15 from 4:00pm – 6:00pm Email Flux Sundays to learn more about how you can participate.
Behind every special object we keep, there’s something even more important: a story.
Flux Theatre Ensemble’s The Salvage Project is a series of story-circles where communities come together to share stories about the precious objects of their lives. Through the sharing of these stories, we’ll learn what matters most to the people with whom we share this city and why. The Salvage Project culminates in a free, full-length production of the world premiere play Salvage, which imagines a band of searchers looking for precious objects left behind in a post-catastrophe NYC. Interested participants in The Salvage Project will have the option of sharing their object as part of the scenic design of the production, as well as opportunities to have their stories transformed by professional playwrights into short monologues. Stories and objects may also shared as part of The Salvage Project blog.
Email Sol Crespo to learn more and participate in The Salvage Project.
Since 2006, Flux has produced 20 productions and countless readings and developmental projects. The ensemble is made up of eleven Creative Partners composed of actors, directors, playwrights, and designers. Flux is the proud recipient of the 2011 Caffe Cino Fellowship Award, presented annually to an Off-Off-Broadway theatre company that consistently produces outstanding work. The company’s productions of Hearts Like Fists and Ajax in Iraq were chosen as “New York Times Critics’ Picks” and in 2008, nytheatre.com chose Flux Theatre Ensemble as one of their “People of the Year” saying “This rising theatre company had a hit in the New York International Fringe Festival with Other Bodies, written by artistic director August Schulenburg, and then went on to mount the fall’s most ambitious indie show, Johnna Adams’ The Angel Eaters Trilogy.” Over the years, Flux has received New York Innovative Theatre Award nominations for their productions of Jane the Plain, Sans Merci, Hearts Like Fists, Ajax in Iraq, The Angel Eaters Trilogy, The Lesser Seductions of History and Dog Act.
Flux Theatre Ensemble is a member of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/NY, the Network of Ensemble Theaters and the League of Independent Theatres.
This event brings together New York-based current and former fellows of the national Latina/o poets workshop CantoMundo (cantomundo.org/) to read from their work in solidarity with ongoing protests and mobilizations in and around Ferguson, Missouri, and the College of Ayotzinapa in Iguala, Mexico.Many of the poets reading are also participating in #CantoMundoLongestNight, a social-media offering of poems in honor of the countless black and brown bodies slain by state-sanctioned violence.
Darrel Alejandro Holnes is from Panama City and the former Canal Zone of Panamá. His poetry has been published in Poetry Magazine, The Best American Experimental Writing, Callaloo, The Caribbean Writer, The Potomac, MEADE, Lambda Literary, Assaracus, Weave Magazine, The Feminist Wire, The Paris American, Kweli, featured on The Best American Poetry blog, and elsewhere in print and online. He is the co-author of PRIME: Poetry & Conversations (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2014). He is a proud CantoMundo and Cave Canem fellow. darrelholnes.com
Yesenia Montilla is a New York City poet with Afro-Caribbean roots & CantoMundo Fellow. Her poetry has appeared in the literary journals: 5 AM, Adanna, Wideshore and others. She received her MFA from Drew University in Poetry and Poetry in Translation. Her first collection of poetry The Pink Box is forthcoming from Willow Books in Fall 2015.
Born to a Mexican mother and Jewish father, Rosebud Ben-Oni is a CantoMundo Fellow and the author of SOLECISM (Virtual Artists Collective, 2013). Her work is forthcoming or appears in POETRY, The American Poetry Review, Arts & Letters, Bayou, Puerto del Sol, among others. Rosebud is an Editorial Advisor for VIDA: Women in Literary Arts (vidaweb.org). Find out more at 7TrainLove.org
CantoMundo fellow Urayoán Noel is the author of the critical study In Visible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry from the Sixties to Slam (University of Iowa, 2014) and several books of poetry in English and Spanish, including EnUncIAdOr (Editora Emergente, 2014) and the forthcoming Buzzing Hemisphere/Rumor Hemisférico (University of Arizona). Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, he lives in the Bronx and teaches at NYU.
*The views and opinions expressed on this event are soley those of the participating poets, scholars and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of Loisaida Inc., Acacia Network and staff, and/or any/all contributors to this event.
Join the amazing and dynamic musical duo Acopladitos for an interactive musical experience as you create your own musical instruments using recycled materials during an exiting music/art making session. This 90-minute workshop will be structured in the format of Loisaida Center’s one-time specialized workshop or talk program the X-Change Express.
Acopladitos will demonstrate how to make a variety of musical instruments using everyday objects, especially those found at home. They will share with the audience their playful approach to the idea of “sound explorations.” More than making your own instruments, Acopladitos will share some musical ideas to guide the audience through a creative composition process that the entire family can practice at home. The last portion of the talk consists of a “hands on” approach to music making where the audience will have the opportunity of playing the instruments.
Acopladitos is dedicated to teaching Spanish language through music and movement to young learners.
This events is open to a general audience, but will specifically benefit early childhood teachers and parents.
We hope you can join us and help us spread the word!
Acopladitos is a Spanish immersion music program for young children. The word “acopladitos” in
Spanish can be translated to mean “being together in complete harmony” and refers to much more than
just music. The program is designed to cultivate the child’s first musical encounters through singing,
creative movement, music-making, games and dramatic play. A presentation by
Acopladitos incorporates charming original songs with a repertoire of popular Latin American children’s
songs. Designed and led by composer Angelica Negrón and ethno-musicologist Noraliz Ruiz, the
program was created to fill a void in early childhood Spanish-language music education in NYC. This
team of Brooklyn-based experienced educators and creative artists will engage the children in a
collaborative and exciting musical experience that will nurture their artistic, intellectual, physical and
social-emotional development. We are interested in collaborating with Loisaida Center in order to bring
fun and interactive programming to the children of Loisaida and reach out to the community at large.
