Come visit our resident artist at his studio and learn about his creative process.
Open studio hours are: Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 1-5pm
(Subject to artist’s availability, please email zulealejandro@loisaida.org to schedule a visit.)
Learn more about Juan Bautista-Climent here.
Come one, Come All!!
Loisaida Inc., Acacia Network and the Institute for the Puerto Rican/Hispanic Elderly invite you to experience the uplifting power of music with Broadway performers from Sing for Hope!
The Sing for Hope vision of art for all is informed by our belief that the arts have unique power to uplift, unite, and transform individuals and communities. Our outreach programs in under-resourced areas – from schools to community centers to healthcare facilities – demonstrate this every day.
Each Sing for Hope program is defined by the volunteer service of artists, the needs of the community, and our belief in the transformative power of the arts.
Loisaida Inc. and The Little Art Workshop present:
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.
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
La Lucha Continua The Struggle Continues: 1985 & 2017
“Top of the list at New York Times of must-see galleries in the Lower East Side!”
In 1985, Eva Cockcroft, founder of Artmakers Inc., gathered together 34 “artists of conviction” to create 26 political murals on four vacant buildings overlooking the then neglected La Plaza Cultural community garden. Known as La Lucha Continua The Struggle Continues, the murals addressed six political issues: gentrification, police brutality, immigration, feminism, and opposition of U.S. intervention in Central America and apartheid in South Africa. Today, the garden is thriving, the issues remain of grave concern, and only two of the murals still exist, the paint cracked and faded.
Opening Date:
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Now Extended through July 31st 2017
Viewing Hours:
Thursday, Friday, Saturday
Noon to 6:00 pm
and by appointment.
Organizer:
Artmakers Inc.
For more info and media queries: Jane Weissman, ArtmakersNYC@aol.com, (212) 989-3006
Host Venue:
Loisaida Inc. Center
(646) 726-4715
April 19, 6:30-8 PM. Panel: Loisaida: Then & Now. With Chino Garcia, Maria Dominguez, Noah Jemisin, Kristin Reed, Seth Tobocman. Libertad Guerra, moderator
April 26, 6:30-8 PM. Illustrated Talk: Protest & Celebration: Community Murals of the 1970s & 1980s in Loisaida and on the Historic Lower East Side. Jane Weissman, presenter
April 30. 1 PM Gallery Talk / 2 PM Garden Visit to La Plaza Cultural at 9th & C. (Gallery remains open to 5 PM)
*SECOND ILLUSTRATED TALK, BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND*
May 11, 7:00-8:30 PM. Illustrated Talk: Protest & Celebration: Community Murals of the 1970s & 1980s in Loisaida and on the Historic Lower East Side. Jane Weissman, presenter
*May 23, 6:30-8 PM. Illustrated Talk: La Lucha Continua The Struggle Continues: 1985 & 2017. Jane Weissman, presenter. City Lore Gallery (56 East 1st Street). Also co-sponsored by Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation & City Lore
*May 27, 2 PM Gallery Talk / 3 PM Garden Visit to La Plaza Cultural at East 9th Street & Avenue C Unless noted, all events take place at The Loisaida Center (710 East 9th Street, NYC) Part of the 2017 Loisaida Festival Weekend Programming.
All events are co-sponsored by Artmakers Inc. and The Loisaida Center
*In conjunction with Lower East Side History Month
Media Queries: Jane Weissman, ArtmakersNYC@aol.org, 212.989.3006
Your contribution will support our commitment to the Puerto Rican and Latino Cultures and the preservation of our heritage in New York City.
Made possible through the generous support of AgeWell New York
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:
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)
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
Co-produced by MEZCOLANZA NYC & Loisaida Inc.
Brief description of participants and their performance, visual, theatrical or musical pieces:
1. Teresa Hernández / Performance / 15 min
Title: (A) parecer
About the piece: Performance-space intervention and body. Appearance is a human condition that reveals the uniqueness of each in the encounter with the-othrx. Ten years ago he works with a woman dressed in a black suit. She has named her-the walker. She goes out and walks in and out, complains, reveals in she a-seem what she lives.
About the artist: Stage performer. Actress, dancer, creator-interpreter, author and director of her own texts, self-management activist. She has spent more than twenty-five years research and practice from the frontiers of dance, theater and performance. Looking for other ways of doing, narrating and being on stage, starting with the integral study of the body, space, and its own text. Their themes surround; Identities as shifting and complex lands; Art and it´s established canons, violence and power with its multiple faces and bifurcations. Precariousness is a fundamental part of its ethics. Hernández’s career has been recognized by the United States Artists Foundation under the discipline of Theater Arts. (USA Role Fellow-2011). She is the second Puerto Rican on the island to receive such distinction, being the only one in the field of theater. She holds a master’s degree in “Management and Cultural Management” from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras precinct.
2. Kairiana Núñez / Performance / 10 min
Title: La basquetbolista
About the piece: Set in a basketball game’s tight quarter, a Puerto Rican basketball player has to row hard against the opposite team’s defense in the presence of a referee that unfairly penalizes her and does not call the true fault.
About the artist: Actress taurine and Puerto Rican. Graduated from the Drama Department of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, (2009). He 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 he 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 he returns to Puerto Rico, where despite the imbalance, she bets on continuing to grow artistically, professionally, Ideologically and humanely.
3. Mickey Negrón / Performance / 18 min
Title: Transgressed Body
About the piece: An emigrant, homosexual, transvesti. Strength in the voices of the minority.
About the artist: Mickey Negrón Puerto Rican artist. Artistic director of the Asuntos Efímeros art platform. Enthusiastic writer. Free thinker. Nonconforming gender. Cultural manager. Singer. Moving. Student who never finishes. Fan of pop singers and frustrated athlete. It just premiered as a critic. Currently works an artistic residence at the Center of Fine Arts to be presented in August 2017 and coordinates the second edition of Quiebre: International Performance Festival in Puerto Rico.
4. Yan Christian Collazo / Performance / 15 min
Title: Untitled
About the piece: Character that intervenes in the intermediates, comments the pieces, is ally of the public. Uses a half mask makes jokes about the current situation on the island in relation to the floating islands that we are all talking about individualism, migration and the condition of the migrant.
About the artist: Yan Christian Collazo: Actor, poet, creator, dancer. Puerto Rican. He holds a Bachelors degree in Drama with a second concentration in Foreign Languages specialized in Italian. Studied at “Universitá Cattólica del Sacro Cuore” in Milan, Italy; Specialized in poetry and Italian literature. He took workshops with Latin American theater groups including Malayerba from Ecuador and Yuyachkani from Peru. De Clown with maestro Luis Oliva of Puerto Rico, David Martínez Sánchez of Spain and with the group “Pig Iron Theater Company” of Philadelphia. In 2012, he was part of the group La Pata de Cabra, acting in the play ‘Cortadito or Capuchino’, directed by his teacher Rosa Luisa Márquez. The Festival of Theater of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture was invited. He obtained an MFA in Ensemble Based Theater. He was selected to participate in the “Mad River Festival” along with the company of the school “Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theater. He has been invited to the “2017 River Theater Festival” in Blue Lake, CA and to “California Summer School for the Arts” in Los Angeles, CA. After completing his short tour with his thesis, he will move to New York with a view to forming a multidisciplinary theater group and establishing a working and collaboration bridge between Puerto Rico, New York, California and the world.
5. Awilda Rodríguez Lora / Theater Lab MC / Contemporary Dance / 19 min
Title: Untitled
About the piece: Contemporary dance movement piece that accounts for its status as a migrant who absorbed American culture and made it theirs.
About the artist: Awilda Rodríguez-Lora is a performance choreographer and cultural entrepreneur. Born in Mexico, raised in Puerto Rico, and working in-between North and South America and the Caribbean, Rodríguez Lora’s performances traverse multiple geographic histories and realities. In this way, her work promotes progressive dialogues regarding hemispheric colonial legacies, and the unstable categories of race, gender, class, and sexuality. Rodríguez Lora is currently a host/coordinator at La Rosario in Santurce (Puerto Rico) where she is creating, researching, and producing her life project, La Mujer Maravilla, while developing new strategies for the sustainability of live arts in Puerto Rico. After more than ten years of work as a fully independent artist, she is committed to further studying how artistic economies can be harnessed to support alternative forms of life rooted in communality, creativity, and social justice. laperformera.org.
6. Jeanne D Arc / Dance / Flamenco / 15 min
Title: Untitled
About the piece: Contemporary dance & Flamenco intertwined with poems of protest by Federico García Lorca
About the artist: Jeanne D Arc Casas (1984) was born in Aibonito, Puerto Rico. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Individualized Studies from the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus. In 2011 she earned a master’s degree in performance and choreography at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque where she was a Moderna and Flamenco dance instructor. Since January 2012 is part of the company Soledad Barrio y Noche Flamenca. She has made a large number of tours in the United States, Canada and Argentina Europe and the East. It also teaches lessons in modern dance, contemporary dance and body movement in different schools and universities. Recently Jeanne D ‘Arc Houses participated in the program of residential artifacts of the Fine Arts Center Luis A. Ferré de Santurce, PR where shows the show Hij @ s de la Bernarda directed by the teacher Rosa Luisa Márquez.
7. Poncili Creación Artist Collective/ Performance / Art Installation
About their piece: During the month of May Poncili Creación will be studying the Loisaida community and its mural history in order to produce a performance piece that speaks about the short comings that the community has faced in the past and still face today.
Inspired by Loisaida, Poncili Creación will create several of their unique sculptures based on Loisaida’s murals and community. Using different elements they will create a performance to be presented at the Theater Lab.
About the artists: Poncili Creación conceptualizes and designs interactive experiences for all ages. The company has been conspiring for over half a decade, in which they have shared their work with several countries throughout their international tours to the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean. Their creation technique consists of several disciplines which lead them to create complex structures that resemble different forms through different mechanisms and means of creation. These objects, often humanized, can induce placebos and metaphorical experiences to the spectating mind that often goes from passive interaction to active observation, in the attempt of decoding what happens and transforms before their eye. They currently reside in Puerto Rico and dedicate their time to the study of objects and reality.
8. Yaraní del Valle & Gabo Lugo / Music / Performance / 20 min
Title: Pura’s Lágrimas
About the piece: Musical project developed by Yaraní del Valle and Gabo Lugo that fuses pop music with electronic sound supports and stage theatricality.aims to comment and provoke conversations about identity, gender inequality, her experience as an immigrant and the devastating effects of colonialism, the political condition that Puerto Rico has been a victim of for more than a century.
About the artist: Yaraní Del Valle Piñero is a Puerto Rican actor, singer, dancer, educator, cultural promoter, and activist based in New York City. Her interdisciplinary approach to artistic creation has led her to train and to collaborate with theater directors, choreographers, musicians, filmmakers, writers, and educators as a performer, co-creator and/or curriculum developer. Some of her projects include CHAMACAS, ChicaPReneurs, Seniors In Motion and Pura’s Lágrimas and latest co-founder of Caicú, a nonprofit organization that serves as a cultural platform to empower Puerto Rican artists beyond geographical barriers.
9. Lizbeth Román / Music / 40 min
About the piece: Original music that fuses the Caribbean bohemian with multiple rhythms and a Lyric of the everyday that joins the poetic with the street jargon.
About the artist: Lizbeth Román is a Puerto Rican songwriter, theater and singer. With her scenic force accompanied by the porosity and intensity of her voice, Lizbeth has established herself in the independent scene with her original music that fuses the Caribbean and bohemian vibe with multiple rhythms and a lyric of the everyday that connects the poetic with the street jargon.
10. Alejandro Aldarondo / Art Installation / Site-Specific
Title: Durational
About the piece: Site-specific art installation uses threads or strings that seeks to trace our multiple routes. Uniting as a collective, migrants from here and there. Respecting our qualities and differences, exalting the reasons of movement of each one, looking for a common place from which to leave, is born this installation of threads that looks for the earth and wants to take root.
About the artist: Visual artist Puerto Rican, is dedicated to build facilities with textiles and thread in open spaces. Design and make clothes. Artist / installer, performer, designer, costume designer and dancer. He has a bachelors degree in Interdisciplinary Studies illustration and Drama. Associate Degree in Fashion Design. Has worked on several projects for: Wire / Mezzanine · PR / NYC / The great fantastic circus and the fashion event: Bohemian Sunset.
About TheaterLab co-producers:
MEZCOLANZA NYC 2017 – 12th 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.
Painting extravaganza opened to the community. Artistic experience not necessary. Participants are not required to attend all of the sessions, only hands and creativity needed to help complete this project!
@ FIRST STREET GREEN ART PARK
EAST 1ST STREET AND HOUSTON
33 E 1st St, New York, NY 10003
Open Community Mural Painting Weekend
An endeavor hoping to pay tribute to the 30th anniversary of the twenty-six La Lucha Continua murals raised in 1983 by the community mural collective Artmakers Inc. to address six of some of the compelling political issues of the time, issues such as: gentrification, police brutality, immigration, women’s issues, and opposition to U.S. interventions in Central America and apartheid in South Africa. In contrast with much of the art being produced in the neighborhood at the time for the mainstream art market, this was created for the people, a “neighborhood-directed” effort as described in NYTimes.
The mural will be designed and painted by a small group of volunteers called upon by members from each organization; led by artist Sam Wisneski of the Thrive Collective. This collaboration represents a joint effort in calling on members from a surrounding community to speak to their own experiences, thus amplifying the voices of the community by offering up the podium, or in this case rather the paintbrush, to the people. More than a simple retelling of history, this mural can portray our present through past voices.
As the director of The Loisaida Center, Libertad Guerra posits,
“This exhibition is more than an excavation of the past or an exploration of the social, political and cultural context in which the murals were created. It is also a lens aimed at today’s Loisaida, focusing on how the neighborhood and the issues have changed, directing the eye to the future.”
Two from the original twenty-six pieces are still visible at La Plaza Cultural to this day. Though much of the image from this piece by Susan Ortega has all but withered, the slogan “La Lucha Continúa” remains a powerful reminder to locals in the neighborhood and a reflection of our present through an historical lens.
Production for the commemorative mural coincides with the “La Lucha Continua The Struggle Continues: 1985 & 2017” exhibition currently on display at Loisaida Center.
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:
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)
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.)
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.)
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.
For any questions please contact: Zuleyka Alejandro (787) 636-4413 or Pablo Varona (787) 412-1220