Loisaida Inc.

2025 NEW VILLAGE MUSIC FESTIVAL
2025-08-30 12:00 - 17:00 UTC | Tompkins Square Park, Ave A b/w 9th & 10th St, New York, NY, 10009, United States
JOIN US THIS SATURDAY FOR
NVMF 2025!
@nvmusicfest
A free outdoor multi-genre music concert for the entire family! Promoting unity via arts activism!
Special thanks to our sponsors: @loisaidainc.center @henrystreetsettlement @ LowerEastsideCommunityMusicWorkshop @kazuzalounge @twobootspizza @ Charas, Inc. @rojoentertainment
Host: Giraldo Luis Alvarez @sp.alwaysforward
Media Correspondent: @mskittyrose1
Music Artists:
@yotocomusic
@gilvelez23
@kikiandthefellas
@niccodiaz.nyc
@iztherealest
@zoeh.g
@aleathiab
@bebebambu88
@diana_nugu_

W.O.W. Open Mic & Open House @ The Loisaida Center
2025-09-03 18:00 - 20:30 | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
Join Loisaida, Inc. and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe for the off-site edition of our monthly WOMXN ORATOR WEDNESDAY (“W.O.W.”) Open Mic, hosted by Sumbodies Mama – at the Loisaida Center, 710 East 9th Street, NY, NY 10009. Ticket(s) available at the door or in advance by following this link: https://ci.ovationtix.com/35133 – the signup sheet to perform in the open mic is at the tickets/welcome table (near the stage) after you enter.

More details:
** Held on the 2nd & 4th Wednesdays of each month. **
** (Note: except during the summer months in July & August 2025) ***
** Doors open at 6 P.M. **
** Open Mic is from 6:30 to 8:30 P.M. **

All art forms are welcome:
Spoken Word/Poetry, Short Stories/Scripts, Stand-Up Comedy, Short Monologues/Excerpts, 3-4 Minute Original Songs or Performances (Note: ORIGINAL songs only).
Four minutes max. for each performer. If you’d like to add an original audio track to your performance, the digital signup sheet at the stage will provide an online form to upload your audio files. ** Note: all performances will be recorded and live-streamed on Loisaida’s and our Nuyorican Poets Cafe’s YouTube channel. Participation in this event is with this understanding and giving consent to be filmed. If you missed attending and/or would like to re-watch your own performance, find the recorded videos on our YouTube channel. **
** NOTICE: By attending and/or participating in events by the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, you acknowledge that your voice and/or likeness may be recorded and/or photographed. **
Ticket info here: https://ci.ovationtix.com/35133
* $10 (plus online fee) in advance here on this ticket page (for either audience/viewing or performances, same price)
* $10 (at the door at the Loisaida Center, via credit card or Zelle or ApplePay only, no cash)

Our events are made possible in part through the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Howard Gilman Foundation, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, the NYC Department of Youth and Community Development, the New York City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the Mid-Atlantic Folk and Traditional Arts.

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SEMBRANDO RESISTENCIA - CONECTANDO LUCHAS
2025-09-06 15:00 - 19:00 | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
SEMBRANDO RESISTENCIA
“CONECTANDO LUCHAS”
Es nuestro segundo año de Sembrando Resistencia, y queremos brindar dos días de inmersión comunitaria reflexionando en las luchas de distintos líderes de Loisaida, Bronx, Chile, y Puerto Rico.
Únanse para compartir y conocer sobre estas experiencias y cómo las luchas se conectan.
September 6
3-5 pm Panel at @loisaidainc.center with @lasaladepepe, , @rapabonpr, @lapenadelbronx , @kailabule
5-5:30 pm Walking tour to Francisco “ Pancho” Ramos Community Garden
5:45-6:45 pm Live Music @dasomonster y el grupo Cemi @faabio.puentes @angelbajotimba @yuto_kanazawa @takafuminikaido

Open Mic Wednesdays at Loisaida Center hosted by: Brian Acosta Arya
2025-09-10 18:00 - 20:30 | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
Join Loisaida Inc. and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe for our WEDNESDAYS OPEN MIC hosted by Brian Acosta Arya – at the Loisaida Center, 710 East 9th Street, NY, NY 10009. Ticket(s) available at the door or in advance by following this link: https://ci.ovationtix.com/35133 – the signup sheet to perform in the open mic is at the tickets/welcome table (near the stage) after you enter.
More details:
** Held on the 2nd & 4th Wednesdays of each month. **
** (Note: except during the summer months in July & August 2025) ***
** Doors open at 6 P.M. **
** Open Mic is from 6:30 to 8:30 P.M. **

All art forms are welcome:
Spoken Word/Poetry, Short Stories/Scripts, Stand-Up Comedy, Short Monologues/Excerpts, 3-4 Minute Original Songs or Performances (Note: ORIGINAL songs only).
Four minutes max. for each performer. If you’d like to add an original audio track to your performance, the digital signup sheet at the stage will provide an online form to upload your audio files. ** Note: all performances will be recorded and live-streamed on Loisaida’s and our Nuyorican Poets Cafe’s YouTube channel. Participation in this event is with this understanding and giving consent to be filmed. If you missed attending and/or would like to re-watch your own performance, find the recorded videos on our YouTube channel. **
** NOTICE: By attending and/or participating in events by the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, you acknowledge that your voice and/or likeness may be recorded and/or photographed. **
Ticket info here: https://ci.ovationtix.com/35133
* $10 (plus online fee) in advance here on this ticket page (for either audience/viewing or performances, same price)
* $10 (at the door at the Loisaida Center, via credit card or Zelle or ApplePay only, no cash)

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HABITAR LAS FÁBULAS (PERFORMANCE)
2025-10-10 19:00 - 20:30 | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
HABITAR LAS FÁBULAS

Description:
Habitar las Fábulas is a series of dance performances inspired by the visual art series Fábulas by Uruguayan artist Fernanda Piñeirua. Through movement, we share women’s stories—of patriarchy, migration, ancestry, community, struggle, union, self-love, and death.

This project is both dialogue and tribute: a collective recomposition of Latin American women’s experiences. From image to gesture, the performances draw symbolic foundations from the Orixas dances of Brazilian Candomblé, the rhythms of Uruguayan candombe, the steps of Argentinian chacarera, and the language of Afro-Latin contemporary dance.
Each body becomes a question, a vessel for memory and resistance, a way of telling what words alone cannot hold. These dances invite the audience into empathy, trusting that the stories of South American women will resonate and echo in their own personal narratives, weaving a sense of shared community.

About Simbólica Cia. de Danza:
Simbólica is a Sudaka Latinafrocontemporary dance company that creates from the symbolic intersections of movement and knowledge. We dance to question what we believe, feel, and think—transforming body and emotion into tools for inquiry where the mind alone cannot reach. Our practice is rooted in regenerating, strengthening, and empowering both personal and collective identity.
María Noel Costa (Uruguay) is a dancer, choreographer, and teacher with training in jazz, modern, African, and contemporary dance. A three-time recipient of the Regional Fund for Culture, her works include I Have Something to Say and Morder.
Paula Sarmiento Ansorena (Argentina/Uruguay) is a dancer, researcher, and director whose creations blend traditional and contemporary Afro-Latin American dances. She has trained in Brazil, Guinea, Mexico, and New York, and is the director of Simbólica Cia. de Danza and member of Yiribas Cia.
Guest Artist: Mobéy Lola Irizarry (Puerto Rican diaspora/Chickasaw Nation) is a genderqueer cultural worker and multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans sound, image, and performance.

Location: Loisaida, Inc.-710 E 9th St, New York, 10009

Praxis & Lab: 3:00 PM (Register here)

Performance: 7:00 PM (Register here)

American Boricua Artist Talk with Omar Eaton-Martinez
2026-02-16 17:00 - 20:00 | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
Loisaida Center welcomes you to a special Artist Talk with Wanda Benvenutti, photojournalist of the current photography exhibition, American Boricua, and Omar Eaton-Martinez. In celebration of Black History Month, this conversation centers on Afro-Puerto Rican voices, lived experience, and the power of curating the everyday to challenge erasure and rewrite the narrative.
Black History is Puerto Rican History. From confronting anti-Blackness within our own communities to imagining a just cultural future, this dialogue honors the past while shaping what comes next.
Omar Eaton-Martinez is the Senior Vice President for Historic Sites at the National Trust for Historic Preservation and will join Wanda to discuss culture and the importance of accuracy and nuance in the experience of shared physical spaces. As American Boricua celebrates the Puerto Rican Diaspora throughout North America through a photojournalistic lens, Eaton-Martinez leads the preservation, interpretation, and overall stewardship of 28 historical sites across the country to tell the full American story.
This is an invitation to listen deeply, ask hard questions, and collectively build a more truthful and expansive understanding of who we are. Wanda Benvenutti ✕ Omar Eaton-Martinez in conversation at the Loisaida Center. This intimate gallery talk takes the form of a mutual interview, where Wanda and Omar speak with—and challenge—each other around the idea of “curating the everyday” as a way to disrupt the master narrative of Puerto Rican identity.
Monday, February 16, 2026 (Presidents Day Weekend)
Loisaida Center Theater (limited seating)
5:00 PM Doors & exhibition viewing
6:00 PM Conversation begins
Topics include:
• Puerto Rican identity beyond stereotype
• Afro-Latinidad and internal anti-Blackness
• Building a positive cultural future for the next 50–200 years
Introduced by: Pepe Flores, Loisaida community elder, co-founder of @lasaladepepe
Recorded live (YouTube + podcast format) #LoisaidaTV
Extended Q&A with artists, cultural workers, and the public. Space is limited (45–50 seats)
Registration required | Link: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/ev/reg/8qusv5r
#BlackHistoryMonth #BlackHistoryIsPuertoRicanHistory #AfroBoricua #AfroLatinidad #PuertoRicanHistory #DiasporaStories #AmericanBoricua #CuratingTheEveryday #DisruptTheNarrative #CounterNarratives #LivingArchives #PublicHistory #Loisaida #LowerEastSide #NYCCulture #CommunityVoices #CulturalWorkers #LatinxArts #CulturalEquity #RepresentationMatters #DecolonizeHistory #FutureAncestral

American Boricua Artist Talk with Maximo Colon (Exhibition Closing)
2026-03-30 17:00 - 20:00 | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
Loisaida Center welcomes you to a special Artist Talk with Wanda Benvenutti, photojournalist of the current photography exhibition, American Boricua, and Máximo Colón.
Born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, Máximo Rafael Colón is a New York-based photographer who studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Colón’s photography speaks to his concerns of social justice, activism, and cultural expression, which encapsulate a wide range of interests in music, the human condition, and making visible the people of our society who are often marginalized through discrimination and inequality. His primary medium is analogue photography; Colón also creates assemblages in the found object tradition. His works have been exhibited in several venues throughout New York City and Puerto Rico, and a number of his photographs form part of the Centro De Estudios Puertorriqueños archives at CUNY Hunter College and of the permanent collection at the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
Monday, March 30, 2026
Loisaida Center Studio (limited seating)
5:00 PM Doors & exhibition viewing
6:00 PM Conversation begins
Introduced by: Pepe Flores, Loisaida community elder, co-founder of @lasaladepepe
Recorded live (YouTube + podcast format) #LoisaidaTV
Extended Q&A with artists, cultural workers, and the public. Space is limited (45–50 seats)
Registration required.

Lectura y firma de libros con Choco Orta en Loisaida Center
2026-04-02 18:00 - 20:00 | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
Lectura y firma de libros con Choco Orta en Loisaida Centera at 7:00 pm
Loisaida Center se honra en presentar una lectura y firma de libros con la destacada cantautora, actriz y salsera puertorriqueña Choco Orta, este próximo jueves, 2 de abril a las 6:00 PM, con motivo de la presentación de su novela autobiográfica Si me comprendieras.
En este libro, Choco Orta comparte un recorrido profundamente personal por su vida, desde su niñez en la calle Carmen de Santurce hasta su consolidación como una figura imprescindible de la música puertorriqueña. A través de sus páginas, la autora ofrece una mirada honesta y valiente sobre las experiencias que moldearon su carácter y su visión del mundo: la familia, la negritud, el machismo, la rebeldía, la identidad y la música como refugio, afirmación y destino.
Esta presentación será una oportunidad especial para escuchar a la autora en primera persona, celebrar su trayectoria y dialogar en torno a una vida marcada por la perseverancia, la conciencia y el compromiso con su verdad.
Les invitamos a acompañarnos en esta velada literaria y cultural en comunidad.
📍 Loisaida Center📅 Jueves, 2 de abril🕕 6:00 PM
Join us this Thursday, April 2 at 6:00 PM at Loisaida Center for a special book reading and signing with acclaimed Puerto Rican singer-songwriter, actress, and salsera Choco Orta, celebrating her autobiographical novel, If You Understood Me (Si me comprendieras).
In this intimate and powerful work, Choco Orta reflects on her life journey, from her childhood in Santurce to her path as an artist, sharing stories shaped by family, race, gender, courage, and music as a force of transformation. Her voice and testimony offer a deeply moving portrait of a Puerto Rican, Black, and unapologetically authentic life in the arts.
We invite you to join us for this special evening of literature, memory, conversation, and community as we celebrate the life and legacy of one of Puerto Rico’s remarkable cultural voices.
📍 Loisaida Center📅 Thursday, April 2🕕 6:00 PM
#ChocoOrta #SiMeComprendieras #LoisaidaCenter #Loisaida #PuertoRicanCulture #PuertoRicanLiterature #AfroLatinidad #Salsa #BookReading #BookSigning #LatinxAuthors #Nuyorican #LESArts #BoricuaCulture
