Loisaida Inc.

Community Parade & Pageant – Open Community Textiles Workshops
2017-05-24 15:00 - 18:00 UTC | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
Loisaida inc. is proud to present as part of The 30th Annual Loisaida Festival, Daniela Fabrizi will be complementing with textiles and fabric; the collaborative atelier created by the 3 invited street theater artists: Daniel Polnau, Pablo Varona and Adam Ende. This collaborative atelier will be open to visitors and the community at large, all FREE.

Specific Dates by theme:
Re-plasti-cycle your Garments: May 10,17, 24 (3pm-6pm)
Costumes! Banners! Flags! GIANTS!: May 9,16, 23 (3pm-6pm)

Workshop description:

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)

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 (Tootophone)
2017-05-25 12:00 - 15:00 UTC | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
Workshop begins: Thursday, May 4th 2017 from 12:00pm to 6:00pm
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.

Tutabanda (Tootophone) Workshop
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)

Register here!

Community Parade & Pageant – Open Community Workshops
2017-05-26 14:00 - 18:00 UTC | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
Workshop begins: Friday, May 5th 2017 from 2:00pm to 6:00pm
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.

Open Community Workshop
Dates: Fridays (May 5,12,19 and 26) from 2:00pm 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 18 – Adults. No unaccompanied minors will be allowed.)

Register here!

Loisaida Festival Community Parade
2017-05-28 11:00 - 12:00 UTC | Avenue C Corridor, 12th - 6th Streets on Avenue C, New York, NY, 10003, United States
Every year the LoisaidaFest hits the ground running with the yearly Loisaida Festival Carnival Parade. Where our #diverse global #community blends with #puppeteers, marching bands and performance #artists, young and old to create a one of a kind #spectacle of color and fun.

Sunday, May 28th from 11:00am on the Avenue C corridor, Loisaida Avenue between 6th and 12th Streets

2017’s theme is Immigration where we’ll be recognizing and celebrating the Im/migrant experience in the Lower East Side – The Gateway to America, and celebrating the Latin American Immigrant and their contributions to this community, city and country.

Want to participate in the parade or just attend FREE parade preparations workshop? Register here.

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The 30th Annual Loisaida Festival
2017-05-28 12:00 - 17:00 UTC | Avenue C Corridor, 12th - 6th Streets on Avenue C, New York, NY, 10003, United States
A celebration is coming:

The Loisaida Festival has been historically celebrated on the Sunday before Memorial Day along six blocks of the Avenue C corridor, officially “Loisaida Ave.” This year is on:
Sunday, May 28th fom 12:00pm – 5:00pm

2017’s theme is Immigration where we’ll be recognizing and celebrating the Im/migrant experience in the Lower East Side – The Gateway to America, and celebrating the Latin American Immigrant and their contributions to this community, city and country.

★BECOME A SPONSOR★REGISTER AS A VENDOR★

4th Annual Loisaida Festival Theater Lab
2017-05-28 12:00 - 17:00 UTC | La Plaza Cultural, 700 E 9th Street, New York, 10009, United States
The Loisaida Festival’s 4th Annual Theater Lab
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.

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Dome Building Workshop
2018-05-06 14:00 - 16:00 UTC | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
Dome Building Workshop
A project by: Matthew Mottel in collaboration with Loisaida Inc.
Sunday, May 6 from 2:00 pm to 4:30 pm (estimated time)

Overview:
The history of dome building on the LES goes back to when CHARAS built domes in collaboration with Buckminster Fuller in 1972/73. Syeus Mottel documented this effort in his photo-journalism book CHARAS THE IMPROBABLE DOME BUILDERS , first published in 1974 and now re published in 2017 by Song Cave Press & Pioneer Works.
Through a collaborative project between Loisaida Inc., La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez and DIAP (Digital Intermedia MFA program at City College), artist and researcher Matthew Mottel (Syeus Mottel’s son) will build 2 geodesic domes (one at La Plaza and the other at the Loisaida Inc. Center’ courtyard) as an interactive art installation. In interviewing Carlos “Chino” Garcia as part of his research, Matthew was told that the domes CHARAS built functioned as both recreational activity spaces and as experimental examples of how to build disaster relief housing in non urban areas. The same functions apply now. The dome at La Plaza Cultura, will be seen from the street, with high visibility. This will bring people to the other dome in the courtyard and exhibition happening at Loisaida Center, which will feature a more detailed documentation of the original events of 1972-73.
This work highlights the achievements of CHARAS and hopefully expands the pressure on the NYC mayoral office to follow through on their promise to re-acquire El Bohio for the Loisaida community.
The week of the exhibition opening, many public performances, talks and workshops will transpire in both the Loisaida Center dome, and at La Plaza Cultural. These events will be influenced by the type of programming that happened during the 20+ years of events and exhibitions of El Bohio before being pushed out of its iconic and historic location on 9th Street, formerly known as P.S. 64.

Resources:
The Improbable Dome Builders
Matthew’s essay on the book.
The video that will be screened during the exhibition opening; CHARAS IS ALIVE ON SPACESHIP EARTH – Wednesday, May 9 at 6:00 pm

Schedule, Programming & Activities:

Saturday, May 5 at 6:00 pm – Archive exhibition of the 1972/73 CHARAS Geodesic Dome opens during Fiestas de Cruz at Loisaida Center.
Sunday, May 6 at 2:00 pm – Dome Building Workshop where participants will assist in the building of a 12′ geodesic dome. There will also be a special screening of archival footage from Bucky Fuller.
Wednesday, May 9 at 6:00 pm – Geodesic Domes unveiled with exhibition at Loisaida Center and La Plaza Cultural with performance by poet Edwin Torres.
Thursday, May 10 at 12:00 pm – Exhibition hours at Loisaida Center.
Friday, May 11 at 6:00 pm – Exhibition hours at Loisaida Center + Oral history project of the Lower East Side featuring interview with Chino Garcia by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, with documentary screening of Matthew Mottel’s video CHARAS IS ALIVE ON SPACESHIP EARTH at 6:00 pm.
Saturday, May 12 at 12:00 pm – Exhibition hours at Loisaida Center + performances in the afternoon thru evening at La plaza Cultural and Loisaida Center Courtyard.

CHARAS IS ALIVE ON SPACESHIP EARTH: Reception + Performances
2018-05-09 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
CHARAS IS ALIVE ON SPACESHIP EARTH: Reception + Performances

A project by: Matthew Mottel in collaboration with Loisaida Inc., La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez and DIAP (Digital Intermedia MFA program at City College

Overview:
The history of dome building on the LES goes back to when CHARAS built domes in collaboration with Buckminster Fuller in 1972/73. Syeus Mottel documented this effort in his photo-journalism book CHARAS THE IMPROBABLE DOME BUILDERS , first published in 1974 and now re published in 2017 by Song Cave Press & Pioneer Works.
Through a collaborative project between Loisaida Inc., La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez and DIAP (Digital Intermedia MFA program at City College), artist and researcher Matthew Mottel (Syeus Mottel’s son) will build 2 geodesic domes (one at La Plaza and the other at the Loisaida Inc. Center’ courtyard) as an interactive art installation. In interviewing Carlos “Chino” Garcia as part of his research, Matthew was told that the domes CHARAS built functioned as both recreational activity spaces and as experimental examples of how to build disaster relief housing in non urban areas. The same functions apply now. The dome at La Plaza Cultura, will be seen from the street, with high visibility. This will bring people to the other dome in the courtyard and exhibition happening at Loisaida Center, which will feature a more detailed documentation of the original events of 1972-73.
This work highlights the achievements of CHARAS and hopefully expands the pressure on the NYC mayoral office to follow through on their promise to re-acquire El Bohio for the Loisaida community.
The week of the exhibition opening, many public performances, talks and workshops will transpire in both the Loisaida Center dome, and at La Plaza Cultural. These events will be influenced by the type of programming that happened during the 20+ years of events and exhibitions of El Bohio before being pushed out of its iconic and historic location on 9th Street, formerly known as P.S. 64.

Resources:
CHARAS The Improbable Dome Builders (((THE FUTURE IN ACTION)))
Through the lens of avant-garde architectural theory, the CHARAS Lower East side community group and Buckminster Fuller’s assistant, Michael Ben Eli construct a geodesic dome on an unused plot of land in the shadow of the Manhattan bridge in 1972-1973. The CHARAS members built the geodesic dome to control their own destiny.
CHARAS: The Improbable Dome Builders resonates in 2018. Ever present are the needs of affordable housing, the occupation of public/unused space for civic use, and the participation of communities to take self determined action when governmental institutions forgo their public duty.
CHARAS THE IMPROBABLE DOME BUILDERS: (((THE FUTURE IN ACTION) produced by Matthew Mottel includes archival interviews and photography from 1972/73 by Syeus Mottel with CHARAS members Chino Garcia and Karen Becker. In October 2017, Sal Becker and Chino Garcia, return to the dome construction site on the Lower East Side to reflect on their achievements and speak about the purpose of their dome building activity.
Matthew Mottel’s essay on the book.
The video that will be screened during the exhibition opening; CHARAS IS ALIVE ON SPACESHIP EARTH – Wednesday, May 9 at 6:00 pm

Schedule, Programming & Activities:

Saturday, May 5 at 6:00 pm – Archive exhibition of the 1972/73 CHARAS Geodesic Dome opens during Fiestas de Cruz at Loisaida Center.
Sunday, May 6 at 2:00 pm – Dome Building Workshop where participants will assist in the building of a 12′ geodesic dome. There will also be a special screening of archival footage from Bucky Fuller.
Wednesday, May 9 at 6:00 pm – Geodesic Domes unveiled with exhibition at Loisaida Center and La Plaza Cultural with performance by poet Edwin Torres.
Thursday, May 10 at 12:00 pm – Exhibition hours at Loisaida Center.
Friday, May 11 at 6:00 pm – Exhibition hours at Loisaida Center + Oral history project of the Lower East Side featuring interview with Chino Garcia by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, with documentary screening of Matthew Mottel’s video CHARAS IS ALIVE ON SPACESHIP EARTH at 6:00 pm.
Saturday, May 12 at 12:00 pm – Exhibition hours at Loisaida Center + performances in the afternoon thru evening at La plaza Cultural and Loisaida Center Courtyard.

CHARAS IS ALIVE ON SPACESHIP EARTH
2018-05-09 18:00 - 2018-05-11 21:00 UTC | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
CHARAS IS ALIVE ON SPACESHIP EARTH

A project by: Matthew Mottel in collaboration with Loisaida Inc., La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez and DIAP (Digital Intermedia MFA program at City College

Overview:
The history of dome building on the LES goes back to when CHARAS built domes in collaboration with Buckminster Fuller in 1972/73. Syeus Mottel documented this effort in his photo-journalism book CHARAS THE IMPROBABLE DOME BUILDERS , first published in 1974 and now re published in 2017 by Song Cave Press & Pioneer Works.
Through a collaborative project between Loisaida Inc., La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez and DIAP (Digital Intermedia MFA program at City College), artist and researcher Matthew Mottel (Syeus Mottel’s son) will build 2 geodesic domes (one at La Plaza and the other at the Loisaida Inc. Center’ courtyard) as an interactive art installation. In interviewing Carlos “Chino” Garcia as part of his research, Matthew was told that the domes CHARAS built functioned as both recreational activity spaces and as experimental examples of how to build disaster relief housing in non urban areas. The same functions apply now. The dome at La Plaza Cultura, will be seen from the street, with high visibility. This will bring people to the other dome in the courtyard and exhibition happening at Loisaida Center, which will feature a more detailed documentation of the original events of 1972-73.
This work highlights the achievements of CHARAS and hopefully expands the pressure on the NYC mayoral office to follow through on their promise to re-acquire El Bohio for the Loisaida community.
The week of the exhibition opening, many public performances, talks and workshops will transpire in both the Loisaida Center dome, and at La Plaza Cultural. These events will be influenced by the type of programming that happened during the 20+ years of events and exhibitions of El Bohio before being pushed out of its iconic and historic location on 9th Street, formerly known as P.S. 64.

Resources:
CHARAS The Improbable Dome Builders (((THE FUTURE IN ACTION)))
Through the lens of avant-garde architectural theory, the CHARAS Lower East side community group and Buckminster Fuller’s assistant, Michael Ben Eli construct a geodesic dome on an unused plot of land in the shadow of the Manhattan bridge in 1972-1973. The CHARAS members built the geodesic dome to control their own destiny.
CHARAS: The Improbable Dome Builders resonates in 2018. Ever present are the needs of affordable housing, the occupation of public/unused space for civic use, and the participation of communities to take self determined action when governmental institutions forgo their public duty.
CHARAS THE IMPROBABLE DOME BUILDERS: (((THE FUTURE IN ACTION) produced by Matthew Mottel includes archival interviews and photography from 1972/73 by Syeus Mottel with CHARAS members Chino Garcia and Karen Becker. In October 2017, Sal Becker and Chino Garcia, return to the dome construction site on the Lower East Side to reflect on their achievements and speak about the purpose of their dome building activity.
Matthew Mottel’s essay on the book.
The video that will be screened during the exhibition opening; CHARAS IS ALIVE ON SPACESHIP EARTH – Wednesday, May 9 at 6:00 pm

Schedule, Programming & Activities:

Saturday, May 5 at 6:00 pm – Archive exhibition of the 1972/73 CHARAS Geodesic Dome opens during Fiestas de Cruz at Loisaida Center.
Sunday, May 6 at 2:00 pm – Dome Building Workshop where participants will assist in the building of a 12′ geodesic dome. There will also be a special screening of archival footage from Bucky Fuller.
Wednesday, May 9 at 6:00 pm – Geodesic Domes unveiled with exhibition at Loisaida Center and La Plaza Cultural with performance by poet Edwin Torres.
Thursday, May 10 at 12:00 pm – Exhibition hours at Loisaida Center.
Friday, May 11 at 6:00 pm – Exhibition hours at Loisaida Center + Oral history project of the Lower East Side featuring interview with Chino Garcia by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, with documentary screening of Matthew Mottel’s video CHARAS IS ALIVE ON SPACESHIP EARTH at 6:00 pm.
Saturday, May 12 at 12:00 pm – Exhibition hours at Loisaida Center + performances in the afternoon thru evening at La plaza Cultural and Loisaida Center Courtyard.

Chino Garcia Oral History and Screening of CHARAS is Alive on Spaceship Earth
2018-05-11 18:00 - 21:00 UTC | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
Chino Garcia Oral History and Screening of CHARAS is Alive on Spaceship Earth
Friday, May 11, 6:00pm
Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 E 9th Street

presented as part of Lower East Side History Month

GVSHP‘s Oral History Project helps to preserve memories of the Village and East Village. Our newest release features Carlos “Chino” Garcia, co-founder of the East Village’s CHARAS El Bohio Cultural and Community Center.
Chino will join us in conversation with Bonnie Sue Stein, Executive and Artistic Director of GOH Productions. They will discuss Chino’s life and activism, from youth and migrant communities in the 1950s to the education-focused Real Great Society, the founding of CHARAS in the 1970s, and more.
CHARAS first built domes in collaboration with Buckminster Fuller in 1972. Artist and scholar Matthew Mottel will present his short documentary about CHARAS based on archival footage ofSeyus Mottel (his father), working on the Improbable Dome Builders.
This event is fully accessible.
Free. Reservations Required.

Register here.

The 31st Annual Loisaida Festival
2018-05-27 11:00 - 17:00 UTC | Avenue C Corridor, 12th - 6th Streets on Avenue C, New York, NY, 10003, United States

5th Annual Loisaida Festival TheaterLab 2018
2018-05-27 11:00 - 17:00 UTC | Avenue C Corridor, 12th - 6th Streets on Avenue C, New York, NY, 10003, United States
Co-produced by MEZCOLANZA NYC & Loisaida Inc.
Starting at 12:00 pm on La Plaza Cultural Community Garden
[Read Press Release here!]

The Loisaida Festival’s Theater Lab, a production of Loisaida Inc. with Mezcolanza NYC, returning for the third year to the Plaza Cultural on the SW corner of 9th Street & Avenue C in the East Village as part of the annual Loisaida Festival on Sunday, May 27th. Among the highlights of the program is the New York premiere of ¡Ay María!, a play that explores the post-Maria reality for an isolated group of neighbors in Puerto Rico that must come together after the storm.
The play was initially written to provide catharsis to performer and audience alike following the devastation of Hurricane Maria. In turn, members of Mezcolanza NYC will be among those discussing the role of contemporary theater and performance in post-Maria Puerto Rico as part of a panel discussion organized by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, which will take place days before the festival, on Thursday, May 24th at 6pm.
Loisaida Inc. remains committed to the voices of Puerto Rican playwrights and performers in wake of Hurricane Maria. Following a special one-night only performance of Pateco, el sepulturero by acclaimed Puerto Rican actor Teofilo Torres this past December, the Loisaida Center will again host another timely theatrical work that addresses the aftermath of Hurricane Maria with humor, improvisation, satire, and introspection.
This creative window into the island’s trauma and the resilience of local communities is also an extension of the theme of the annual Loisaida Festival: “Bridging Resurgence: From Sandy to Maria.”

Schedule:

12:00 pm. Fernandito Ferrer / DJ /

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

12:25 pm. Julián Garnik / Performance / 2018 Loisaida Theater Lab Emcee
Title: A mis Amigos de la Locura

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

12:35 pm. Anthony Rosado / Performance /
Title: Hatuey’s Dream

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

12:50 pm. Calle Joroba / Clown Theatre /

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

1:15 pm. Casa Cruz de la Luna / Theater /
Title: The Marquis de Sade is Afraid of the Sea (second movement)

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

1:35 pm. Teatro 220 / Improv Troupe /

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

02:00 pm Mezcolanza NYC Performances

1. Kairiana Núñez / Performance / 15 min
Title: Chiquita

About the piece: In Chiquitita, Ms. Miller Parachute Woman is a character that moves between ridiculous and reality. Between the joke and the speeches that have us cornered in the dependency.
She is a right-wing military officer. She is a recalcitrant Republican. She repeats neoliberal spiels as if there were critical ideas she owns. The fact is that many military were part of the so-called “Reconstruction” of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. They took over the streets along with the local police. The military returned, as they always return.
En Chiquitita, la Sra. Miller Parachute Woman es un personaje que se mueve entre el ridículo y la realidad. Entre el chiste y los discursos que nos tienen acorralados en la dependencia. Ella es una oficial del ejército de derecha. Ella es una republicana recalcitrante. Ella repite el discurso neoliberal como si tuviera ideas críticas que le pertenecen. El hecho es que muchos militares fueron parte de la llamada “Reconstrucción” de Puerto Rico después del huracán María. Tomaron las calles junto con la policía local. Los militares regresaron, como siempre regresan.
About the artist: Actress taurine and Puerto Rican. Graduated from the Drama Department of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, (2009). She began his career in 1996 with Pedro Santaliz, and later became a founding member of the theater group in the streets Jóvenes del 98 under the direction of Maritza Pérez Otero. Later she continued his training with Puerto Rican teachers and artists Rosa Luisa Márquez, Teresa Hernández, Viveca Vázquez, among others. In Argentina, she trained at Sportivo Teatral with Mirta Bogdasarian and Ricardo Bartís (2011-2013, Buenos Aires), and was part of the Quinto Piso Theater Companies, directed by Daniel Godoy, and El Rizoma Collective (2011-2016, Buenos Aires) . In 2017 she returns to Puerto Rico, where despite the imbalance, she bets on continuing to grow artistically, professionally and ideologically.

2. Karen Langevin / Performance / 15 min
Title: Fortune

About the piece: An interactive whimsical game of chance that uses improvisational movement to foretell. Fortune winks at the futility of our desire to know the future through the unavoidable presence of the body.
Fortuna, Un juego de azar interactivo que usa la improvisación de movimiento como herramienta para predecir. FORTUNA es un guiño a nuestro deseo banal de conocer el futuro, usando la inevitable presencia del cuerpo.
​diseño camisa: ​Zaida Goveo Balmaseda.

3. Luna y Vecky / Musical Performance / 30 min
Title: Luna y Vecky

About the piece: After having expanded their audience to more than 15 people, Luna and Vecky decide to make a little concert in ​the Loisaida Theater Lab​. Luna and Vecky studied music at Berkley and fuse their music with different musical genres and performance. They use their music to express their darker feelings. They have been depressed for more than 10 years.
Luego de haber expandido su público a más de 15 personas, Luna y Vecky deciden hacer un conciertito en el Loisaida Theater Lab dentro de la Plataforma Mezcolanza​. Luna y Vecky estudiaron música en Berkley y fusionan su música con distintos géneros musicales y performance. Usan su música para expresar sus sentimientos más oscuros. Llevan en depresión más de 10 años.

03:30 pm ¡Ay María!

4. ¡Ay María! / Short Play / 30 min

About the piece: Some neighbors who did not know each other before hurricane Maria, have joined after the catastrophe, to collect debris, share food and rely on their needs. These neighbors are the actors and actresses. Some of the people / characters represented in the piece are taken from the Puerto Rican reality, people / characters that we find in our neighborhoods, urbanizations or towns. We also parody public figures and politicians who through the media have been part of the hurricane experience.
Cast: Mickey Negrón, Mariana Carbonell, José Eugenio Hernández, José Luis Guitierrez, Marisa Gómez
directed by​: Maritza Pérez Otero​
Unos vecinos que no se conocían antes del huracán se unen después de la catástrofe, para recoger escombros, compartir la comida y apoyarse en sus necesidades. Estos vecinos son los actores y actrices. Algunos de las personas/personajes representados en la pieza son sacados de la realidad puertorriqueña, personas/personajes que encontramos en nuestros barrios, urbanizaciones o pueblos. También parodiamos las figuras públicas y los políticos que a través de los medios han sido parte de la experiencia huracanada.
​Elenco: Mickey Negrón, Mariana Carbonell, José Eugenio Hernández, José Luis Guitierrez, Marisa Gómez
Dirección: Martiza Pérez Otero.

5. Mickey Negrón / Performance / 15 min.
Title: Carpeta

About the piece: A look at the process of persecution that the Puerto Rico Nationalist Party experienced in the past and the current crisis.
​U​na mirada al el proceso de persecución que vivió​ el movimiento nacionalista de PR en el pasado y la ​resistencia actual.

6. Paulina Pagán / Performance / 15 min.
Title: Bestias de paraíso 2 – El fuego y la jicotea*

About the piece: In honor of my Caribbean grandmothers, especially Levina Wiltshire (1938-2014) In this piece my body becomes a river, a vessel, a bridge between my ancestors, our island ecology, Puerto Rican bomba, its violent history and the joy of dancing. *The jicotea (Trachemys stejnegeri stejnegeri) is the only native Puerto Rican freshwater turtle. The bomba song “El fuego y la jicotea,” composed by Christian Tonos, ignited this creative process.
A mis abuelas caribeñas, en especial a Levina Wiltshire (1938-2014) En esta pieza mi cuerpo funge de río, de nave, de puente entre mis muertas, la ecología isleña, la bomba puertorriqueña, su sangrienta historia y el placer de bailar. *La jicotea (Trachemys stejnegeri stejnegeri) es la única tortuga nativa de agua dulce de Puerto Rico. La canción de bomba “El fuego y la jicotea,” compuesta por Christian Tonos, fue uno de los detonantes de este proceso creativo.

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

About the artist: Puerto Rican musician and singer-songwriter, developed in theater and experimental dance, improvisation, democracy and politicization of the body. This amalgam of disciplines informs his work. Part of training as an actor he did with the director Maritza Pérez Otero in the political theater. He is an observer of the country and of society.On this occasion he will sing accompanied by Desmar Guevara on the piano.
Músico y cantautor puertorriqueño, desarrollado en el teatro y en la danza experimental, la improvisación, la democracia y politización del cuerpo. Esta amalgama de disciplinas informa su trabajo. Parte de formación como actor lo hizo junto a la directora Maritza Pérez Otero en el teatro político. Se nombra a sí mismo como: un observador del país y de la sociedad.​ En esta ocasión cantará acompañado por Desmar Guevara en el piano.

Mezcolanza NYC

About TheaterLab co-producers:
MEZCOLANZA NYC 2018 – 13th Edition
Mezcolanza is a cultural platform born in 2013 in the city of Buenos Aires produced by Helen Ceballos. It gathers short pieces of artists and multi-disciplinary collectives in order to maintain a live and open stage for the processes and creations of emerging artists in different cities around the world. We aim to erase distances and expose pieces of author, which account for the social reality that is lived in our changing environments. To date, Mezcolanza has hosted over 250 artists among the cities of Buenos Aires, New York and San Juan de Puerto Rico. On this occasion, Mezcolanza visits the city of New York for the third time and celebrates its twelfth edition. We have convened 14 multidisciplinary artists. These artists work in theater, performance, movement, music, improvisation, construction, musical composition, costume making, sculptures, sound and video art. In this edition of the Festival Loisaida and within the framework of the Theater Lab. Mezcolanza presents the urban interventions of 14 outstanding artists from the local and international scene of Puerto Rico, Latin America and the United States, interlacing the scenic discourses of these creative artists with their status as permanent immigrants.

04:35 pm Community Pageant

Loisaida Community / Short Play / 20 min
Photo by: Ryan John Lee

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

★#LoisaidaFest★@LoisaidaFest★

2019 Loisaida Basketball Tournament
2019-05-25 08:30 - 18:00 UTC | Dry Dock playground, Avenue D and 10th Street, Manhattan, NY, 10009, United States
Last year a young man by the name of Jesse Brennan, born and raised in our Loisaida community, approached our organization to voice his concerns on what was perceived as a lack of sporting activities along Avenue D as compared to the time when he was growing up. There was a specific concern regarding the slow phasing out of the basketball tournaments that he and his peers used to enjoy growing up in the LES as a teenager. After a year of coordinating, we are proud to announce that Loisaida Inc. has brought back the Loisaida Basketball Tournament to Dry Dock playground on 10th Street and Avenue D.
Organized by Loisaida Inc. with the support of community advocate and leader Tom Brasuell and, with the help of many of you, the first Loisaida Basketball Tournament is now open to boys and girls ages 12 to 16.
The tournament will take place Saturday, May 25, 2019 at Dry Dock playground in the Lower East Side. And, the champions will be recognized on the main stage during the historic Loisaida Festival, celebrated on Sunday, May 26, 2019. A Memorial Day weekend full of activities in downtown Manhattan!
This basketball tournament will become another staple of Loisaida Inc. and the annual Loisaida Festival for years to come. The 2019 Loisaida Basketball Tournament will provide an opportunity for LES youth to gather and compete in a community environment through the game of basketball with an emphasis upon mental and physical development, health, wellness and growth through teamwork.

We are confirmed for the Skills Challenge at Basketball City!
Let’s get our girls and boys registered and the teams filled. Click here!
Save the Date – Saturday, May 18 – 10:00 am to 2:00 pm
Basketball City – Pier 36 – 299 South Street, New York, NY 10002

The 32nd Annual Loisaida Festival
2019-05-26 11:00 - 17:00 UTC | Avenue C Corridor, 12th - 6th Streets on Avenue C, New York, NY, 10003, United States

LOISAIDA FESTIVAL 2025
2025-05-25 08:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | NY
Visit LoisaidaFest.nyc for the most up-to-date information
