Loisaida Inc.

¡CASA ABIERTA!
2015-11-14 14:00 - 21:00 UTC | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
Loisaida Inc. Center
OPEN HOUSE
November 14th, 2015 – 2:00pm – 9:00pm

2:00 pm
Guided tour of ¡PRESENTE! The Young Lords in New York with Wilson Valentín-Escobar and Pepe Flores. Featuring rare footage of Eddie Figueroa and The New Rican Village assembled by Henry Medina and Henry Medina’s Archives.

3:30 pm
Artist talk with Adrian ‘Viajero’ Román.

5:00 pm
Screening of documentary “A Cuban Legend: The Story of Salvador Gonzalez” followed by Q&A with director, producer and editor Bette Wanderman. Music by Tata Guines, Steve Turre, Clave Y Guaguanco. Theatrical release 2002. (80 mins.)
This documentary has been featured in the following:Sofia International Film Festival – International House Philadelphia – Latin American Film Festival London – Raindance—London, Aijjic Mexico – Mill Valley International – Havana International Festival of Latin American Cinema – San Diego Latino Film Festival – Chicago Latino Film Festival – San Francisco Latino Film Festival – Trieste, Italy Latino

7:00 pm
Performance of ISLA NO ISLA: Cuba-New-Ricua featuring: Edwin Torres, Casa Cruz de La Luna and Plenatorium Project.
Edwin Torres, The Plenatorium Project and Casa Cruz de la Luna will celebrate the newly charged complexity of our two islands with multi disciplinary performances that cross-pollinate Cuba and Puerto Rico.
Featuring:
Edwin Torres has represented New York in the 1992 National Poetry Slam, celebrated in Boston, and he has won the Nuyorican Poets Cafe First Annual Prize for Poetry with his poem “Po-Mo Griot“. He has also appeared on MTV’s Spoken Word Unplugged and the Charlie Rose Show and been featured on Newsweek, in Rolling Stone Magazine and in New York Magazine. His poem, “I Saw Your Empire State Building” was included in the book, Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam[1] in the chapter which dealt with the poetry slam community’s response to 9/11, and his work has appeared in numerous anthologies such as Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe,[2] Short Fuse: The Global Anthology of New Fusion Poetry,[3] and Heights of the Marvelous: A New York Anthology,[4] among many others.

Aravind Enrique Adyanthaya (born 1965) is a Puerto Rican writer, performer, and theater director. He is the founding artistic director of Casa Cruz de la Luna, an experimental theater company and cultural center based in an old house in the historical district of San Germán, Puerto Rico.[1][2] He holds a PhD in theatre historiography from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and an MD from the Mayo Medical School. Adyanthaya has been awarded a Jerome Playwriting Fellowship and a McKnight Advancement Grant, both from the Playwrights’ Center; a Jerome Performance Art Fellowship by Intermedia Arts and an Artist of Color Directing Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop. For his play The Faculties, he received the Pregones Theater’s Asunción Prize and First Prize in Theatre at Casa de Teatro in the Dominican Republic.

¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York.
2015-11-14 12:00 - 15:00, 2015-11-12 12:00 - 17:00, 2015-11-10 12:00 - 19:00 | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
Loisaida Inc. presents
¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York.
Dates : July 30th – October 10th
Now extended through December 1st, 2015
*NEW HOURS*
Tuesday & Thursday (12:00 pm – 7:00 pm) Saturday (12:00 pm – 3:00 pm) All other days are by appointment only. For more information please email info@loisaida.org or call (646) 757-0522
Loisiada Inc. will focus on the Young Lords’ founding and impact in the Lower East Side—displaying rarely seen photographs, posters, and audio and video recordings of live performances. The exhibit begins with the announcement of the founding of the New York Chapter of the Young Lords at Tompkins Square Park on Saturday, July 26, 1969. The exhibition will feature lesser-known perspectives of the Young Lords legacy within the Lower East Side, and their cultural impact upon New York’s cultural scenes. Some highlights include the organizing efforts of the Gay and Lesbian Caucus, the transgender activism of Sylvia Rivera, and innovative “artivism” generated by Eddie Figueroa, the founder of the New Rican Village, an influential multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary art space once located at 101 Avenue A.
Felipe Luciano and Tato Laviera in pre-production planning of the 1st Festival de Loiza Aldea in the LES. Photo by Máximo Colón.
The exhibition is co-curated by Libertad Guerra and Wilson Valentín-Escobar and features many un-published photographs by Máximo Colón and Hiram Maristany, as well as poster art by Sandra Maria Esteves, and rare live video and audio recordings of some of the leading salsa and Latin jazz musicians, plus an art installation commissioned specifically for this exhibition by contemporary artist Adrian “Viajero”Román.
The overall collection of materials depict the critical role that YL members played in the environment that lead to Loisaida becoming a safe refuge for a community struggling for respect, belonging, political power, and public legitimacy.

“I was involved with the Young Lords… it was a time of initiation -into ourselves, into the history of our people, and into the deep images of our culture”.

-Eddie Figueroa, Founder New Rican Village

¡PRESENTE! The Young Lords in New York is co-organized by El Museo del Barrio (July 22 – October 17), Bronx Museum of the Arts (July 2 – October 15) and Loisaida Inc. (July 30 – October 10). The multi-venue exhibition is accompanied by an ambitious range of programs and events to build awareness of the Young Lords’ innovative contributions to the struggle for civil rights and influence on contemporary artists, and to spark conversations about grassroots community activism today. For a limited time only, the first 1000 visitors at each partnering organization will receive a commemorative button, inspired by the Young Lords. Collect them all! For more info, please visit our featured items page.

At Loisaida Inc. ¡PRESENTE! The Young Lords in New York was made possible with support from:

About the Curators:
Wilson Valentín-Escobar, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of American Studies and Sociology at Hampshire College. He holds a Ph.D. in American Studies and an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Michigan, and a B.A. in Sociology and Puerto Rican/Latin@ and Latin American Studies Studies from Fordham University. He was a Postdoctoral Associate in the Program in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration at Yale University in 2011-2012. A Brooklyn New York-native, Dr. Valentín-Escobar is currently completing his forthcoming book, Bodega Surrealism: The Emergence of Latin@ Artivists in New York City (New York University Press). The book examines the cultural activism, or “artivism,” of two community-based art communities and projects that originated in the 1970s within the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City: the New Rican Village Cultural Arts Center and El Puerto Rican Embassy. His scholarship, which he regularly presents at national and international conferences, has been published in various academic journals and anthologies, and has received funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, among several others. He, along with the late Dr. Juan Flores, co-edited a special two-volume issue on Puerto Rican music for the Puerto Rican Studies journal, Centro. Dr. Valentín-Escobar currently Chairs the Five College Consortium Program in Latin@, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies.
Libertad O. Guerra is an urban anthropologist, educator, social researcher/historian, independent curator and environmental activist. Her academic research and publications have focused on Puerto Rican, Latino and Latin American social-artistic movements and cultural activism in urban immigrant settings. Publications include Uncommon Commonalities: Aesthetic Politics of Place in the South Bronx in Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, (2011); and ‘Building the Aura: a social aesthetics of placement in-the-making.’ in New York / Berlin: Kulturen in der Stadt, (2008). Ms. Guerra has organized numerous local and international exhibitions, panels and conferences among them:
–Loisaida: the Visible/Invisible Body of Puerto Ricans sectors on the Lower East Side to the Downtown scene, PRSA Biennial Conference, (2010).
–Spanic Attack: Living, Making, and Reading the Latin/o American City, LASA Conference, Rio de Janeiro, (2009).
–Re- Membering Loisaida: Lure of the Retro Lens, and Visualizing Hindsight, sponsored by Council Member Rosie Méndez and The Center for Puerto Rican Studies, (2009).
–Noricua: Performing the Living City, The House of World Cultures, Berlin, (2007).
–Going Down for Real: Imagining the Estate of our Town, NYU’s Center for Latino and Caribbean Studies, (2006).
–Constructivismo 2006, Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center, (2006).
–La Marginal, Centro Cultural España (CCE) Lima, (2004).
She is Artistic Director of Loisaida Inc., and current curator/event planner of the Loisaida Festival since 2014.

BARRIOS(ˈbär-ē-ˌōz) A Seis del Sur Town Hall
2015-11-12 20:00 - 21:00 | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
Details

Loisaida Inc. Center presents:
November 12th, 2015 – 6:30pm
The six photojournalists from the Seis del Sur photo collective will participate in a special Town Hall gathering to discuss the imagery and perception of the various Latino diasporas from within and without the Americas.
Featuring: Joe Conzo, Ángel Franco, Ricky Flores, David González, Edwin Pagán & Francisco Molina Reyes II

The New Rican Spirit
2015-11-07 16:00 - 20:00 | Lower Eastside Girls Club, 402 East 8th Stree, NYt, 10009, United States
Please click on image to RSVP

New Rican Village Alumni Reunion, Round-Table and Reception (celebrating the Young Lords cultural legacy to the Lower East Side)
The purpose of this activity is to:
1. Recognize the Lower East Side neighborhood legacy of the Young Lords Party.
2. Honor the 25th anniversary of the passing of Eddie Figueroa, the founder of the New Rican Village Cultural Arts center, whose battle with cancer ended in 1990.
3. Offer an opportunity for peer organizations to celebrate a community instrumental in creating an innovative Latin@ arts spirit and institution within New York City.
Starting with the Young Lords Party’s (YLP) official announcement at Tompkins Square Park in 1969, the ¡Presente! exhibition highlights the important activism spearheaded by the YLP as it operated within the context of the Lower East Side.
One of the institutions that came out of this era was the New Rican Village Cultural Arts Center (NRV) established by Lower East Young Lord member, Eddie Figueroa. The NRV, is an overlooked and under-appreciated Loisaida cultural arts institution that was as an aesthetic laboratory for a working-class, Puerto Rican/Latin@ avant-garde arts community since it opened in 1976 through its closing in 1979 (it continued to exist in other locations throughout New York City).
This art collective’s goals fostered a social surrealism that sought to transform both aesthetic forms and neighborhoods. The inter-arts community of musicians, poets, painters, actors, dancers, sculptors, and visual artists at the New Rican Village envisioned the importance of building community art spaces and political sovereignty by establishing and building an independent, community-based arts institution and also contributing to a Latin@ cultural arts scene within New York City, helping establish a Latin@ Cultural Left that was emerging among various Puerto Rican/Latino cultural arts centers at the time. Finally, the NRV helped to foster a New Rican Renaissance that celebrated a marginalized identity, and also translate the zeitgest of resistance and aesthetic and intellectual exploration into various art form.
This event would not be possible without the co-sponsorship support of:
Lower Eastside Girls Club,
AllCare Provider Services, Inc.
Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Education Center,
Latino Studies Department at Fordham University
Carlos Aponte,
Lisa Baltazar,
Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé,
Pepe Flores,
Libertad Guerra,
Ana Ramos,
Wilson Valentín-Escobar.

¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York.
2015-11-05 12:00 - 19:00, 2015-11-03 12:00 - 19:00, 2015-10-31 12:00 - 17:00, 2015-10-29 12:00 - 19:00, 2015-10-27 12:00 - 19:00, 2015-10-24 12:00 - 17:00, 2015-10-22 11:00 - 15:00, 2015-10-20 11:00 - 15:00 and 6 more dates | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
Loisaida Inc. presents
¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York.
Dates : July 30th – October 10th
Now extended through December 1st, 2015
Modified hours from October 20th and 22nd – 11am to 3pm
*NEW HOURS*
Tuesday & Thursday (12:00 pm – 7:00 pm) Saturday (12:00 pm – 3:00 pm) All other days are by appointment only. For more information please email info@loisaida.org or call (646) 757-0522
Loisiada Inc. will focus on the Young Lords’ founding and impact in the Lower East Side—displaying rarely seen photographs, posters, and audio and video recordings of live performances. The exhibit begins with the announcement of the founding of the New York Chapter of the Young Lords at Tompkins Square Park on Saturday, July 26, 1969. The exhibition will feature lesser-known perspectives of the Young Lords legacy within the Lower East Side, and their cultural impact upon New York’s cultural scenes. Some highlights include the organizing efforts of the Gay and Lesbian Caucus, the transgender activism of Sylvia Rivera, and innovative “artivism” generated by Eddie Figueroa, the founder of the New Rican Village, an influential multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary art space once located at 101 Avenue A.
Felipe Luciano and Tato Laviera in pre-production planning of the 1st Festival de Loiza Aldea in the LES. Photo by Máximo Colón.
The exhibition is co-curated by Libertad Guerra and Wilson Valentín-Escobar and features many un-published photographs by Máximo Colón and Hiram Maristany, as well as poster art by Sandra Maria Esteves, and rare live video and audio recordings of some of the leading salsa and Latin jazz musicians, plus an art installation commissioned specifically for this exhibition by contemporary artist Adrian “Viajero”Román.
The overall collection of materials depict the critical role that YL members played in the environment that lead to Loisaida becoming a safe refuge for a community struggling for respect, belonging, political power, and public legitimacy.

“I was involved with the Young Lords… it was a time of initiation -into ourselves, into the history of our people, and into the deep images of our culture”.

-Eddie Figueroa, Founder New Rican Village

¡PRESENTE! The Young Lords in New York is co-organized by El Museo del Barrio (July 22 – October 17), Bronx Museum of the Arts (July 2 – October 15) and Loisaida Inc. (July 30 – October 10). The multi-venue exhibition is accompanied by an ambitious range of programs and events to build awareness of the Young Lords’ innovative contributions to the struggle for civil rights and influence on contemporary artists, and to spark conversations about grassroots community activism today. For a limited time only, the first 1000 visitors at each partnering organization will receive a commemorative button, inspired by the Young Lords. Collect them all! For more info, please visit our featured items page.

At Loisaida Inc. ¡PRESENTE! The Young Lords in New York was made possible with support from:

About the Curators:
Wilson Valentín-Escobar, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of American Studies and Sociology at Hampshire College. He holds a Ph.D. in American Studies and an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Michigan, and a B.A. in Sociology and Puerto Rican/Latin@ and Latin American Studies Studies from Fordham University. He was a Postdoctoral Associate in the Program in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration at Yale University in 2011-2012. A Brooklyn New York-native, Dr. Valentín-Escobar is currently completing his forthcoming book, Bodega Surrealism: The Emergence of Latin@ Artivists in New York City (New York University Press). The book examines the cultural activism, or “artivism,” of two community-based art communities and projects that originated in the 1970s within the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City: the New Rican Village Cultural Arts Center and El Puerto Rican Embassy. His scholarship, which he regularly presents at national and international conferences, has been published in various academic journals and anthologies, and has received funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, among several others. He, along with the late Dr. Juan Flores, co-edited a special two-volume issue on Puerto Rican music for the Puerto Rican Studies journal, Centro. Dr. Valentín-Escobar currently Chairs the Five College Consortium Program in Latin@, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies.
Libertad O. Guerra is an urban anthropologist, educator, social researcher/historian, independent curator and environmental activist. Her academic research and publications have focused on Puerto Rican, Latino and Latin American social-artistic movements and cultural activism in urban immigrant settings. Publications include Uncommon Commonalities: Aesthetic Politics of Place in the South Bronx in Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, (2011); and ‘Building the Aura: a social aesthetics of placement in-the-making.’ in New York / Berlin: Kulturen in der Stadt, (2008). Ms. Guerra has organized numerous local and international exhibitions, panels and conferences among them:
–Loisaida: the Visible/Invisible Body of Puerto Ricans sectors on the Lower East Side to the Downtown scene, PRSA Biennial Conference, (2010).
–Spanic Attack: Living, Making, and Reading the Latin/o American City, LASA Conference, Rio de Janeiro, (2009).
–Re- Membering Loisaida: Lure of the Retro Lens, and Visualizing Hindsight, sponsored by Council Member Rosie Méndez and The Center for Puerto Rican Studies, (2009).
–Noricua: Performing the Living City, The House of World Cultures, Berlin, (2007).
–Going Down for Real: Imagining the Estate of our Town, NYU’s Center for Latino and Caribbean Studies, (2006).
–Constructivismo 2006, Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center, (2006).
–La Marginal, Centro Cultural España (CCE) Lima, (2004).
She is Artistic Director of Loisaida Inc., and current curator/event planner of the Loisaida Festival since 2014.

Sonidos Primarios: traditional Puerto Rican music for children
2015-10-10 16:00 - 20:00 | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
Loisaida Inc and Plenatorium Project present a double feature:
12:30 Sonidos Primarios: a hands-on discussion and presentation by artists who produce kid-friendly cultural content featuring an album of traditional Puerto Rican music for children by Viento de Agua, a Grammy Nominated bomba and plena contemporary band dedicated to de production of new music and projects as well as teaching the traditional rhtyms… Bring the kids! $5 suggested donation
Come share with Grammy-nominee and percussion master Tito Matos about the experience and details of recording a kid’s musical record. Tito and his group Viento de Agua have just released a children’s songs record, Sonidos Primarios, and he comes to share the experience and to perform a few of the songs from the record. He will be joined in the discussion by the members of the band Aclopaditos, who have vast experience in teaching and recording for children. Acopladitos will also perform a few songs for the enjoyment of all. Bring your little ones!
Following the presentation:
2:30 ‘The New Latinos’ – screening and guided discussion featuring Tito Matos and Tato Torres.
Join us in the viewing of ‘The New Latinos’, episode 4 of The Latino Americans documentary series. This 60 minutes episode, that dwells on the experience of the Caribbean migration (Cuban, Dominican and Puerto Rican) to the United States, will be followed by a hands-on-drums one hour discussion reflecting on the musical aspects of these diasporic groups; the discussion will specifically revolve around the preservation, innovations, and hybridization of the musical traditions of these three groups after their arrival to the continental United States. The hands-on-drums discussion will be led by Grammy Award nominee, the maestro Tito Matos, and Tato Torres, founder, singer and leader of the group YERBABUENA. This viewing and talk are part of the Loisaida, Inc. Center’s Plenatorium Project initiative and part of the American Library Association/NEH Grant The Latino Americans, LA500.
Sponsored by Acopladitos, Viento de Agua and the National Endowment for the Humanities

Sonidos Primarios with Tito Matos
2015-10-10 13:00 - 15:00

The Look of Sovereignity
2015-09-24 19:30 - 21:30 | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
Sept. 24th, 2015 – “The Look of Sovereignity: Style and Politics in the Young Lords”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Frances Negrón-Muntaner
Filmmaker, writer, and scholar.
Her work is focused on a comparative exploration of coloniality, primarily in Puerto Rico and the United States, with special attention given to the intersections between race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and politics. She is an associate professor of English and Comparative Literature and Director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University in New York City. She has also contributed to the Huffington Post, El Diario/La Prensa, and 80 Grados, and since 2008 has served as a Global Expert for the United Nations Rapid Response Media Mechanism. She is one of the best-known Puerto Rican lesbian artists currently living in the United States.

We refused to cave In
2015-09-24 18:00 - 21:00 | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
Sept. 24th, 2015 – “We refused to cave In”: Gender, Race, Class, and Decolonial Intersectionality in the Young Lords’ Liberation Politics
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Darrel Wanzer-Serrano
Assistant Professor, The University of Iowa
Based on a chapter from The New York Young Lords and the Struggle for Liberation (Temple University Press, 2015), this talk engages the process by which the Young Lords shifted from an organization rooted in the idea that “machismo” could be “revolutionary” to one that rejected machismo as a product of a racist/sexist/imperialist/capitalist system. The Young Lords advanced a nuanced and cutting-edge critique of the intersectionality of oppression and extended their analysis from the internal workings of the organization to society at large. The transformation ushered in by this “revolution within the revolution” was not instantaneous, however. Rather, there was significant struggle within the organization that first led to policy and leadership changes. Once the Young Lords advanced the rejection of machismo in their official platform, it opened space for the emergence of a gay and lesbian caucus and coalitional politics with lesbian, gay, and trans* activists, like Sylvia Rivera. Their intersectional perspective was central, I argue, to a kind of decolonial critical politics that eschewed a focus on rights in preference for attentiveness to and claims for liberation. In this framework, which is also advanced by most scholars of de/coloniality, liberation is an alternative to emancipation—the latter of which relies on claims to recognition that fortify the legitimacy of the modern/colonial system. Liberation, then, seeks a liberty delinked from classical liberalism, mindful of affiliations and fraternal connections, and guided by an ethic of decolonial love, even as colonial wounds can never fully heal.
About the book:
The book summary and a blurb by Andrés Torres can be found on the Temple Press website here: http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/2346_reg.html
The publicity manager at Temple is Gary Kramer and can be reached at gkramer@temple.edu.
Author/Speaker Short Bio:
Darrel Wanzer-Serrano is an assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Iowa.

Presente in Absentia: Diasporic Responses to Puerto Rico’s Crisis
2015-08-05 20:00 - 22:00 | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
Puerto Rico is facing a crisis over its $72 billion debt that threatens life on the island while also causing a mass migration to the US.
What can the Puerto Rican Diaspora do to respond?
As part of ¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York – LES, on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. the The Loisaida, Inc. Center in Lower Manhattan will present a combination teach-in/panel discussion to clarify the reasons for the crisis and engage in dialog about what is to be done. Journalist Ed Morales, who has written several articles for the Nation and the Guardian about the subject, will present a brief overview of the crisis and engage with panel members activist David Galarza Santa, the leader of Puerto Rico’s Working People’s Party Rafael Bernabe, and the audience.
Preceded by a 5:30pm tour w curators and 6:30pm Gallery Talk w Maximo Colon

Gallery Talk with Photographer Maximo Colon: ¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York - LES
2015-08-05 15:00 - 17:00 | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
As part of ¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York – LES, on Wednesday, August 5th at 6:30pm, the The Loisaida, Inc. Center hosts a Gallery talk with Maximo Colon – featured photographer.
Followed at 7:30pm by Presente in Absentia: Diasporic Responses to Puerto Rico’s Crisis: teach-in/panel discussion to clarify the reasons for the crisis and engage in dialog about what is to be done.

¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York. *OPENING*
2015-07-30 18:00 - 21:00 | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
Details

Dates : July 30th – October 10th
Open from Tuesday & Thursday (11:00 am – 7:00 pm) & Saturday (11:00 am – 3:00 pm) All other days are by appointment only, for more information please email info@loisaida.org
Loisiada Inc. will focus on the Young Lords’ founding and impact in the Lower East Side—displaying rarely seen photographs, posters, and audio and video recordings of live performances. The exhibit begins with the announcement of the founding of the New York Chapter of the Young Lords at Tompkins Square Park on Saturday, July 26, 1969. The exhibition will feature lesser-known perspectives of the Young Lords legacy within the Lower East Side, and their cultural impact upon New York’s cultural scenes. Some highlights include the organizing efforts of the Gay and Lesbian Caucus, the transgender activism of Sylvia Rivera, and innovative “artivism” generated by Eddie Figueroa, the founder of the New Rican Village, an influential multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary art space once located at 101 Avenue A.
The exhibition is co-curated by Libertad Guerra and Wilson Valentín-Escobar and features many un-published photographs by Máximo Colón and Hiram Maristany, as well as poster art by Sandra Maria Esteves, and rare live video and audio recordings of some of the leading salsa and Latin jazz musicians, plus an art installation commissioned specifically for this exhibition by contemporary artist Adrian “Viajero” Román.
The overall collection of materials depict the critical role that YL members played in the environment that lead to Loisaida becoming a safe refuge for a community struggling for respect, belonging, political power, and public legitimacy.
FYI: Due to the limited capacity at The Loisaida, Inc. Center, attendance will be monitored and kept at legal occupancy.

en casa afuera
2015-06-12 18:00 - 2015-06-19 21:00 | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
en casa afuera
June 12- 19
Opening Reception and Performances June 12 at 6:00 pm.
A live exhibit which will bring together new young artists— Mckenzie Angelo, Anthony Rosado, Jonathan Gonzalez, Yoira Santos, Adam Echahly, Lamar Stephens, Adam Rhodes, Chazz Bruce, and Stephanie Mota.

Curatorial Statement
en casa afuera –
Think gentrification is completely erasing the hirstory and identities of native New York residents? Think again. Amidst new developments, increasing rents, empty storefronts, newcomers in LES, Crown Heights, Washington Heights, Harlem, & Bushwick, artists are finding ways to claim their stake in the areas, tethering the old soul of these communities. A group of such artists are coming to Loisaida, Inc.’s Center, one of the remaining physical spaces serving the LES and NYC Latino and independent community, to present a series of interactive works paying tribute to the Home(s).
en casa afuera, a live exhibit which will run from June 12th to June 19th, brings together new young artists from the metropolitan New York and New Jersey region spanning the ages of mid 20’s-30’s.— Mckenzie Angelo, Anthony Rosado, Jonathan Gonzalez, Yoira Santos, Adam Echahly, Lamar Stephens, Adam Rhodes, Chazz Bruce, and Stephanie Mota. They came together to investigate the intersections of home and displacement, as well as the potential for art making to reflect and revision these relations. Loisaida Inc., as the performance hub, may then be the home or shelter that localizes this web of creative results.
The process of what initially began as a series of conversations on the shifting dynamics of New York City, the forces that will it, and what is authentic in these urban amalgamations, developed into a need to generate around these lofty queries – what is home? and what remains as the physical departs from what we know it to be? (whether by a stripping of possession or decay.) Lastly, what does this process of transition look like, feel like, for us?
Visitors and members of the community, old and new, are encouraged to the engage in and think about the daily rituals of Home(s). The series of installations range from the symbolic to the banal. One of the works, a collage in the main hallways shows a Nuyorican’s response to gentrification while another shares with audiences the everyday objects our communities use to pamper themselves. Together, all works zoom in and out of the experience of a changing neighborhood.
en casa afuera represents and shines light onto the complex process of change and gentrification in NYC, and celebrates the histories that are passed on from generation to generation and carried everywhere. Above all, they encourage artists and guests to preserving our stories and our communities will follow.
When asked what Loisaida means for them the group responded:
“Loisaida has been an iconic place-maker for both its residents and the world at large. It architecturally houses the pride and cultural breadth of a community, while transcending the energetic embodiment of LES – a location/identity in flux. These dynamics are at the heart of our creative interests and explorations en casa afuera.”

Adam Echamy

Stephanie Mota

Mckenzie Angelo

Lamar Stevens

Johnathan Gonzalez

Chazz Giovanni

Adam Rhodes

Anthony Rosado

Yoira Santos

Invisible Loisaida - Ideas City
2015-05-30 12:00 - 18:00
IDEAS CITY
Part of the Street Program 12:00 -6:00pm
Loisaida Inc: Invisible Loisaida
The booth by Loisaida, Inc. will play with the visible and invisible tensions of rescued social spaces, their cultural output, and their lack of inclusion in the mainstream story line of the Lower East Side. Through a collaborative installation by resident artists Edgardo Tomás Larregui and Alejandro Epifanio, the booth will recreate the vernacular architecture of “seclusion” and social gathering elements of the traditional casita or urban community garden. Our casita also involves a strategy to render visible the reality of Loisaida, Inc., a social-cultural-artistic community (Latino/Puerto Rican Lower East Side), whose contributions to New York City and the downtown scene have usually remained unacknowledged, absent, and invisible to the hegemonic artistic and cultural narratives of New York City’s creative myth. The presentation will feature a listening station of oral histories by Laura Zelasnic, performances by ongoing Loisaida Center collaborators and projects: the Salvage Project; Flux Theater Ensemble; the Plenatorium, which nurtures and documents the “plena universe”; and Edwin Torres, a Nuyorican poet, performer, and downtown icon, who will explore the nonappearance of “No-isaida.”

A– ONGOING programming throughout the day:
1. Display and live screen-printing of the templates and prints developed and produced through our workshop: Building Community Through the Arts, a partnership with Hester Street Collaborative.
2. Listening Station featuring oral histories focused on local Latino cultural and community organizations such as CHARAS and Loisaida, Inc., by Laura Zelasnic.
3. Visual Collaborative Installation(s) between artist collaborators of the Loisaida Center. The entire booth will act as an installation and visual collaboration between visual artist’s Alejandro Epifanio and Edgardo Larregui with the support of Urban Garden Center NYC.

B– SCHEDULED programming by time-slots:
3:00 pm – The Salvage Project:
Story circles facilitated by the Loisaida Center’s artistic residents Flux Theater Ensemble where community members will share the stories of a precious object and have their stories transformed by professional playwrights into short monologues.
http://www.fluxtheatre.org/2015/02/flux-announces-art-residency-loisaida-center/
4:00 pm – Edwin Torres:
“Nuyorican” (New York-Puerto Rican) poet-performer-sound artist and downtown icon will present work based on the Invisible Loisaida theme. Torres’s work bridges numerous downtown and Loisaida traditions and scenes, from the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church to the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and beyond. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Torres_(poet)
5:00pm – PLENATORIUM:
A project initiative of the Loisaida Center focused on the nurturing and documentation of the practice of Puerto Rican plena, a genre of popular traditional music, song and dance native to the island of Puerto Rico, but related to similar Afro-diasporic expressions throughout the Caribbean and commonly present within the casita/community garden culture.
Planetarium means a space for the plena-universe of activities such as forums, workshops, performances, and other forms of plena-focused sociocultural participation.
http://loisaida.org/plenatorium/

Invisible Loisaida is made possible by:“Sprawling family-owned garden resource for plants, seeds, sod, tools, accessories & firewood”
Address: 1640 Park Ave, New York, NY 10035
Phone:(646) 872-3991
Hours: 9:00 am – 7:00 pm

Loisaida Festival 2015
2015-05-24 11:00 - 17:00 | The Loisaida Inc. Center, 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY, 10009, United States
The largest community pride event in Manhattan’s most historic neighborhood.
The Lower East Side.

Background
Since 1987 the Loisaida Festival has been celebrated the Sunday before Memorial Day weekend in the Manhattan neighborhood known as the Lower East Side, the East Village, or Loisaida. This event is the largest community pride festival in the neighborhood and grows annually in size, excitement, and impact. It is presented in the Avenue C commercial corridor-renamed Loisaida Avenue since 1989.
The Loisaida Festival includes diverse manifestations of the Puerto Rican and Latino cultures expressed through music, cuisine and arts. Although it began as a community event to celebrate the culture, heritage and accomplishments of Loisaida’s Puerto Rican/Hispanic community, the event has created a multi-cultural spirit where people from all races and backgrounds descend from all parts on the city into this historic and eclectic neighborhood.
The Loisaida Festival has also created a platform for Loisaida’s Latino and, now growing, non-Latino neighborhood residents and families that come together on the day of the event to share and celebrate the Memorial Day Holiday as well as their social and cultural differences. The program includes musical concerts, dance performances, folkloric musical presentations, and arts and crafts exhibitions that showcase the work of artisans that represent diverse ethnic groups and nationalities. It also serves as a vehicle to disseminate critical community information distributed by employees and volunteers of many local and city-wide health and human services organizations.
The Loisaida Festival is sponsored by Loisaida Inc., the oldest Puerto Rican non-for-profit organization in the neighborhood. Loisaida, Inc. was founded in 1979 to address the problem of social and economic disenfranchisement of poor, low income and working class residents of the Lower East Side. Over the years, Loisaida has provided comprehensive education, training and employment opportunities that have targeted young adults. It has also worked with local businesses in neighborhood economic development activities as a means to promote entrepreneurship and help create jobs for local residents.
The festival weekend attracts over 15,000 participants every year. This year, Loisaida, Inc. is poised to generate even more excitement and traffic to Avenue C with the opening of its new Community Center on 9th Street, which will happen this spring. The festival will become an even more significant Loisaida community event and venue as a signature citywide and tourist destination.
Event Objectives

Contribute to the preservation and promotion of the Latin American culture of the Lower East Side neighborhood.
Enhance, promote and support the artistic-cultural expressions of the Latino and other artists that reside in this community and/or working in the Lower East Side.
Provide culturally-relevant, first-class entertainment and educational opportunities for the entire family, neighborhood residents and visitors.
In the tradition of this historic New York City neighborhood, known as the “America’s Gateway”, expose non-Latino community residents and visitors to the rich and diverse Latin culture as expressed thorough its music, arts, cuisine and folklore, and promote multi-ethnic understanding and harmony.
Provide a platform to disseminate educational, health-specific information and public interest information to community residents, and special needs populations.
Remember and recognize Puerto Ricans/Latinos who, through their advocacy and leadership, helped establish and strengthen local institutions, and worked to help improve the economic, educational and social conditions of the Latino community of the Lower East Side.

Location

The Festival is held on Avenue C (Loisaida Avenue) from East 12th to East 6th Streets. Parking around the neighborhood is extremely limited, so the best way to get to the festival is Subway.

The closest stations are:

L train to First Avenue and 14th Streets
Lexington (green line) to Union Square; at Union Station you can transfer to the Eastbound L train to First Avenue
F Train to Delancey Street. (free shuttle bus service from this location to festival)

Transportation

The First Avenue and 14th Street stop of the L Train is at walking distance from the festival site–Avenue C and 12th Street. Commuters on the Lexington Line [4, 5, and 6] at Union Square can transfer to L, to reach the East Side, or transfer to the Avenue A or D 14th Street cross-town buses and get off on Avenue B and 14th Street.

Visitor’s Tips List

This event is free to the public and family-oriented, therefore, no sale or promotion of alcohol and tobacco will be allowed.
Pick up a Festival Program and Guide at the Official Loisaida Festival information booth to be stationed on the Southeast corner of Avenue C and 9thh Street.
Keep your children engaged and excited with hands-on activities offered at the Children’s Pavilion.
Reunite with old friends and relatives at The Placita-Under the Willow Trees, located on the Southwest corner of 9th Street.
