🎉Join the LP21 family for an intergenerational jam of Bomba y Plena, at our headquarters right in the heart of El Barrio!

📅 Entre Tambores y Tiempos - an intergenerational jam of Bomba y Plena: June 14, 2025 ⏰6:00PM-6:45PM Bomba class with Julia Gutiérrez-Rivera | 7:00PM Event begins 📍Location: Julia de Burgos Cultural Center - 1680 Lexington Avenue, 1st floor, El Barrio, NYC 💵Admission: FREE This is the second event in a 3 day festival - “Entre Tambores y Tiempos” - celebrating a year of powerful community storytelling, documentation and cultural continuation.

As a part of the Community Collections Grant awarded through the Library of Congress, LeAna López alongside Jorge Vázquez have spent this last year gathering, documenting and honoring the voices and perspectives of the practitioners who have shaped our community and our traditions at large. Now, it’s time to share our work and give back to you!

🔗 For more information about LP21’s Community Collections documentation project, go to https://www.losplenerosdela21.org/press. See you there! ✨

This program has been made possible in part by funding from the Library of Congress and New York State Council on the Arts.

CRUCES: Thinking in Public Forum

When: June 14 @ 10am–5:30pm

Where: The Clemente, 107 Suffolk St, NY, NY, 10002

Keynote Speakers: Chat Travieso and Johanna Fernández 

Delegates: Oscar Oliver-Didier, Gabriel Hernández Solano, Rev. Juan Carlos Ruiz, Suhaly Bautista-Carolina, Elena Martinez, Marlene Ramirez Cancio, Cristina Pérez Jiménez, Lizania Cruz, Dylan Gamboa, Jorge Matos, Ligia Guallpa, Monxo López, Yazmany Arboleda

Artistic Keynote Performance: Shaun Leonardo

RSVP HERE!

*All passes include a community lunch

CRUCES: Thinking in Public Forum is a daylong convening of cultural workers, artists, community leaders, scholars, and neighbors, designed as an open, participant-driven space for collective inquiry and exchange. As the culminating event of Sembradas (Phase 1 of Historias), this forum inaugurates CRUCES (Crossings), a signature series of public convenings dedicated to fostering dialogue and collaboration within and beyond the Latinx community. Rooted in the principles of knowledge justice, the forum surfaces collective, situated knowledge and responds to the intentional erasure of culture-specific histories by centering public storytelling, memory work, and shared authorship as vital practices of resistance.

Inspired by unconference models, the event invites unstructured dialogue across three core frameworks:

• Democratizing Scholarship – Advancing inclusive knowledge-making by cultivating scholarship as a communal and iterative process that values co-creation and mutual learning.

• Community-Based Research – Grounding inquiry in lived experience, memory, and intergenerational dialogue to expand the boundaries of knowledge production and foster deeper exchange between communities and institutions.

• Formats for Collective Thinking – advancing participatory methodologies such as creative archiving, mapping, annotation and oral traditions to serve communities in this political moment.

This forum offers a space to reimagine authorship and cultural stewardship—where Latinx and allied communities are not merely subjects of study, but active participants in shaping the narratives that define them. Together, these projects invite reflection on who gathers knowledge, for what purposes, and under whose authority—while generating meaningful, community-rooted insights into Latinx cultural life in New York City.

In doing so, Historias poses a central question: How can we collectively build knowledge infrastructures that honor the complexity, creativity, and enduring contributions of Latinx communities across this city?

Schedule:

10:00 AM – 11:00 AM | Central Convening & Keynote Framing with Johanna Fernandez and Chat Travieso

11:15 AM – 12:15 PM | Morning Breakout Sessions: Tracing the Past

12:10 PM – 1:15 PM | Midday Share-Backs & Communal Lunch

1:15 – 1:45 PM | Participatory Keynote Performance with Shaun Leonardo

2:00 PM – 3:00 PM | Afternoon Breakout Sessions: Imagining the Future

3:15 PM – 4:15 PM | Collective Synthesis & Action Wall

4:15 PM – 5:30 PM | Karaoke Practice! (with D.O.T.) + Afterparty

To conclude a generative day of embodied archiving, speculative visioning, and collective creating, Clemente residents Department of Transformation (D.O.T.) will lead a closing session that synthesizes the conceptual strands explored by each breakout session cohort. Through a show-and-tell presentation and rapid proposal prototyping process called Idea Machine, participants will be empowered to come together, think boldly, and take a concrete step towards manifesting the future we dream up together. 

Led by founder Prem Krishnamurthy and curator Sam Rauch, Department of Transformation is an artist-organized group that investigates new formats for collective learning and healing.

This year’s showcase features four visionary directors: Gara Roda (Spain), George Riverón (Cuba), Martín Chamorro (Argentina), and Askel Tang (Argentina). Each director presents a short play (30-40 minutes) spanning genres from musical theater to drama and comedy.

Click here for more details and to purchase your tickets!

🎉Join the LP21 family for a Plena workshop at the beloved Casita de Chema - a place near and dear to the heart and history of Los Pleneros de la 21 and to Bomba and Plena in NYC! 📅 Taller de Plena: June 12, 2025 ⏰ 6:30PM-8:00PM 📍Location: Rincón Criollo (La Casita de Chema) - 749 Brook Ave, Bronx, NY 💵 Admission: FREE

This is the first event in a 3 day festival - “Entre Tambores y Tiempos” - celebrating a year of powerful community storytelling, documentation and cultural continuation.

As a part of the Community Collections Grant awarded through the Library of Congress, LeAna López alongside Jorge Vázquez have spent this last year gathering, documenting and honoring the voices and perspectives of the practitioners who have shaped our community and our traditions at large. Now, it’s time to share our work and give back to you!

🔗 For more information about LP21’s Community Collections documentation project, visit https://www.losplenerosdela21.org/press. See you there! ✨

In this second part of our workshop, we explore organizing as the work of strategy, communication and mobilization to resist both fascism and anti-Black racism in our community. We will explore strategies to resist fascism in our daily lives and strategies to resist how anti-Black racism creates divisions and internalized oppression in our communities. We will share security tips that can help keep us safe as we do the work. Finally, we will have an open discussion on what has worked in communicating and mobilizing our close kin, and troubleshoot what has not worked. All participants will receive red Know Your Rights cards.

For more please visit: www.cccadi.org/events/community-member

*You can sign up for one or both workshops

Click here to RSVP!

Join us for a night of fun at the 47th Annual Museum Mile Festival at El Museo del Barrio! Explore the exciting spring exhibitions including Mestre Didi: Spiritual Form, a landmark monographic exhibition exploring the work of the late Afro-Brazilian sculptor, writer, cultural advocate and spiritual leader Mestre Didi (Salvador, 1917-2013), as well as Candida Alvarez: Circle, Point, Hoop, the first large-scale museum survey of artist Candida Alvarez (b. 1955, Brooklyn, New York).

El Museo’s celebration will feature art-marking activities outdoors for everyone to enjoy inspired by the exhibitions, music, and gallery tours.

All ages are welcome. Please register in advance to expedite check-in.

Click here to RSVP!

Dive into an eight-hour festa junina experience!

There’s something magical about wearing plaids, flowers, and ribbons…

Dancing quadrilha with friends, swaying to forró, sharing traditional treats, getting playfully flirty, watching Bumba Meu Boi come to life, taking part in a mock wedding — and who knows, maybe even being crowned the Quadrilha Queen or King!

Brazil is known for Carnival… but did you know Festa Junina is just as big a celebration? Some say it’s even bigger. So let’s gather, dance, eat, laugh — and make it epic.

We’re transforming @houseofyesnyc into a full-on arraiá with music, food, games, performances, art, and yes — a little party drama: a theatrical battle between the goddess Juno and São João over who really owns the party. Whose side are you on?

Last year, the goddess Juno finally reclaimed what was rightfully hers, and the party formerly known as Opa! São João is now Opa! Festa Junina. But São João isn’t giving up so easily—he wants his birthday bash back! Will Juno hold her ground as the original honoree of the festivity, or will São João win the crowd’s favor? You decide!

Parents, we’ve got you covered! Kids can join the festivities from 3 - 6 PM. 21 + after 6 PM.

Click here to get your tickets!

“La ternura” is a comedy that follows three women and three men as they navigate the peculiar realities of love and relationships. The characters question the saying, “In war and in love, everything goes.” Set on a desert island, they find themselves caught in hilarious mix-ups and magical misunderstandings reminiscent of Shakespeare’s works. Ultimately, they come to realize that the concept of “opposite sexes” is simply a myth.

Click here to get your tickets!

“La ternura” is a comedy that follows three women and three men as they navigate the peculiar realities of love and relationships. The characters question the saying, “In war and in love, everything goes.” Set on a desert island, they find themselves caught in hilarious mix-ups and magical misunderstandings reminiscent of Shakespeare’s works. Ultimately, they come to realize that the concept of “opposite sexes” is simply a myth.

Click here to get your tickets!

Step into the world of Pura Belpré, the first Puerto Rican librarian in NYC, as her beloved folktales come to life through puppetry, music, and storytelling. Featuring Pérez & Martina, Juan Bobo, and The Three Magi, this interactive show celebrates the power of stories and cultural heritage.

Click here for more details and to purchase your tickets!

Word Up welcomes Jorell A. Melendez-Badillo for the paperback launch of Puerto Rico: A National History, a bestselling panoramic history of Puerto Rico from pre-Columbian times to today. In conversation with Melendez-Badillo will be Aurora Santiago Ortiz, professor of Gender & Women Studies and Chicane & Latine Studies at UW-Madison.

Puerto Rico: A National History is an engaging, sometimes personal, and consistently surprising history of colonialism, revolt, and the creation of a national identity, offering new perspectives not only on Puerto Rico and the Caribbean but on the United States and the Atlantic world more broadly.

Click here to register!

Alicia and the Hurricane: A Story of Puerto Rico

Join Coquí Club, El Museo del Barrio’s lively bilingual program designed for our youngest visitors! Led by our talented museum educators, this interactive experience includes storytelling, artwork discussions, and a related hands-on art-making project. This month, join us for this special bilingual storytime as we read Alicia and the Hurricane: A Story of Puerto Rico, written by Lesléa Newman and illustrated by Elizabeth Erazo Baez, a tender story about a young girl and her experience during Hurricane María in Puerto Rico. Together, we will explore themes of family, resilience, and the ways we hold on to what matters most.

After our story, we’ll get creative with an art activity inspired by the vibrant, emotion-rich works of Puerto Rican artist Candida Alvarez. Just like Alvarez layers color, pattern, and personal stories in her paintings, we’ll make our own mixed-media masterpieces to reflect a special memory or feeling—bright, bold, and full of corazón. It’s a joyful morning of creativity, learning, and community—perfect for our littlest museum-goers! Don’t forget your Coquí crowns!

This event is FREE but RSVP is required. Space is limited—if you reserve a spot but can’t attend, please cancel in advance to allow others to participate.

Each child must be registered separately. Recommended for ages 3–6. Children must be accompanied by an adult.

Click here to RSVP!

This year’s showcase features four visionary directors: Gara Roda (Spain), George Riverón (Cuba), Martín Chamorro (Argentina), and Askel Tang (Argentina). Each director presents a short play (30-40 minutes) spanning genres from musical theater to drama and comedy.

Click here for more details and to purchase your tickets!

Dominican Writers Association and Word Up celebrate the launch Pájaros, lesbianas y queers...¡a volar!: An LGBTQ+ Anthology of Dominican Transnational Writers with editors Yoseli Castillo Fuertes and Alicia Anabel Santos, in conversation with Charles Rice-Gonzalez, author of Chulito.

Pájaros, lesbianas y queers...¡a volar! An LGBTQ+ Anthology of Dominican Transnational Writers is a bilingual compilation of poetry, essays, short stories, short plays and memoirs by out Dominican writers on the island and the diaspora. It is a powerful representation of some of the literary, social, political and cultural movements currently taking place in the Dominican community. The worlds, ideas, feelings and stories depicted in this book show how LGBTQ+ Dominicans both fit in and are alienated from the national dictum "Dios, Patria y Libertad", all while navigating typical human traits such as love, family, identity, home, safety, courage, sexuality, faith, language.

Click here to register!

Queens Rising is an annual cultural celebration, dedicated to illuminating the vibrant tapestry of Queens, New York. Since its inception in 2022, this event has united visual artists and performers with art organizations and performance spaces to showcase the borough's rich artistic heritage. It acts as a catalyst for collaboration, connecting artists, venues, and businesses to maximize opportunities for art and culture to flourish in Queens. At Queens Rising, the belief in the transformative power of art and culture to inspire, connect, and uplift communities is steadfast.

Queens Rising is proud to introduce our “Queens Scene,” an initiative showcasing Queens based performing artists. Through a curated series of borough-spanning performances, Queens Scene aims to elevate local voices and foster deeper engagement with audiences in each community. "Queens Rising is a collective invitation for all New Yorkers to experience the vast artistic riches of our borough," said Jeffrey Rosenstock, AVP for External & Governmental Relations at Queens College.

"From Astoria to Jamaica, Flushing to the Rockaways, Queens is rising—again!" -Jennifer Sellers-Dimitrov

7:00 PM - 7:45 PM CreArtBox

8:00 PM - 8:45 PM Alba Musik

9:00 PM - 9:45 PM Marilyn Castillo Approaching Zero is a minimalist journey through sound, silence, and visual art.

Presented as part of Queens Rising at Flushing Town Hall, this special program weaves together music for piano, flute, cello, and electronics, enhanced by original video art projections. Featuring works by Max Richter, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Sebastian Bach, François Couperin, Hanna Selin, Michel van der Aa, Nils Frahm, and Guillermo Laporta, the evening invites the audience into a meditative exploration of stillness, resonance, and the beauty of disappearance.

Performing Artists:

Guillermo Laporta – Flute, piano, electronics, video art

Josefina Urraca – Piano

Natalia Hoffman – Cello (virtual participation)

Hanna Selin – Piano, electronics, video art

Sarah K. Williams – Video art

Guillermo Ordaz – Video art

“La ternura” is a comedy that follows three women and three men as they navigate the peculiar realities of love and relationships. The characters question the saying, “In war and in love, everything goes.” Set on a desert island, they find themselves caught in hilarious mix-ups and magical misunderstandings reminiscent of Shakespeare’s works. Ultimately, they come to realize that the concept of “opposite sexes” is simply a myth.

Click here to get your tickets!

Fascists in other parts of the world, such as Nazi Germany, actually learned the strategies that they used in the regime from racist regimes, such as the U.S. Jim Crow system. We can’t talk about fascism without talking about anti-Black racism. We will never fully uproot fascism without understanding how to uproot anti-Black racism from our lives, communities and world. In this first part of our workshop, we explore the connection between these two linked systems and understand the patterns of division, hierarchy and chaos they mobilize.

Learning Goals:

• Understanding what fascism is and what it is not.

• Understanding how fascism is already here

• Understanding the subtle ways that fascism corrupts us and our communities.

For more please visit: www.cccadi.org/events/community-member

*You can sign up for one or both workshops

Click here to RSVP!

The Diasporican Cultural Summit is designed to address the pressing need for gathering spaces that bring together diasporic cultural workers, fostering connections with the next generation of scholars, researchers, and artists. By creating a multidimensional learning environment, the DCS not only facilitates meaningful exchanges between cultural practitioners and emerging academics but also builds bridges to other organizations. This dynamic platform enables participants to share knowledge, develop strategies for collaboration, and strengthen networks, ensuring that cultural work remains vibrant, impactful, and deeply rooted in community engagement.

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Lunch

1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Archiving for Cultural Organizations

2:00 PM – 2:30 PM Coffee Break

2:30 PM – 4:15 PM Securing the Bag: Funding Projects & Writing Proposals

4:15 PM – 4:30 PM Coffee Break

4:30 PM – 6:00 PM The Role of Data for Cultural Institutions

6:00 PM – 6:15 PM Raffle and presentation of Zon del Barrio by Boricorridor

6:15 PM – 8:00 PM Diasporican Cultural Summit Closing Reception

Word Up welcomes acclaimed writer Caro de Robertis to celebrate So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color, a first-of-its-kind, deeply personal, and moving oral history of a generation of trans and gender nonconforming elders of color who tell their own stories of breathtaking courage, cultural innovations, and acts of resistance. In conversation with de Robertis will be Denne Michele Norris, author of When the Harvest Comes.

Word Up is partnering with The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, commonly called The Center, a nonprofit organization serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender population of New York City and nearby communities. Donated copies of SO MANY STARS will be distributed to students in The Center’s READY program, which gives workplace training and experience to 45 high schoolers around New York.* Their job placement sites are all vetted to ensure a safe and nurturing queer-friendly environment for their first step into the workforce. Some of these sites include: Word Up Community Bookstore, BRUJAS skate company, Bronx Botanical Gardens, Broadway for the Arts, Animal Care Centers of New York, Brooklyn Public Library, and Generation Q in Queens. Some of READY's goals are to offer support throughout each learning curve of a youth's first job, budgeting throughout their first paychecks, advocating for themselves as employees, and being able to enter their next internship/job/or college as seamlessly as possible. Most of all, the purpose of READY is to build confidence in the youth participating in the internship who are entering young adulthood.

Click here to register!

The Diasporican Cultural Summit is designed to address the pressing need for gathering spaces that bring together diasporic cultural workers, fostering connections with the next generation of scholars, researchers, and artists. By creating a multidimensional learning environment, the DCS not only facilitates meaningful exchanges between cultural practitioners and emerging academics but also builds bridges to other organizations. This dynamic platform enables participants to share knowledge, develop strategies for collaboration, and strengthen networks, ensuring that cultural work remains vibrant, impactful, and deeply rooted in community engagement.

10:30 AM – 11:00 AM Registration begins

11:00 AM – 1:00 PM Beyond Visual Interpretation: A Workshop on Writing About Art

1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Lunch (First Floor)

2:00 PM – 4:00 PM Networking for Cultural Workers & Artists (First Floor)

4:00 PM – 4:30 PM Coffee Break

4:30 PM – 6:15 PM Afternoon Tertulia: Archival Artistry A Resident’s Research Experience

6:15 PM – 6:30 PM Picadera Time

6:30 PM – 8:30 PM Mapping Through DAM: Understanding and Using the Diasporican Art In Motion Initiative +a Special Sneak Peek at the DAM Docuseries

Alternative Futures: Community-based Practice in New York

When: June 3 @ 6:30 - 8:00PM

Where: The Clemente

Participants: Elena Ketelsen González , Azikiwe Mohammed, Cinthya Santos Briones, Sienna Fekete

More info and RSVP HERE

Join ICI and The Clemente for a public conversation that explores the evolving landscape of alternative, community-based curatorial practices in New York today. Amid the current climate of political and financial uncertainty, artists, curators, and organizers are reimagining what it means to engage in projects that are not just created for communities, but emerge from them.

The panel discussion brings together four cultural workers—Elena Ketelsen González (Assistant Curator, MoMA PS1), Azikiwe Mohammed (teacher and maker), Cinthya Santos-Briones (interdisciplinary artist, educator, and cultural worker), and Sienna Fekete (Senior Arts Manager, The Lower Eastside Girls Club)—who have each developed models that center kinship and belonging. They will discuss how their practices are reorienting curatorial and artistic work away from traditional methodologies and outcomes (such as the art object or the exhibition) and toward meeting material needs and building infrastructures of support, visibility, and resistance. Through youth programs, food banks, healing spaces, and other initiatives, the panelists’ work asks us to expand our understanding of what curatorial practice is and who it can serve.

The program is hosted at The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center, a model organization for collective and knowledge justice practices in the Lower East Side for over 30 years. It is presented in partnership with the Historias Initiative, a multi-year program led by The Clemente in collaboration with LxNY and supported by the Rauschenberg Foundation. Historias celebrates the transformative impact of Latinx communities in New York City through research, artistic interpretation, and public engagement.

“La ternura” is a comedy that follows three women and three men as they navigate the peculiar realities of love and relationships. The characters question the saying, “In war and in love, everything goes.” Set on a desert island, they find themselves caught in hilarious mix-ups and magical misunderstandings reminiscent of Shakespeare’s works. Ultimately, they come to realize that the concept of “opposite sexes” is simply a myth.

Click here to get your tickets!

Since 2011, Casita Maria’s South Bronx Culture Festival (SBCF) has celebrated the vibrant cultures and communities of the South Bronx through an annual performance series anchored by a new theme each year. Our 2025 theme Play it Forward amplifies the act of creative play in the arts resulting in joy, celebration and inspiration for the next generation of artists. The Festival line-up includes music, art and dance forms from homegrown hip hop and Latin Jazz to the diasporas of Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. Headliners include a Tribute to the Musical Legacy of Eddie Palmieri, Nelson González All Star Band and Casita Maria’s Latin jazz ensemble, Bronx Banda featuring Arturo O’Farrill. Additional artists include Alí Bello & The Charanga Syndicate, Bombazo Dance Company, Bronx Community Collage, Full Circle Souljahs, GrandWizzard Theodore, Jenn Jade & “JADE 8!”, Lulada Club, National Double Dutch League, Sofía Rei, Uptown Vinyl Supreme, Villalobos Brothers and the Young Artists of Casita Maria. Co-hosts Rhina Valentin and Jonathan Calixto will weave the weekend together with playful banter and storytelling.

SBCF 2025, the only event of its kind in Hunts Point / Longwood, will showcase the work that we do throughout the year, teaching and inspiring young artists, documenting the history of the Bronx through music and dance, and maintaining partnerships with local artists and organizations as we enrich and elevate our beloved community. Presented free to the public, the 3-day SBCF includes outdoor music and dance performances and art activities from May 30 to June 1, 2025 at Father Gigante Plaza in front of St. Athanasius Church at 878 Tiffany Street in the South Bronx. Everyone is welcome to attend the Festival in person, or to watch at a later date via our media partner BronxNet Television. Last year’s SBCF 2024 drew an enthusiastic audience of 5,000 residents.

Additional partnering organizations will create even more joy and activities for the community: Hunts Point Community Partnership and The POINT CDC will both table and lead art activities; Puerto Rican Institute for the Development of the Arts (PRIDA) will present a collective of artisan vendors; Casita Maria’s own Teaching Artist, Maria Luisa Portuondo Vila will lead a hands-on art activity; Bronx Community Collage will lead a collective collage making activity; and the New York Public Library will park their bookmobile near the stage. SoulBites will be returning as the food vendor for the weekend.

Click here for more information!

“La ternura” is a comedy that follows three women and three men as they navigate the peculiar realities of love and relationships. The characters question the saying, “In war and in love, everything goes.” Set on a desert island, they find themselves caught in hilarious mix-ups and magical misunderstandings reminiscent of Shakespeare’s works. Ultimately, they come to realize that the concept of “opposite sexes” is simply a myth.

Click here to get your tickets!

“The lights are low, the music sweet / It’s just the place for friends to meet,” at the Recirculation Rent Party!

Join the Word Up collective for an evening of music, food, and drinks to celebrate our community space and raise money to cover the rent (it’s too damn high)! In the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance rent parties, pay a $10-20 sliding scale ticket to enter to help Recirculation raise $3,300. Can’t make it? You can donate online! All ages are welcome. All must register ahead of time. No walk-ins allowed.

Why now for a party? We plan to renew our lease! After careful consideration, we’ve decided to put whatever energy we can into ensuring that this large community space continues to serve as a vital gathering space for our neighbors, whatever their needs for the space may be. At Recirculation, we host weekly events, meetings, and workshops, on top of selling low-cost books and records. It’s a space to meet friends and create something new. To make sure we’re still here in 2026, please donate to our rent party fund! Learn more about Recirculation at WordUpBooks.com/Recirculation

Free food and refreshments will be available, along with music by local DJs , trivia games, and giveaways!

Buy your tickets at WithFriends.co/WordUp

Click here to register!

Step into the world of Pura Belpré, the first Puerto Rican librarian in NYC, as her beloved folktales come to life through puppetry, music, and storytelling. Featuring Pérez & Martina, Juan Bobo, and The Three Magi, this interactive show celebrates the power of stories and cultural heritage.

Click here for more details and to purchase your tickets!

From ME to WE: Jamming with Manny Vega | An Interactive Art-Making Workshop on Diasporic Histories

When: Saturday May 31st @ 1-4 PM

Where: The Metropolitan Museum, 1000 5th AvenueNew York, NY, 10028

Artist: Manny Vega

More info HERE!

Developed as part of The Clemente’s Historias initiative and in conjunction with the re-opening of The Met’s newly reinstalled galleries for the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, this interactive workshop invites participants to reflect on New York City as a mosaic of diasporic journeys.

Led by renowned visual artist Manny Vega—whose improvisational, memory-rich practice draws from Afro-Caribbean, Latin American, and global traditions—this two-part workshop centers the city as a living archive shaped by generations of migration, adaptation, and cultural fusion. Just as The Met’s collections gather objects that reflect the diverse civilizations of the world, this workshop explores how our own stories form a collective tapestry of identities, rituals, and inherited memory.

Visitors are welcome to join either or both of the following drop-in projects, active from 1:00 to 4:00 PM:

Project 1: RECASTING THE PAST

Participants will collaborate with Vega in crafting a mosaic that reinterprets a selected artwork from The Met’s collection. By recontextualizing this object through contemporary materials, the group engages in an act of cultural translation—connecting past to present, and individual to collective.

Project 2: FRAMING WHAT CARRIES US

Drawing on prompts around memory, heritage, and the symbols that ground us, participants will create personal emblems that speak to their diasporic lineages. These elements will be woven into a large-scale communal artwork conceived by Vega, a visual record of the many pathways—personal and ancestral—that converge in New York City.

Through mosaic and collage,From ME to WEcelebrates the shared yet distinct narratives that define NYC as a diasporic city—one built, carried, and continually remade by movement, memory, and imagination.

Since 2011, Casita Maria’s South Bronx Culture Festival (SBCF) has celebrated the vibrant cultures and communities of the South Bronx through an annual performance series anchored by a new theme each year. Our 2025 theme Play it Forward amplifies the act of creative play in the arts resulting in joy, celebration and inspiration for the next generation of artists. The Festival line-up includes music, art and dance forms from homegrown hip hop and Latin Jazz to the diasporas of Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. Headliners include a Tribute to the Musical Legacy of Eddie Palmieri, Nelson González All Star Band and Casita Maria’s Latin jazz ensemble, Bronx Banda featuring Arturo O’Farrill. Additional artists include Alí Bello & The Charanga Syndicate, Bombazo Dance Company, Bronx Community Collage, Full Circle Souljahs, GrandWizzard Theodore, Jenn Jade & “JADE 8!”, Lulada Club, National Double Dutch League, Sofía Rei, Uptown Vinyl Supreme, Villalobos Brothers and the Young Artists of Casita Maria. Co-hosts Rhina Valentin and Jonathan Calixto will weave the weekend together with playful banter and storytelling.

SBCF 2025, the only event of its kind in Hunts Point / Longwood, will showcase the work that we do throughout the year, teaching and inspiring young artists, documenting the history of the Bronx through music and dance, and maintaining partnerships with local artists and organizations as we enrich and elevate our beloved community. Presented free to the public, the 3-day SBCF includes outdoor music and dance performances and art activities from May 30 to June 1, 2025 at Father Gigante Plaza in front of St. Athanasius Church at 878 Tiffany Street in the South Bronx. Everyone is welcome to attend the Festival in person, or to watch at a later date via our media partner BronxNet Television. Last year’s SBCF 2024 drew an enthusiastic audience of 5,000 residents.

Additional partnering organizations will create even more joy and activities for the community: Hunts Point Community Partnership and The POINT CDC will both table and lead art activities; Puerto Rican Institute for the Development of the Arts (PRIDA) will present a collective of artisan vendors; Casita Maria’s own Teaching Artist, Maria Luisa Portuondo Vila will lead a hands-on art activity; Bronx Community Collage will lead a collective collage making activity; and the New York Public Library will park their bookmobile near the stage. SoulBites will be returning as the food vendor for the weekend.

Click here for more information!

This year’s showcase features four visionary directors: Gara Roda (Spain), George Riverón (Cuba), Martín Chamorro (Argentina), and Askel Tang (Argentina). Each director presents a short play (30-40 minutes) spanning genres from musical theater to drama and comedy.

Click here for more details and to purchase your tickets!

“La ternura” is a comedy that follows three women and three men as they navigate the peculiar realities of love and relationships. The characters question the saying, “In war and in love, everything goes.” Set on a desert island, they find themselves caught in hilarious mix-ups and magical misunderstandings reminiscent of Shakespeare’s works. Ultimately, they come to realize that the concept of “opposite sexes” is simply a myth.

Click here to get your tickets!