Plantando Bandera: Pre-National Puerto Rican Day Parade

When: June 7 @ 2-5 PM

Where: Grand Street Settlement, 80 Pitt St, NYC

Free & Open to the Public | All Ages Welcome

RSVP HERE!

Celebrate Puerto Rican culture, resistance, and legacy at this special pre-parade gathering honoring the 2025 cohort of artists, organizers, and cultural leaders. Co-organized with the National Puerto Rican Day Parade Committee, this year marks the 130th anniversary of the Puerto Rican flag.

Featured guests include honorees Hermes Croatto and Mariana Reyes Angleró, who will speak about La Goyco, and Marcelo Matos of La Casa de la Plena, who will lead a youth-focused workshop. Libertad Guerra and Victor Rivera will offer reflections on Clemente Soto Vélez, and Mujeres con Sazón will lead From Jayuya to New York: Boricua Cuisine is Culture.

We especially welcome families and community groups with youth programs—join us for live music, hands-on activities, storytelling, and intergenerational celebration.

The afternoon will feature:
A hands-on community workshop
Short presentations by the honorees
Live music and celebration
Opportunities to connect and share stories

This is more than a tribute—it’s a space for intergenerational exchange, creative expression, and collective pride.

Come celebrate those who carry the legacy forward—before we take to the streets.

___

SCHEDULE (2:00 PM – 5:00 PM)

• 2:00 PM – Doors Open
  Roy Brown Playlist
  Archival Image Projections
  Children’s Art-Making Table
  Refreshments Available

• 2:10 PM – Welcome Remarks
  

• 2:15 PM – Segment 1: Libertad Guerra + Victor Rivera: Clemente: Donde la Vanguardia Abraza al Pueblo

  Brief framing of Clemente Soto Vélez’s legacy and the Historias initiative
  Featuring excerpts from the CENTRO documentary: A Revolt Through Letters: Clemente Soto Vélez

• 2:55 PM – Segment 2: Hermes Croatto: Taller de Música Jíbara y nueva canción

  Musical exploration of Puerto Rican Jíbaro and Nueva Canción styles
  Live performance and interactive engagement

• 3:20 PM – Mujeres con Sazón: Desde Jayuya a Nueva York, Gastronomía Boricua es Cultura
  Coffee from Jayuya story

• 3:35 PM – Segment 3: Mariana Reyes & Marcelo Matos: Taller de la Plena

  Hands-on rhythms, percussion, and history of Plena and the history of La Goyco and Casa de La Plena. Community participation encouraged!

• 4:00 PM – Closing Celebration
  Final Remarks + Plena/Salsa/Roy Brown Playlist

Transforming Texts- An experimental reading group

When: Wednesdays March 5, April 2, May 7, June 4, 2025 @ 6-8 PM

Where: Room 309 @ The Clemente

Organized by: Department of Transformation

RSVP HERE!

Can we redefine our futures by redefining our forms? How might the act of reading together itself be transformative? Transforming Texts takes place monthly in 2025 as part of the Department of Transformation’s residency at The Clemente. This free and open program invites participants to propose complex, challenging, and otherwise urgent texts for collective investigation. Through a collaborative process, the group will both identify specific readings and develop experimental formats for engagement, drawing on a wide range of disciplines and modes of practice to cultivate a community of creative connectivity while building an ongoing bibliography of transformative texts for our times. 

This month, we’ll discuss “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” the foundational text of critical pedagogy by Brazilian philosopher and teacher Paolo Freire, which proposed education as the practice of freedom. In a session co-facilitated by Katie Freeman and Sam Rauch, we’ll explore the liberating potential of learning through a combination of movement and collective knowledge-production exercises from Brazil to Indonesia.

Transforming Texts is led by Prem Krishnamurthy and Sam Rauch of Department of Transformation, with contributions from a rotating cast of brilliant co-facilitators. This program is free and open to the public, supported by The Clemente. Graphics by Mark Foss @markjfoss

For more info, contact hello@dept-of-transformation.org 

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.

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.

Esto No Tiene Nombre

When:  May 17, Doors at 3:30 pm, show runs 75 min, Talkback session afterwards

Where: Teatro LATEA @ The Clemente

Writer and Performer: Denice Frohman

Director and co-creator: Alex Torra

Talkback Participants: Denice Frohman, Carmelita Tropicana, Frances Negron-Muntaner

RSVP & Tickets HERE!

The Clemente will host artist, writer, and performer Denice Frohman; director and co-creator Alex Torra; and projection and set designer Nia Benjamin in a micro-residency to produce Esto No Tiene Nombre, a one-woman show that chronicles the oral histories of Latina lesbian elders. Curated by Jacqueline Woodson, renowned author and 2020 MacArthur Fellow, the play presents a tapestry of vignettes exploring Latina lesbian activism, expression, and desire, from pre-Stonewall police raids in Philadelphia to first kisses. The title is inspired by Esto No Tiene Nombre, the first Latina lesbian magazine, founded in the 1990s by Colombian poet and activist Tatiana de la Tierra.

This work is rooted in archival interviews conducted by Frohman as part of I See My Light Shining: Oral Histories of Our Elders, a year-long project featuring more than 20 oral history interviews from Latina lesbian elders in New York City.

Esto No Tiene Nombre

When:  May 16, Doors at 6:30 pm (Show runs 75 min, Talkback session afterwards)

Where: Teatro LATEA @ The Clemente

Writer and Performer: Denice Frohman

Director and co-creator: Alex Torra

Talkback Participants: Denice Frohman and Suhaly Bautista-Carolina

RSVP & Tickets HERE!

The Clemente will host artist, writer, and performer Denice Frohman; director and co-creator Alex Torra; and projection and set designer Nia Benjamin in a micro-residency to produce Esto No Tiene Nombre, a one-woman show that chronicles the oral histories of Latina lesbian elders. Curated by Jacqueline Woodson, renowned author and 2020 MacArthur Fellow, the play presents a tapestry of vignettes exploring Latina lesbian activism, expression, and desire, from pre-Stonewall police raids in Philadelphia to first kisses. The title is inspired by Esto No Tiene Nombre, the first Latina lesbian magazine, founded in the 1990s by Colombian poet and activist Tatiana de la Tierra.

This work is rooted in archival interviews conducted by Frohman as part of I See My Light Shining: Oral Histories of Our Elders, a year-long project featuring more than 20 oral history interviews from Latina lesbian elders in New York City.

Esto No Tiene Nombre

When:  May 15, Doors at 6:30 pm, show runs 75 min

Where: Teatro LATEA @ The Clemente

Writer and Performer: Denice Frohman

Director and co-creator: Alex Torra

RSVP & Tickets HERE!

The Clemente will host artist, writer, and performer Denice Frohman; director and co-creator Alex Torra; and projection and set designer Nia Benjamin in a micro-residency to produce Esto No Tiene Nombre, a one-woman show that chronicles the oral histories of Latina lesbian elders. Curated by Jacqueline Woodson, renowned author and 2020 MacArthur Fellow, the play presents a tapestry of vignettes exploring Latina lesbian activism, expression, and desire, from pre-Stonewall police raids in Philadelphia to first kisses. The title is inspired by Esto No Tiene Nombre, the first Latina lesbian magazine, founded in the 1990s by Colombian poet and activist Tatiana de la Tierra.

This work is rooted in archival interviews conducted by Frohman as part of I See My Light Shining: Oral Histories of Our Elders, a year-long project featuring more than 20 oral history interviews from Latina lesbian elders in New York City.

IX Kerouac Festival: New York

When: Thursday May 8th @ 6 - 9 PM

Where: Flamboyan Theater @ The Clemente

Organized by: Culture Lovers (Vanesa Álvarez & Marcos de la Fuente)

Participants: Live Poetry by Hala Alyan, Manuel Mata, Cristiane Bouger (w/ band), Paola Assad & Inés López, Elisabeth Sweet | Videos by: Emmanuel Vizcaya, José Lameiras , Warren C. Longmire | Art Installations: The Whispers by Ismael Faro, HOWL CAMERA by The VERSEverse

The Kerouac Festival of Poetry, Music, and Performance returns for its 9th edition in New York on Thursday, May 8, and Friday, May 9. This vibrant two-day celebration of experimental poetry, live music, digital art, and community will bring together voices from across the globe. Hosted and curated by Galician-Brooklyn-based poet and performer Marcos de la Fuente, the festival continues its mission to honor the rebellious spirit of Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation through boundary-breaking artistic expression.

This year’s edition features an exciting international lineup including Hala Alyan (USA-Palestine), Mónica Carrillo Zegarra (Perú), Nancy Mercado (USA-Puerto Rico), Cristiane Bouger (Brazil), Essau Landa (Mexico), Gabael Otzoy (Guatemala), Isabel Castelao-Gómez (Spain), and more. Performances blend poetry with music, cello, DJ sets, and visual media—making Kerouac NYC not just a reading, but an immersive experience in different languages.

More info HERE!

NADA Presents at NADA New York 2025

When: May 8th, starting at 3pm

Where: NADA Art Fair, The Starrett-Lehigh Building601 W 26th Street, 3rd Floor

More info HERE

Join The Clemente and Historias at NADA New York 2025 for their programming schedule, NADA Presents. For the 11th edition of the fair, NADA will host a signature series of conversations and performances curated by Amanda Riesman held at The Starrett-Lehigh Building, with programs occurring daily from May 7–11. The Clemente will be hosting talks discussing Domino Table Talks, one of our Historias Signature Series.

Collaboration and Knowledge Justice in Latinx Cultural Production

Thursday, May 8, 3pm

This conversation will introduce the Historias initiative and The Clemente's artist-driven model that’s rethinking how institutions support Latinx cultural work—especially across public art, knowledge, justice, and representation.

Featuring Libertad O. Guerra (Executive Director of The Clemente), Shaun Leonardo (Artist, Educator, and Historias Advisor), Cinthya Santos Briones (Artist and Community Organizer), and Jonathan Gonzalez (Artist). Moderated by Sofía S. Reeser del Rio, (Curator and Associate Director of Programs of The Clemente).

Domino Table Talks

Thursday, May 8, 4pm

Join artist Edra Soto and Public Art Fund Senior Curator Melanie Kress for a conversation about Graft, Soto’s first large-scale public art exhibition in New York City, and the role of dominoes in Soto's work. Graft is a monument to working class Puerto Rican communities where tables and seating invite visitors to enjoy a moment of rest, connection, and reflection–or a game of dominoes. Soto, who is presenting a solo booth with Morgan Lehman Gallery for NADA New York, and Kress will speak about their collaboration with The Clemente for Domino Table Talks, a signature project for Historias that hosts intimate, intergenerational conversations designed to document the oral histories of the community through the lens of domino culture.

Domino Table Talks Episode Screenings and Domino Play

Thursday, May 8, 5pm

Domino Table Talks episodes will screen on rotation until the end of the fair, while guests are invited to join a domino game at tables set up in the space for play.

Transforming Texts- An experimental reading group

When: Wednesdays March 5, April 2, May 7, 2025 @ 6-8 PM

Where: Room 309 @ The Clemente

Organized by: Department of Transformation

Can we redefine our futures by redefining our forms? How might the act of reading together itself be transformative? Transforming Texts takes place monthly in 2025 as part of the Department of Transformation’s residency at The Clemente. This free and open program invites participants to propose complex, challenging, and otherwise urgent texts for collective investigation. Through a collaborative process, the group will both identify specific readings and develop experimental formats for engagement, drawing on a wide range of disciplines and modes of practice to cultivate a community of creative connectivity while building an ongoing bibliography of transformative texts for our times. 

Transforming Texts is organized by Department of Transformation founder Prem Krisnamurthy and curator Sam Rauch, with additional co-organizers to be announced. 

To register, RSVP HERE

For more info, contact hello@dept-of-transformation.org 

Jonathan Bruce Williams + Payal Parekh: Conscious Connection

When: Sunday May 4, 2025 | Workshop @ 4–6pm |Reception @ 6–8pm

Where: Studio 309 at The Clemente

RSVP!  

Please join Department of Transformation, Jonathan Bruce Williams, and Payal Parekh for Conscious Connection, an experimental movement and mindfulness workshop conceived for the opening of Consciousness Energy Grid, a presentation of new animated lightbox sculptures by Williams on view from May 4–11 by appointment at The Clemente.

Departing from Consciousness Energy Grid’s sculptural exploration of bodily vulnerability, altered states, and the transformative valence of movement and light, Jonathan Bruce Williams begins this experiential program by demonstrating the creative use (and abuse) of mobile communication technologies to form a chain of uncanny connection that summons the ghosts in our collective machines. Payal Parekh follows by leading participants in an embodied practice that includes stretching, meditation, reflection, and discussion based on Blessed Rest by Payal, an affirmational card deck conceived as a supportive reminder that rest is our collective birthright and a critical aspect of healing.

Following Conscious Connection will be a reception to celebrate the opening of Consciousness Energy Grid.
This program is free; RSVP is requested. Participants are encouraged to wear movement-appropriate clothing and to bring a yoga mat, if possible.

—

BIOS:

Jonathan Bruce Williams is a Lower East Side-based artist and technologist who creates art systems at an intersection of research, imagination, and light. His work explores perception, psychology, and technology through custom-designed apparatuses aimed at healing. He holds an MFA from Columbia University and a BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Currently, he is training to become a 200-hour Yoga Alliance certified instructor, focusing on Ashtanga and Vinyasa, integrating movement and mindfulness into his creative approach.

Payal Parekh is a New York-based art advisor and yoga teacher with a passion for promoting wellness and diverse art perspectives. She holds a BA in Art History from Mount Holyoke College 2001 and an MA in Contemporary Art from Sotheby's Institute, London. Payal Arts International, founded in 2008, focuses on consulting artists and advising collectors. As a 500-hour nationally certified yoga teacher, she believes in the power of movement and meditation to improve physical and mental health. Payal has led meditation sessions at Christie’s, David Zwirner Gallery, The Armory Show, Perrotin New York and The Baltimore Museum of Art. In addition, she has served on the board of the American Visionary Art Museum and is currently a member of the Skowhegan Council and an FCA Friend (Foundation for Contemporary Arts) in New York. Her new self-care deck, Blessed Rest by Payal, offers tools for self-reflection and self-care practices to manage stress.

Department of Transformation (D🌍T) is an artist-organized group that prototypes new formats for togetherness, learning, and collective healing. Through workshops, events, publications, and commissions (+ karaoke!), we support others in their own processes of change. We believe that by transforming the arts, we can transform ourselves, our communities, and our world.

Department of Transformation is generously supported by the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center.

For all inquires, please contact hello@d-o-t.nyc 

Section: New York – A Preview Workshop of Splitting/Absence

When: Saturday, May 3rd, 2025 @ 7:30 PM

Where: Teatro LATEA @ The Clemente, 107 Suffolk Street, New York, NY, 10002

Artists: Composed by Sokio | Words by Natasha Tiniacos

Reserve your tickets HERE!

As part of the Historias initiative, The Clemente Center and New Latin Wave present Section: New York, a preview workshop of Sokio’s opera Splitting/Absence, in development with National Sawdust. This multi-phase operatic work explores the life and legacy of 1970s artist Gordon Matta-Clark, whose radical interventions redefined urban spaces. Each chapter of the opera is supported by a different commissioner, with Historias commissioning the New York chapter.

Composed by Sokio, with words by Natasha Tiniacos, Splitting/Absence blends electronic and classical elements to create an immersive operatic experience—bringing Matta-Clark’s transformative vision to life through music, architecture, and storytelling. The opera offers a deeper exploration of Matta-Clark’s impact on contemporary art and urbanism.

Don’t miss Sokio’s talk at the Metropolitan Museum the day before this event, on Friday May 2nd at 6:30 PM, where he’ll be discussing the transformative exchange of influence between art scenes in Latin America and New York City, focusing on the unique dynamics between Gordon Matta-Clark and his father, the renowned Chilean surrealist Roberto Matta.. Link to Sokio’s Met talk HERE!

Artist Bio:

Sokio Díaz Gallardo (Chile, b. 1973) is a composer, producer, music supervisor, and cultural organizer. He leads the performance of his opera Splitting/Absence and is the director and co-founder of New Latin Wave and a member of the LxNY consortium—both initiatives dedicated to amplifying Latinx voices in arts and culture.

Known for his innovative fusion of electronic and classical music, Sokio explores themes of space, transformation, and urban landscapes through operatic storytelling. Based in New York’s Lower East Side, he continues to push creative boundaries across multiple disciplines.

His latest works include: the chamber opera Paraíso which premiered on June 16, 2023, at National Sawdust; his role as music supervisor for Sebastián Díaz’s documentary A Thousand Pines; and his work as a curator, co-creating the series “Futuros, New Ideas in Composition” at Lincoln Center with Amanda Riesman.

Further details, including the full list of participants, will be announced soon.

This event forms part of Carnegie Hall’s Nuestros Sonidos festival.

Presented by The Clemente Center and New Latin Wave as part of the Historias initiative

When: Friday, May 2, 2025 @ 6:30–7:30 PM

Where: The Metropolitan Museum,  Fifth Avenue

Gallery 901, Leonard A. Lauder Galleries

Speaker: Sokio

Register HERE!

Join Museum experts, including curators, conservators, scientists, and scholars, for a deep dive into a selection of exhibition objects in the galleries. Hear new insights and untold stories from Met insiders and take a closer look at the works of art. You’ll also have the opportunity to ask questions.

In this talk, join Sokio, founder and director of New Latin Wave, to explore the transformative exchange of influence between art scenes in Latin America and New York City, focusing on the unique dynamics between Gordon Matta-Clark and his father, the renowned Chilean surrealist Roberto Matta.

“Latine Visions in Art and Music” is part of Nuestros Sonidos, Carnegie Hall's 2025 citywide festival.

On Saturday, May 3, enjoy a workshop of Sokio’s opera Splitting/Absence, in development with National Sawdust. This program takes place at The Clemente and is also presented as part of Carnegie Hall’s Nuestro Sonidos festival. Learn more

FREE with Museum admission, though advance registration is recommended. Note: Space is limited; first come, first served. Priority will be given to those who register.

DOT presents: Karaoke Practice! - Another Protest Song

When: Thursday, May 1 @ 8-11 PM

Where: Francis Kite Club, 40 Loisaida Avenue, NYC

Organized by: Department of Transformation (DOT), supported by Historias

Guest Artists: Angel Nevarez & Valerie Tevere

Department of Transformation (DOT) and The Clemente are thrilled to announce our next Karaoke Practice! at The Francis Kite Club on May 1, 2025. In this ongoing series of experimental and participatory gatherings, collective voice, performance, and transformation take center stage. 

For this International Workers Day edition of Karaoke Practice!, interdisciplinary artist duo Angel Nevarez & Valerie Tevere invite your participation in Another Protest Song: Karaoke, a series of experimental events that look to the karaoke songbook as potential for political enunciation through song. First initiated in 2008, this ongoing project invites the public to choose and sing songs of protest, along with pop songs re-contextualized to support the singer’s engaged interests or dislikes.

Karaoke Practice! and Another Protest Song: Karaoke are organized by DOT and presented in partnership with The Clemente as part of HISTORIAS, their multidisciplinary citywide initiative to foreground Latinx narratives in the arts. An experiential investigation of popular song and informal gathering as vectors for vernacular political communication, Nevarez and Tevere’s project considers the poetics of everyday modes of resistance and the ways in which cultural heritage is embodied and transmitted through ritual and song.

Department of Transformation is an artist-organized group founded by designer, author, and educator Prem Krishnamurthy that prototypes new formats for togetherness, learning, and collective healing. As part of DOT’s ongoing micro-residency at The Clemente, Karaoke Practice! sessions at The Francis Kite Club invite the DOT community and the public to explore karaoke as a medium for expression, experimentation, connection, and community. 

As a readymade format, karaoke can generate varying levels of discomfort in people while also demonstrating a person’s virtuosic potential. Karaoke creates community through a shared sense of vulnerability and mutual support. Whether you are a pro or novice, love a good time or just have something to protest at top volume, we invite you to join us and make your voice heard!

ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS:

Department of Transformation (D🌍T) is an artist-organized group that prototypes new formats for togetherness, learning, and collective healing. Through workshops, events, publications, and commissions (+ karaoke!), we support others in their own processes of change. We believe that by transforming the arts, we can transform ourselves, our communities, and our world.

Angel Nevarez and Valerie Tevere’s practice brings together music, sound, and the cultural complexities of the public sphere, engaging civic action through distinct musical instrumentation and acoustic traditions. They have exhibited their work at the Museum of Modern Art, Museo de Arte Raúl Anguiano in Guadalajara, Mexico, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, and elsewhere. Their fellowships include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Creative Capital fellowship, and an Art Matters grant. For more than two decades, the artists have collaboratively produced multimedia works with musicians, radio practitioners, students, and city agencies. 

Located in the heart of the Lower East Side, The Francis Kite Club is a unique venue for creative engagement, fostering collaborative, social, and artistic experimentation. Reflecting DOT’s commitment to artistic and social transformation, these events create an inclusive space for self-expression, performance, and joy. Whether you're a seasoned performer or new to the microphone, all are welcome to take part in this evolving practice.

Department of Transformation and Karaoke Practice! are supported by The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural & Educational Center. Founded 1993, The Clemente is a Puerto Rican and Latinx cultural space rooted in the Lower East Side, connecting and co-creating with contemporary artists, cultural workers and small arts organizations by offering subsidized studios, exhibition, rehearsal, office and venue spaces; and producing original programming in a spirit of responsiveness, heritage conversation and provocative collaboration.

Uptown/Downtown: When Boroughs Collide (DEI Warriors on the Culture Front)

When: Monday, April 28 @ 3:00 - 6:00 PM

Where: Flamboyan Theater @ The Clemente

Roundtable Speakers: Lisa Kahane, Joe Lewis, Jane Dickson, Frank Morales, Betti-Sue Hertz, Libertad Guerra and Amy Starecheski.

Invited respondents: John Ahearn, Charlie Ahearn, John “Crash” Matos, Yasmin Ramirez

Organized by: ABC No Rio in partnership with Historias

RSVP HERE!

Join us for a roundtable discussion Uptown/Downtown: When Boroughs Collide (DEI Warriors on the Culture Front), exploring ABC No Rio's history of collaboration with experimental cultural centers and the intersectionality that arose from artists moving between boroughs throughout the eighties. Photographer Lisa Kahane will complement the discussion with a slideshow presentation on Fashion Moda, a Bronx-based art space that served as a vital second home for many ABC No Rio-affiliated artists.

This event will focus on the history of Fashion Moda, an experimental art space in the South Bronx opened by Austrian emigre artist Stefan Eins in 1978. ABC No Rio opened two years later in Loisaida, after a building occupation. Several of the artists from “the Moda” came down for the Real Estate Show, and later showed at ABC. Artists from ABC went uptown to the Moda regularly. This crosstown traffic continued throughout the 1980s. One of the okupas of the squatting movement in the Bronx had a zine library; when that squat was evicted the zine library came to ABC No Rio, the seed of the present-day collection. This artistic traffic between boroughs was crucially important in laying the foundations for the diverse multi-cultural artworld of the present-day.

Questions around intersectionality have dogged the cultural world in NYC for at least a century.* The axis of Colab, through Fashion Moda and ABC No Rio, set out to intervene in this by siting experimental cultural centers in peripheral barrios of the city in the late 1970s and through the '80s. These centers welcomed artists of color. How did that work? And did it work to build the artworld of today? The question is especially urgent given the recent federal government's all-out attacks on "DEI" funding in all sectors. The time is now urgent for this important history to be better known.

Run of Events: 3:00- 4:15 PM | *30 minute break | 4:45- 6:00 PM | Reception afterwards

PARTICIPANT BIOS:

Lisa Kahane is a politically engaged documentary photographer, author, and educator currently living and working in the Bronx. Her work looks at the interaction of aging, the city, art, and politics.She was the principal photographer for Fashion Moda, a storefront museum in the South Bronx of the ‘80s, and a Fellow at the Bronx Documentary Center in 2019.

Joe Lewis is a post-conceptual interdisciplinary American artist, musician, writer and art educator, and native New Yorker. Lewis was co-founding director of Fashion Moda in New York, where he curated and mounted numerous exhibitions and performance events. He also formed part of the artist collective Colab and ABC No Rio, and appeared in the 1983 seminal American hip hop film Wild Style.

Jane Dickson is an American painter who lives and works in New York City. Her practice explores the psychogeography of American culture and was forged in the crucible of New York’s late-seventies counterculture, where she participated in artist collectives like Fashion Moda, Collaborative Projects, ABC No Rio, and Group Material.

Frank Morales is an Episcopal priest and activist in New York City. He grew up in the LES to Puerto Rican and Peruvian parents, and has been involved in politics since the J.F.K. and M.L.K. Jr. assassinations as a member of the Assassination Information Committee. In 2003, he founded the Campaign to Demilitarize the Police in NYC and he continues to campaign on housing issues.

Betti-Sue Hertz is Director and Chief Curator at Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University in NYC. Trained as an art historian and artist, her curatorial and scholarly projects are fueled by the intersection of visual aesthetics and socially relevant ideas with a particular interest in relational structures and comparative propositions on global contemporary topics.

Libertad O. Guerra is an urban anthropologist and cultural strategist specializing in equity, place-based arts, and Latinx cultural production. As Executive Director of The Clemente she has transformed it into a hub for co-creation, coalition-building, and cultural organizing in NYC. Her curatorial practice explores social-artistic movements and the aesthetic politics of place through a coalitional, experimental lens. She also serves as Chief Curator of Historias, The Clemente’s largest initiative to date—a multi-year effort re-centering intersectional Latinx narratives and pioneering new models of collaboration.

Amy Starecheski is a cultural anthropologist and oral historian whose research focuses on the use of oral history in social movements and the politics of history, value and property in cities. She is the Director of the Oral History MA Program at Columbia University and served as 2021-22 President of the Oral History Association. 

John Ahearn is an American sculptor best known for the public art and street art he made in the South Bronx in the 1980s. During this time, he started making life casts while working with Colab, a Manhattan artists’ collective, as well as doing live life casting of volunteers on the sidewalk in front of Fashion Moda in the Bronx.

Charlie Ahearn, a New York native, is a film director and creative cultural artist, known for writing and directing the hip hop classic movie Wild Style. Although predominantly involved in film and video production, he is also known for his work as an author, freelance writer, member of the Manhattan artists’ collective Colab,and radio host.

John “Crash” Matos is a NYC native graffiti artist. Crash was first discovered through his murals on subway cars and dilapidated buildings and is now regarded as a pioneer of the Graffiti art movement. His work conveys a visual link between street life and established society. In 1980, Crash curated the now iconic exhibition:"Graffiti Art Success for America" at Fashion Moda, launching the graffiti movement that has remained very active through today.

Yasmin Ramirez is a curator, writer, and cultural worker known for her extensive work in the arts, beginning with her academic memorialization of Nuyorican cultural contributions. Born in Brooklyn, Ramirez was an active member of New York City’s early 1980s creative scene, paying close attention to visual culture in the form of street art, explorations of subculture, and more. Beginning in the 90s, she curated exhibitions exploring the intersection of cultural identity, race, gender, and social justice, particularly in relation to Latinx identity and diasporic communities.

¡Te Amo Porque S.O.S. Pueblo!

Opening Reception: Friday April 25, 5:00 - 8:00 PM

When: April 25 – May 25, 2025

Where: Bronx Art Space, 700 Manida St. (Entrance in Spofford Ave)

Bronx, NY 10474 / 6 train to Hunts Point

Organized by: María Ponce, Marco Saavedra, Blanka Amezkua

Artists: Ruddy, Letty, Odalys, Itzi, Rigo, Gabriel, Marco, Alejandra, Aurelio, Elena, Mary, Cristian, Niceli, Talita, Odette, Katherine, Leslie, Dialekto, Jose Luis, Daniela, Sonia, Maria, MaryJose, Zenaida, Paulina, Margarita, Eufemia, Eugenia, Erika, Patricia, Cinthya, Tammy, Alexis, Blanka

RSVP HERE!

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The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center and the BronxArtSpace are pleased to present ¡Te Amo Porque S.O.S Pueblo!, an exhibition of works by immigrant artists who came to the US as undocumented minors and artists with a family history of crossing borders. This exhibition explores the creation of sanctuary through nourishment, ancestral spiritual practices, legal rights and community resources—affirming art as a means of survival. Co-curated by artists Maria Ponce, Marco Saavedra, and Blanka Amezcua, the exhibition will also serve as an information center with advice and resources provided by local organizations working directly with immigrant communities. ¡Te Amo Porque S.O.S Pueblo! will be on view from April 25 to May 25, 2025, at BronxArtSpace.

“We know that the only way to resist the hateful policies of 'enforcement through attrition' is by caring for our community with love,” Ponce, Saavedra, and Amezcua collectively shared.

The exhibition features works by more than 30 artists, whose last names are kept anonymous to ensure their safety: Alejandra, Alexis, Aurelio, Blanka, Cinthya, Cristian, Daniela, Dialekto, Elena, Erika, Eufemia, Eugenia, Gabriel, Itzi, Jose Luis, Katherine, Leslie, Marco, Margarita, Maria, Mary, MaryJose, Niceli, Odalys, Odette, Patricia, Paulina, Rigo, Ruddy, Sonia, Talita, Tammy, and Zenaida. The artists work in various mediums, including archival family photos, watercolor, embroidery, and screenprinting; some apply their craftwork and hobbies under the guidance of the curatorial team to create works of contemporary art for the first time.

¡Te Amo Porque S.O.S Pueblo! takes its name from the poem by the Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti, “Te Quiero,” which translates to “I love you because you are my people,” with “sos” (“are”) stylized to highlight a state of emergency. Many of the works on view either document or reference the immigration process. Together, they emphasize love, sanctuary, and nourishment as a response to the current climate of hate, racism, deportations, and terror.

The exhibition is supported by The Clemente and LxNY as part of Historias, an expansive multiyear initiative charting the impact of Latinx communities in New York City. Spanning citywide cultural programming and scholarship, Historias serves as a living repository of interconnected histories—consolidating archival research, oral narratives, and multimedia storytelling to preserve and elevate Latine presence across the five boroughs.

BronxArtSpace will activate the exhibition with a series of community events, providing food, informational pamphlets, and legal advice on immigration and deportation to create a care network that outlives the gallery space. All events are open to the public and located at BronxArtSpace, 700 Manida Street, Bronx, NY, 10474. 

EVENTS:

Opening Celebration

Friday, April 25, 2025

5:00 pm–8:00 pm 

Food will be provided by La Morada restaurant, a mutual aid restaurant that first opened during the COVID-19 pandemic to serve the Bronx community. 

Information Portal

Saturday, April 26, 2025

11:00am - 5:00pm

Organizations including Rapid Response, Plaza Proletaria, and the New York Legal Assistance Group, will be on-site to provide presentations, pro bono legal advice, and a guide to rapid response in the face of deportation. 

Colectivo VOCES Presentation and Feast

Saturday, May 10, 2025

12:00pm - 3:00pm

Colectivo VOCES, a collective of Indigenous immigrant women from Guerrero, Mexico, will present a series of cookbook zines preserving Mixtec recipes that were previously passed along orally. The zines are a result of research conducted by Liana Collective as part of the Las Yerbas artist residency conducted at Canal Projects.

Closing Celebration

Saturday, May 24, 2025

5:00pm - 8:00pm

Participating artist Tu’un Savi and Mixtec poet Nadia López García will introduce #Quebrantoa, a poetry book by Marco Nieto about his migration from Oaxaca to the U.S. Food will be provided by La Morada Restaurant, a mutual aid restaurant that first opened during the COVID-19 pandemic to serve the Bronx community. 

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About BronxArtSpace

Founded and opened to the public in 2010 as a space for art exhibits and performances, BronxArtSpace (BAS), a 501C3 organization, is a community-based organization committed to supporting local and often under-resourced artists, fostering projects that engage vital social, educational, and political concerns.

Through curating group exhibitions, offering a residency program for Bronx artists, and providing meeting space for artist-led workshops and community-based interest groups, BAS combines forces with similar non-profit organizations to enhance the cultural vitality of their immediate and extended neighborhood. 

Located in the densest concentration of public housing in the US, BAS creates programs that represent and inspire its community. BAS works to ensure that Bronx-based artists comprise at least 45% percent of exhibiting artists, and that both women and artists of color are the majority of those presented through their programming.

Remesas y Sobremesa: Tequio (Mutual Aid) in an Era of Deportation and Borders

When: Wednesday April 16, 2025 @ 6:00 PM- 8:30PM

Where: Performance Space New York, 150 1st Avenue, 4th Floor, NYC

Host: Cinthya Santos-Briones

Guests: Michelle Castañeda, Paola Ramos, and Natalia Mendez

RSVP HERE!

*Discussion will be held primarily in Spanish, with simultaneous interpretation

Presented as part of the Clemente’s Historias initiative, the Remesas y Sobremesa series invites you to gather around the table, where the warmth of food and shared meals meets thoughtful dialogue. This event will be the second iteration of Remesas y Sobremesa,focusing on Migration and Spiritual Belief, one of Historias core thematic tracks.

Presented in partnership with Performance Space New York, artist and anthropologist Cinthya Santos-Briones will host an intimate discussion over shared food and drink about mutual aid, her recent border trips to Mexico, and NYC’s migrant services. 

She, along with academic Michelle Castañeda, journalist Paola Ramos, and chef Natalia Méndez, will discuss mutual aid as a vital response to anti-immigrant policies and how to provide immediate and long-term relief to fractured communities. The conversation will highlight the role of artists as cultural bridges—preserving and sharing knowledge through their work.

The dinner will entail a participatory preparation of regional dishes using locally sourced ingredients, led by Cinthya Santos-Briones and Natalia Méndez.

Participant Bios:

Cinthya Santos Briones is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist, educator, and cultural worker of Nahua heritage. With a background in Anthropology and Ethnohistory, she spent a decade at Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History researching Indigenous migration, textiles, and traditional medicine. Her practice blends photography, archives, writing, drawing, embroidery, and popular education to center collective storytelling and social justice. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Photography from Ithaca-Cornell University and a certificate from ICP. Cinthya teaches at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and is Associate Director of Outreach at the Mexican Institute. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Nation, and The New Yorker, and exhibited at ICP, El Museo del Barrio, and The Latinx Project at NYU. A community organizer, she advocates for migrant justice and is a guardian for unaccompanied children. She is a member of Colectiva Infancia and co-creator of The Huichapan Codex.

Michelle Castañeda holds a Ph.D. from Brown University’s Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies, an M.A. in Dance Theatre from Trinity Laban, London, and a B.A. in Political Science from Yale University. Michelle’s research and teaching interests focus on migration, Latino/a and Latin American studies, dance, and critical legal studies.

Paola Ramos is an American journalist and author of Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America (2024). She is a contributor to Telemundo and MSNBC, and a former correspondent for Vice, where she hosted the docuseries Latin-X and earned a GLAAD Media Award nomination for her reporting on HIV activism at the border. Ramos focuses on issues impacting Latino communities in the U.S. and Latin America. Her work has been featured in outlets such as Latina, Popsugar, Bustle, HIV Plus Magazine, Vice, and KCRW. She previously served in the Obama administration and was Deputy Director of Hispanic Media for the Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign. Ramos holds a BA in Political Science from Barnard College and a Master in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School. She is also a frequent speaker for organizations like Lesbians Who Tech + Allies and other advocacy groups.

Natalia Méndez is the co-owner and head chef of La Morada, a Michelin-listed, family-owned Oaxacan restaurant and community hub in the South Bronx. A proud curandera (healer), Méndez draws on her ancestral knowledge of the nutritional and medicinal properties of Indigenous ingredients to create food as both nourishment and healing. Guided by the saying “donde come uno comen dos,” La Morada is a sanctuary that welcomes all and is active in immigrant, Indigenous, and food justice movements. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Méndez transformed the restaurant into a mutual aid kitchen, serving up to 1,000 meals daily. Her family continues to reclaim land and use community gardens to increase food access while passing on traditional knowledge of Indigenous foodways. Méndez has been honored with the Three Kings Medal from El Museo del Barrio and a Doctor of Humane Letters from Lehman College. La Morada is a three-time James Beard finalist and widely celebrated.

Accessibility:

Performance Space New York is located at 150 First Avenue at the corner of 9th Street in Manhattan. The courtyard is step-free; the ground is a wheelchair accessible ecofloor system (grid of tightly packed gravel). ADA all-gender bathrooms are located inside Performance Space on the 4th and 5th floors. On the 1st floor are gender-segregated, ADA, multi-stall bathrooms.

If you’d like to come, but something makes that difficult for you, or if you have questions about the events, the venue, have particular seating needs, or would like to tell us about your access needs, please don’t hesitate to contact us at info@theclementecenter.org with the event title and ‘accessibility’ in the subject. Advance notice is appreciated and requests made 2 weeks prior to the event will have the best chance of being met.

Historietas: Latinx Comix as Alternative Histories

Opening Reception and Comic Slideshow: April 6 @ 2:00 PM

On View: April 6 - May 31, 2025

Where: 4th Floor @ The Clemente
107 Suffolk Street, NYC

Artists: Ivan Velez Jr., Sandy Jimenez, Carlo Quispe, Sharon De La Cruz, Ivan Monforte, Medar De La Cruz, and Daisy Ruiz

Curated by: Carlo Quispe

Co-presented by: Historias and ABC No Rio 45th

RSVP HERE!

Space is limited, RSVP is required to attend.

On the occasion of the 45th anniversary of ABC No Rio’s founding, Historias Sembradas—the research and public engagement phase of Historias, The Clemente’s multi-year initiative—presents Historietas, an exhibition of Latinx comic book artists whose work weaves together multi-generational narratives of survival, resilience, and coming-of-age in NYC’s neighborhoods.

Curated by Peruvian cartoonist and educator Carlo Quispe, Historietas brings together seven contemporary Latinx creators whose work spans from the Bronx to the Lower East Side, tracing histories across public schools, prison libraries, community spaces, homes, and streets. These artists—Ivan Velez Jr., Sandy Jimenez, Carlo Quispe, Sharon De La Cruz, Ivan Monforte, Medar De La Cruz, and Daisy Ruiz—challenge dominant narratives through the immediacy of comics, using the medium to document lived experiences and create informal yet powerful counter-histories.

The Spanish word Historietas translates to “little histories” or “short stories,” but despite their modest size, these comics serve as potent tools for self-representation, storytelling, and political discourse. Through independent and mainstream publishing, the featured artists ensure that their voices and perspectives are seen, read, and remembered.

*Historietas is part of ABC No Rio’s 45th Anniversary and part of a larger ongoing Historias partnership with ABC No Rio. For the full list of upcoming events taking place as part of ABC No Rio’s 45th Anniversary see THIS LINK!

Transforming Texts- An experimental reading group

When: Wednesdays March 5, April 2, May 7, 2025@ 6-8 PM

Where: Room 309 @ The Clemente

Organized by: Department of Transformation

Can we redefine our futures by redefining our forms? How might the act of reading together itself be transformative? Transforming Texts takes place monthly in 2025 as part of the Department of Transformation’s residency at The Clemente. This free and open program invites participants to propose complex, challenging, and otherwise urgent texts for collective investigation. Through a collaborative process, the group will both identify specific readings and develop experimental formats for engagement, drawing on a wide range of disciplines and modes of practice to cultivate a community of creative connectivity while building an ongoing bibliography of transformative texts for our times. 

Transforming Texts is organized by Department of Transformation founder Prem Krisnamurthy and curator Sam Rauch, with additional co-organizers to be announced. 

To register, RSVP HERE

For more info, contact hello@dept-of-transformation.org 

Reclaiming Spaces in the South Bronx : A walking tour for Bronxites 

When: Sunday May 30 @ 12:00 PM

Where: To join and receive specific directions as to where to meet, contact Nicolás at indioclaro@hotmail.com or click HERE 

Participants: Lisa Ortega, Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel

Revolutionary Boricua Lisa Ortega guides Nicolás Dumit through some of the sites that she, together with neighbors and activists around Southern Boulevard, have regained access to for community purposes. Once condemned, padlocked or out of reach for collective use, some of the lots that Lisa and Nicolás will visit with you are today playgrounds, vegetable gardens and sports courts. This walk on March 30th in the South Bronx evolved from conversations about tourists’ buses, mostly with Spanish visitors, arriving in the area and stopping by for a quick selfie at “The Bronx” mural on Westchester Avenue where the popular Double Discount department store used to be.  What brings people from outside to this section of our borough still perceived by those not from here as a “ghetto”? How does a tour for Bronxites look like and what benefits will it yield in terms of remembering and honoring those who have done the work? 
 
One specific story that prompted this walk was shared with Nicolás by Lisa, and it relates to an unhoused person sleeping below “The Bronx” mural. This person was threatened to be removed because of an outsider’s call to the police so tourists could use the backdrop for their “I was there” selfies.  What does it mean to reclaim spaces for communities in a South Bronx that even some of its local politicians have been giving the green light to developers to gentrify…because as Nicolás heard someone say “…it is “cheap”? How do communities in this culturally vibrant area of our city continue to hold onto the spaces reclaimed and keep them RADICAL?
 
Lisa Ortega is a revolutionary Boricua, Mother of 4, Grandma of 5. She is a recovering addict being clean for 35 years and has been organizing for 31 years. She is a devout atheist and anarchist. She believes strongly that "people power" will ultimately bring about a full revolution...replacing politicians, police, and all other forms of oppression." Organizing is not an option but a way of life". Liberation of all is the final destination. 

This event will be documented through video and photographs.
 
To join for this walk for Bronxites on March 30, 12 noon and to get directions as to where to meet, please contact Nicolás at indioclaro@hotmail.com  or click HERE
 
ABOUT: PERFORMING THE BRONX
Since 2015 Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel has invited a group of remarkable Bronxites to co-develop actions embedded in the day-to-day of our beloved home borough. The gestures that emerge are presented in private spaces, as well as in the Bronx's public realm, and focus on the roots that weave these visionaries with specific communities and neighborhoods in our part of the City. Performing the Bronx is an expansion of Nicolás’s ongoing  in honoring, recovering, reclaiming and remembering herstories/histories/theirstories of the area’s neighbors and  trailblazers that run the risk of being effaced by time, lost in the midst of neighborhoods in flux, or dismissed by dominant discourses that often position themselves at the center of the conversation. 
 
Past participants: Arthur Avilés, Bill Aguado, Benny Bonilla, Mili Bonilla, Caridad De La Luz ‘La Bruja’, Dr. Drum, Ana ‘ROKAFELLA’ García, Reverend Danilo Lachapel, Wanda Salamán, and Rhina Valentin
 
Performing the Bronx as a whole has been supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Casita Maria’s South Bronx Culture Trail 2020, and the Bronx Council on the Arts. It has also received love, space and support from Mothers on the Move, BronxNet TV, The Andrew Freedman Home, and BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance.
 
The 2025 chapters of Performing the Bronx with Lisa Ortega, and Charles Rice-González are presented with support from Historias, a multi-year programmatic initiative led by The Clemente in partnership with LxNY and supported by the Rauschenberg Foundation. Historias celebrates the transformative impact of Latinx communities in NYC through research, artistic interpretations, and public engagement.

VOICES OF RESISTANCE AND HERITAGE: Stories of Kurdish Women and Culture

When: March 8 @ 7pm
Where: The Flamboyan Theater @ The Clemente

Featuring: Shero Hinde, Nadia Derwiş, Alba Sotorra and Halime Akturk
Curated by: Xeyal Qertel

Co-presented by: ArteEast and The Clemente

RSVP and tickets Here!

Join us for an in-person screening of Ezda by Halime Akturk and Jinwar by Nadia Derwiş

Followed by a Q&A with Halime Akturk and Rez Gardi, moderated by the curator Xeyal Qertel. Musical Performance by: Cihan Çelik and Sama Ali.

This program celebrates the courage and resilience of Kurdish women who have fought for freedom and self-determination amidst war and revolution. It also shines a light on the rich cultural heritage of the Kurdish people, including the ancient tradition of Dengbêj and the enduring spirit of the Yezidi community. Together, these films weave a powerful narrative of resistance, leadership, and cultural preservation. This program is part of the legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, which preserves and presents 20 years of film and video programming by ArteEast.

*Please Note for the In-Person Screening:

Attendance is limited, and registration is required to confirm your place. Only registered guests will be admitted.

• This venue is temporarily not ADA-compliant.

• The closest restroom is a portable restroom located outside on Rivington Street. Alternatively, the audience can use the 4th-floor bathroom via the main entrance.

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Online Screening Program: March 14 – 23, 2025
RSVP: artearchive.org
Available worldwide
FREE / $5 suggested donation

Commander Arian, Alba Sotorra, Spain, Germany, Syria, 2018, 85 mins.

Kurdish and Arabic with English Subtitles
Documentary 

30-year-old military Commander Arian leads her battalion of women as they fight ISIS. For her, the armed struggle is the only path to emancipation from a deeply patriarchal society. At her side, director Alba Sotorra documents the liberation of the city of Kobane and uncovers the reality of life at the frontline. Wounded by five bullets, Arian is forced to deal with the wounds of war, both visible and invisible, and to find new ways to fight for women’s freedom.

Love in the Face of Genocide, Shero Hinde, Rojava (West Kurdistan), 2020, 52 mins.

Kurdish with English Subtitles
Documentary

Love in The Face of Genocide is a documentary exploring the oral literature of the Yazidi Dengbêj in Shengal, Kurdistan, produced by the Rojava Film Commune. The Yazidis’ isolated homeland in the mountains of Shengal has faced more than 74 massacres throughout its history, the most heinous of which were carried out by ISIS in 2014. Love in the Face of Genocide explores the impact of suffering, religion and cultural difference on the songs of love in Shengal, and documents how the Yazidis maintain their heritage and tell their stories of love and sorrow through their survival song.

Jinwar, Nadia Derwish, Rojava (West Kurdistan), 2024, 41 mins. 

Kurdish and Arabic with English Subtitles
Documentary

In 2017, a group of women set out to create an all-women village in North-East Syria (Rojava). They built it using traditional materials and techniques. Once completed, Jinwar welcomed women refugees from male violence. By participating in the common life, based on agriculture and handicrafts, women villagers forge new identities and build better lives for themselves. At the same time they create a new world. 

Ezda, Halime Akturk, Canada, 2023, 14 mins. 

English and Kurdish with English subtitles
Documentary

 A Yazidi survivor of ISIS’s genocide recounts her experiences during nearly three years of captivity and strives to come to terms with her trauma while forging a new path for herself and her children in Canada.

Karaoke Practice!

When: March 13, 2025 @ 6:00 - 8:00 PM

Where: Francis Kite Club

40 Loisaida Ave, New York, NY 10009

Organized by: Department of Transformation

Department of Transformation (DOT) is thrilled to announce the launch of “Karaoke Practice!” at The Francis Kite Club, a new series of experimental and participatory gatherings where collective voice, performance, and transformation take center stage.

Founded by designer, author, and educator Prem Krishnamurthy, Department of Transformation is an artist-organized group that prototypes new formats for togetherness, learning, and collective healing. As part of DOT’s ongoing micro-residency at The Clemente, “Karaoke Practice!” sessions at The Francis Kite Club invite the DOT community and the public to explore karaoke as a medium for expression, experimentation, connection, and community.

As a readymade format, karaoke can generate varying levels of discomfort in people while also demonstrating a person’s virtuosic potential. Karaoke creates community through a shared sense of vulnerability and mutual support. Whether you are a pro or novice or simply love a good time, we invite you to our fun-filled karaoke gathering!

To inaugurate the series, DOT is teaming up with artist Athena Kokoronis and Domestic Performance Agency (DPA) for Kitchen Act!, a parallel performance in which a menu of novel takeaway dishes emerges from DPA’s repertory of choreographic meals and ongoing culinary research, created and served in real-time harmony with karaoke classics to create new flavors for new times.

Department of Transformation and Karaoke Practice! are supported by The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural & Educational Center. Graphics by Mark Foss.

Of Flowers and Tears

When: March 6 and 8 @ 7 PM

Where: Teatro Latea @ The Clemente

Director: Carole Alexis

As part of the 2025 eMeLeK Festival, join us for the ballet performance Of Flowers and Tears! The ballet is composed of 11 tableaux, where director Carole Alexis creates a poetic fresco of the tropical flowers of her native Martinique.

One of the ballet’s pieces is entitled “La Mazurka de l’Hibiscus.” The brightly colored hibiscus flower appears strong when alive on the stem but fades quickly when cut, suggesting the uprooting of a people. In contrast and complementarity, the Balisier flower, equally bright but pointed, remains robust for a long time, even when cut. For Aimée Césaire, it “tears the heart” and is associated with the woundedness of the world of people of African descent.

Another piece depicts the sugar cane plantation with its spectacular fields of flowers. The sugar cane represents revolt and harvest, sweetness and bitterness, and the suffering of enslaved people. Sugar cane, with its economic, social, cultural, and historical universe, is still symbolic of resistance, and the shared expression of Caribbean identity.

About the Company:

Founded in 2011 by director-choreographer Carole Alexis,  a Créole woman, Ballet des Amériques/Carole Alexis Ballet Theatre is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization operating a professional multicultural dance company – now based in both New York City and White Plains – as well as a pre-professional ballet conservatory.

In its first thirteen years, the dance company, composed of dancers of multicultural backgrounds, has performed Carole Alexis’ choreographic work in hundreds of productions throughout the greater New York City area as well as internationally.

Ballet des Amériques is the first-ever resident dance Company of Latin American Theater Experiment Associates, Inc.(Teatro LATEA) Directed by Miguel Trelles, located at The Clemente.

​Carole Alexis and the company have received numerous accolades for Alexis’s innovative work, including government proclamations honoring Ballet des Amériques as the “Premier Dance Company”  and regular press coverage.

About the Director:

Carole Alexis, is an internationally recognized dance choreographer, director, and pedagogue, who was bestowed one of the highest honors by the French Republic, the grade of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (induction into the “Knighthood of Arts and Letters”).

Carole Alexis is shattering the barriers of societal stereotypes and prejudices as an indomitable female choreographer, director, and master teacher of mixed ethnic and multicultural backgrounds specific to the people of Martinique and the Caribbean. It has been clear for quite some time now that  Alexis created and developed her signature in dance choreography. Alexis’ artistic work has philosophical depth, emotion, breadth, and worldliness, but is also comprehensive in the way it impacts the community from very young to very old in all kinds of venues and circumstances. Last but not least, this breadth and comprehensiveness also extends to the diversity of our cultural experience, as her work is based on classical ballet,  African and Afro-Caribbean traditional dances fully embrace and draw on her own story and DNA..

More info HERE!

Tickets are $35, RSVP HERE!

* Attendance is limited, and registration is required to confirm your place. Only registered guests will be admitted.

Artist talk with Gal Nissim

When: March 8 @ 6-8 PM

Where: 4th Floor Cennacle @ The Clemente

Join us for an Artist Talk and reception with Gal Nissim, a Clemente 2025 Artist-in-Residence. Gal will be discussing her current and upcoming projects, and share what she has been working on while in residence in our 406 studio.

Space is limited, RSVP is required to attend. Please email rsvp@theclementecenter.org

Of Flowers and Tears

When: March 6 and 8 @ 7 PM

Where: Teatro Latea @ The Clemente

Director: Carole Alexis

As part of the 2025 eMeLeK Festival, join us for the ballet performance Of Flowers and Tears! The ballet is composed of 11 tableaux, where director Carole Alexis creates a poetic fresco of the tropical flowers of her native Martinique.

One of the ballet’s pieces is entitled “La Mazurka de l’Hibiscus.” The brightly colored hibiscus flower appears strong when alive on the stem but fades quickly when cut, suggesting the uprooting of a people. In contrast and complementarity, the Balisier flower, equally bright but pointed, remains robust for a long time, even when cut. For Aimée Césaire, it “tears the heart” and is associated with the woundedness of the world of people of African descent.

Another piece depicts the sugar cane plantation with its spectacular fields of flowers. The sugar cane represents revolt and harvest, sweetness and bitterness, and the suffering of enslaved people. Sugar cane, with its economic, social, cultural, and historical universe, is still symbolic of resistance, and the shared expression of Caribbean identity.

About the Company:

Founded in 2011 by director-choreographer Carole Alexis,  a Créole woman, Ballet des Amériques/Carole Alexis Ballet Theatre is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization operating a professional multicultural dance company – now based in both New York City and White Plains – as well as a pre-professional ballet conservatory.

In its first thirteen years, the dance company, composed of dancers of multicultural backgrounds, has performed Carole Alexis’ choreographic work in hundreds of productions throughout the greater New York City area as well as internationally.

Ballet des Amériques is the first-ever resident dance Company of Latin American Theater Experiment Associates, Inc.(Teatro LATEA) Directed by Miguel Trelles, located at The Clemente.

​Carole Alexis and the company have received numerous accolades for Alexis’s innovative work, including government proclamations honoring Ballet des Amériques as the “Premier Dance Company”  and regular press coverage.

About the Director:

Carole Alexis, is an internationally recognized dance choreographer, director, and pedagogue, who was bestowed one of the highest honors by the French Republic, the grade of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (induction into the “Knighthood of Arts and Letters”).

Carole Alexis is shattering the barriers of societal stereotypes and prejudices as an indomitable female choreographer, director, and master teacher of mixed ethnic and multicultural backgrounds specific to the people of Martinique and the Caribbean. It has been clear for quite some time now that  Alexis created and developed her signature in dance choreography. Alexis’ artistic work has philosophical depth, emotion, breadth, and worldliness, but is also comprehensive in the way it impacts the community from very young to very old in all kinds of venues and circumstances. Last but not least, this breadth and comprehensiveness also extends to the diversity of our cultural experience, as her work is based on classical ballet,  African and Afro-Caribbean traditional dances fully embrace and draw on her own story and DNA..

More info HERE!

Tickets are $35, RSVP HERE!

* Attendance is limited, and registration is required to confirm your place. Only registered guests will be admitted.

Transforming Texts- An experimental reading group

When: Wednesdays March 5, April 2, May 7, 2025@ 6-8 PM

Where: Room 309 @ The Clemente

Organized by: Department of Transformation

Can we redefine our futures by redefining our forms? How might the act of reading together itself be transformative? Transforming Texts takes place monthly in 2025 as part of the Department of Transformation’s residency at The Clemente. This free and open program invites participants to propose complex, challenging, and otherwise urgent texts for collective investigation. Through a collaborative process, the group will both identify specific readings and develop experimental formats for engagement, drawing on a wide range of disciplines and modes of practice to cultivate a community of creative connectivity while building an ongoing bibliography of transformative texts for our times. 

Transforming Texts is organized by Department of Transformation founder Prem Krisnamurthy and curator Sam Rauch, with additional co-organizers to be announced. 

To register, RSVP HERE

For more info, contact hello@dept-of-transformation.org 

Of Flowers and Tears

When: Saturday March 1 @ 7 PM

Where: Teatro Latea @ The Clemente

Director: Carole Alexis

As part of the 2025 eMeLeK Festival, join us for the ballet performance Of Flowers and Tears! The ballet is composed of 11 tableaux, where director Carole Alexis creates a poetic fresco of the tropical flowers of her native Martinique.

One of the ballet’s pieces is entitled “La Mazurka de l’Hibiscus.” The brightly colored hibiscus flower appears strong when alive on the stem but fades quickly when cut, suggesting the uprooting of a people. In contrast and complementarity, the Balisier flower, equally bright but pointed, remains robust for a long time, even when cut. For Aimée Césaire, it “tears the heart” and is associated with the woundedness of the world of people of African descent.

Another piece depicts the sugar cane plantation with its spectacular fields of flowers. The sugar cane represents revolt and harvest, sweetness and bitterness, and the suffering of enslaved people. Sugar cane, with its economic, social, cultural, and historical universe, is still symbolic of resistance, and the shared expression of Caribbean identity.

About the Company:

Founded in 2011 by director-choreographer Carole Alexis,  a Créole woman, Ballet des Amériques/Carole Alexis Ballet Theatre is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization operating a professional multicultural dance company – now based in both New York City and White Plains – as well as a pre-professional ballet conservatory.

In its first thirteen years, the dance company, composed of dancers of multicultural backgrounds, has performed Carole Alexis’ choreographic work in hundreds of productions throughout the greater New York City area as well as internationally.

Ballet des Amériques is the first-ever resident dance Company of Latin American Theater Experiment Associates, Inc.(Teatro LATEA) Directed by Miguel Trelles, located at The Clemente.

​Carole Alexis and the company have received numerous accolades for Alexis’s innovative work, including government proclamations honoring Ballet des Amériques as the “Premier Dance Company”  and regular press coverage.

About the Director:

Carole Alexis, is an internationally recognized dance choreographer, director, and pedagogue, who was bestowed one of the highest honors by the French Republic, the grade of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (induction into the “Knighthood of Arts and Letters”).

Carole Alexis is shattering the barriers of societal stereotypes and prejudices as an indomitable female choreographer, director, and master teacher of mixed ethnic and multicultural backgrounds specific to the people of Martinique and the Caribbean. It has been clear for quite some time now that  Alexis created and developed her signature in dance choreography. Alexis’ artistic work has philosophical depth, emotion, breadth, and worldliness, but is also comprehensive in the way it impacts the community from very young to very old in all kinds of venues and circumstances. Last but not least, this breadth and comprehensiveness also extends to the diversity of our cultural experience, as her work is based on classical ballet,  African and Afro-Caribbean traditional dances fully embrace and draw on her own story and DNA..

More info HERE!

Tickets are $35, RSVP HERE!

* Attendance is limited, and registration is required to confirm your place. Only registered guests will be admitted.

Honoring Cecil Taylor
When: Saturday March 1st, 2025 @ 6:30 - 10:00 PM

Where: 1st Floor Theatre of The Clemente
107 Suffolk Street, New York, NY, USA
Organized by: Arts for Arts

Tickets HERE!

The OUT Fest tracks the history of FreeJazz development on the LES and surrounding areas. It was where the music and art developed in an intensely creative unbounded scene. We will celebrate and make space for this creativity to bring Light into these times with older and younger artists, as we build a future from the best of our past. Arts for Art is partnering with several organizations to bring cutting edge Music and Art into the Future: NuBlu Classic, Artists Space and Fridman Gallery.

Lineup of events:
6:30pm HS ICE Band led by Karen Borca

7:30pm Matthew Shipp Solo

8:15pm Fred Moten Poetry

8:45pm Andrew Cyrille Drum Solo

9:15pm William Parker Song for Cecil with John Blum, William Hooker, Aakash Mittal

About Arts for Art:
Founded in 1996, Arts for Art (AFA) is a New York City based nonprofit dedicated to the promotion and advancement of FreeJazz, which is recognized for its variety of highly developed and personalized improvisational languages. The music, dance, poetry and visual arts that AFA presents holds deep roots in Black and multicultural creativity. Moreover, it derives its energy from the tradition and power of free improvisation that was inspired by the Civil Rights struggle of the 1950’s and 60’s.

* Attendance is limited, and registration is required to confirm your place. Only registered guests will be admitted.

When: March 1st @ 10:30 AM - 2:30 PM

Where: Alianza Dominicana Cultural Center (Second Floor)

530 W 166th St, New York, NY 10032

Historias is excited to partner with LxNY Working Group member People’s Theater Project for Domino Party x Domino Effect, a celebration featuring domino games, lessons, food, drinks, and music organized by Capicú! NYC. 

The event kicks off the promotion of People's Theater Project's upcoming new play, Domino Effect by Marco Antonio Rodriguez, directed by Mino Lora, which is coming this spring. The event will also provide the setting for the filming of the next episode of Domino Table Talks! Arrive early and catch a sneak peek of the making of the episode featuring the cast of Domino Effect.

RSVP Required, sign up HERE!