Welcome to La Peña! Promoting social justice & intercultural understanding through the arts since 1975.
Empowering People of Color Open Mic: LOVE FEST TAKEOVER!
February 14 @ 7:30 pm - 11:00 pm
$5 – $25
Join us at La Peña Cultural Center for a special edition of our Empowering People of Color Open Mic, hosted by Berkeley’s Poet Laureate, Aya de León! This month’s takeover celebrates the 30th anniversary of Aya’s legendary Love Fest, combining the empowering energy of our open mic series with the revolutionary spirit of an alternative Valentine’s celebration.
This is a night for voices that have been historically erased, marginalized, and misrepresented—BIPOC, women, LGBTQIA+ folks, immigrants/migrants, and youth performers. Share your truth, connect with community, and experience the power of art to transform the world.
SIGN UP TO PERFORM: https://forms.gle/ZPk88VkqKjS5aJt98
Important: For this special edition, we will only be selecting 3 performers through our online sign-up and we will prioritize musical acts that have LOVE (in the most expansive sense of the word) as the main theme. The rest of the lineup will be formed by spoken word artists curated by Aya de León.
- Date & Time: Friday, Feburary 14th, 2025. Doors open at 7:00 PM | Show: 7:30 PM – 11:00 PM
- Tickets: General Admission: Sliding scale $10-$25 | Youth (18 & under): $5. Tickets are available online and at the door. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Celebrating 30 Years of Love Fest
From 1995 to 2013, Aya de León’s Love Fest redefined what it means to celebrate love, making La Peña a haven for radical self-love, community connection, and activism through spoken word and music. By challenging consumerist and exclusionary narratives, Aya created a space to honor love in all its forms: love for self, spirit, family, community, and democracy.
In the 1990s, Aya famously married herself, a revolutionary act of self-love she chronicled in Essence Magazine. In 2004, she took it a step further, hosting a mass self-marriage ceremony at La Peña. This year, she returns to honor the three-decade legacy of Love Fest, continuing to uplift marginalized voices and inspire a new generation of love warriors.
About Aya de León
Aya de León is the Poet Laureate of the City of Berkeley, a creative writing teacher at UC Berkeley, and the Director of June Jordan’s Poetry for the People. She is the award-winning author of ten novels, including winners of the Northern California Book Award, the Jane Addams Prize for Social Justice Children’s Literature, and multiple International Latino Book and Independent Publisher Awards.
Aya’s work has appeared in Harper’s Bazaar, Ebony, The Root, and on Def Poetry, and she has been featured in the New York Times’ “By the Book” series. In 2022, she organized Black Literature vs. the Climate Emergency, an online conference exploring the role of literature in addressing global crises.
Learn more about Aya and her work:
Website: ayadeleon.com
Instagram: @ayadeleonwrites
X (formerly Twitter): @ayadeleon
Photos from past Empowering People of Color Open Mic iterations at La Peña, 2023-2024.