La Peña Cultural Center

Welcome to La Peña! Promoting social justice & intercultural understanding through the arts since 1975.

Contact Us
Donate Now!

Search Results for: 2

Spoken Word, Hip Hop, Art & Activism! Amazing talent this Tues. 3/20 & Thur. 3/22

This week is going to be full of ideas, poetic flow, hip hop, art, activism, and inspiration. Come join La Pena this Tues.3/20 for Climbing Poetree and THEN this Thur. 3/22 for Bocas Radioactivas.

Tues. 3/20

Climbing Poetree

Lila Rose, Raw-G, Steelo, Aima the Dreamer, Cleome Bova and Ariel Luckey

 

“Critical”, “Powerful”, “Heart-Wrenching”, “Magical”, “Raw”

These are some of the words audience members have used to describe Climbing Poetree’s performance.

This duo has sharpened their art as a tool for popular education community organizing and personal transformation.Their voices will take on the stage with other great local talent such as Lila Rose and Aima the Dreamer. A powerful force and energetic pulse not to be missed!

Doors @ 7, $12-15

Thur. 3/22

BOCAS RADIOACTIVAS 
An Evening of Bilingual Spoken Word about Race, Latin America and Hip-Hop/La poesia y politica del Hip-Hop to benefit the first delegation of North American Spoken Word poets traveling to the Havana International Poetry Festival in Havana, Cuba. 
 
7:30PM
Tix $12-$20 sliding scale
 
ALL AGES!  TODAS EDADES!
 
Hosted by Paul S. Flores
Featuring:
LOS RAKAS (Panama/Oakland)
MARK GONZALES (HBO Def Poet: Los Angeles)
ADRIAN ARANCIBIA (Taco Shop Poet: Chile/San Diego)
SANDRA GARCIA RIVERA (Poetess: New York/Puerto Rico)

With Special Guest DJ AL KRAZE (Domincan Republic)

A Spanish- English spoken word event to bring awareness to Black Latino heritage, immigrant rights and Spanglish culture through the global lens of the Hip-Hop generation. The event is a fundraiser to support 9 North American spoken word artists who will trvel to Havana, Cuba in May 2012, to performa as a delegation at the Havana International Poetry Festival. for more info and to donate please go to this link.
Un evento de palabras bilingues para poner luz sobre la herencia Afro-Latina, el movimiento para los derechos de los inmigrantes, y la cultura Spanglish por una perspectiva del Hip-Hop mundial. El evento donara fondos al viaje de la primera delegación de artistas de la poesia hablada quienes participaran en El Festival de Poesia International en La Habana, Cuba el Mayo 20-27, 2012. Para mas informacion o para donar visitanos en este link.
 
Se habla Español…con ganas!
Info about the Artists:
Los Rakas (video)
Los Rakas represent pan-American flows. Two cousins who grew up in Panama before spending their teens in Oakland, California, Raka Dun and Raka Rich put a distinctive “Panabay” twist on hip-hop and reggae, bridging the streetwise sounds of the places they’ve called home. Drawing on Panamanian plena’s faithful approach to reggae classics and the Bay Area’s independent and idiosyncratic hip-hop scene, Los Rakas merge familiar dancehall melodies with a lyricism all their own.

Mark Gonzales (video)
One of the most engaging voices of a generation, Mark Gonzales has appeared on HBO’s Def Poetry, Fox News, Mun2, NPR, and shared stages with literary, Hip Hop, and academic icons across the globe. The depth of his work can be seen in the diversity of his audience, as he has received acclaims from educators, senators, foster youth, former prisoners, and members of the United Nations. Over 100,000 people have watched him speak the words: “In a war on terror, maybe testosterone is the real terrorist”, in the virtual world. His allies and lyrical supporters cross nation-state identities including: Lebanon, the Philippines, Ethiopia, Cuba, Iran, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Palestine, Jordan, and Indigenous of the Americas. 
 SANDRA GARCIA RIVERA
Award winning poet chanteuse, Sandra Garcia Rivera has captured audiences throughout the U.S., Puerto Rico, Cuba, Great Britain and Holland with her Nuyorican soul, and blues inspired delivery.  Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines, journals, and anthologies including Caribbean Erotic (Peepal Tree Press, U.K.), Urban Latino Magazine, Hostos Review, Centro Journal, Promethean Journal, RiodeSoul.com, and Galería de la Raza’s zine Manteca. She has published two chapbooks: Divination of the Mistress and Shoulder High, along with two art editions of her internationally acclaimed poem That Kiss (Ediciones Mixtas).  She is the co-founder of Yaya the all women’s Afro-Puerto Rican & Dominican music ensemble based in NYC, and is a featured vocalist and percussionist on the album Boricua Roots Music by Yerbabuena.  A recent guest artist on the MUN2 show The Chicas Project, she also appeared in Rosie Perez’s documentary Yo Soy Boricua Pa Que Tú Lo Sepa.  A cultural worker and educator she produces arts events such as The Three Kings Day Parade (El Museo del Barrio, NYC), Luna Negra (Mission Cultural Center, SF), and was the Executive Producer of She Hurt Herself Again, the docudrama short video created to raise awareness about teen date rape, empowering young women through media literacy (YWCA). She currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area where she performs as a solo artist, and in collaboration with esteemed local musicians and poets, while working on an MFA in Poetry at Antioch University in Los Angeles.
Adrian Arancibia  (video)
Adrian Arancibia is a poet, writer, and educator. He, along with Adolfo Guzman-Lopez and Miguel-Angel Soria, founded the seminal Chicano spoken-word collective the Taco Shop Poets in 1994. Adrian Arancibia was born in Iquique, Chile in 1971. Since 1980, he has resided in San Diego, California. Arancibia is the co-editor of the Taco Shop Poets Anthology: Chorizo Tonguefire, and currently writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune and for national magazines like The Green Magazine.

Homeless in Homeland @ La Peña March 1, 2 and 3

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03aMV2F0AQ0&w=853&h=480]

Buy tickets online

HOMELESS IN HOMELAND is a 70min solo show about urban Jewish-American identity, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the human need for a place of belonging, of home. It is a piece of documentary theater based on a trip taken by the writer/performer to Israel and the occupied West Bank  in 2007. Actor-dancer-poet Saria Idana weaves spoken word with cultural dance styles, the personal with the political; she speaks in her own voice and in the voices of seventeen characters, American, Israeli and Palestinian.

Word Becomes Flesh 2-11-2012 @ 8pm Laney College Theater

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZYT7dJ1wI0&w=853&h=480]

This presentation will take place Saturday February 11, 2012 (8:00 pm), at Laney College Theater.  Buy tickets online.

Video by: Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi

The Laney College presentation is made possible in part by the James Irvine Foundation, the Clorox Foundation and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Performance Network’s Re-Creation Fund