With the community’s guidance and support, we are able to hold space at La Peña for a rich and broad spectrum of programs that honor and enact our mission of promoting social justice and intercultural understanding through the arts. These events include concerts, panel discussions, community gatherings, masterclasses, film screenings, art exhibits, fundraisers, and more, and each of them is a crucial piece of our Programming Vision, which is divided into the following eight pillars:
1. Cultural Strategy & Professional Development: For the past few years, we have been involved in the Artists’ Adaptability Circles (AAC), a community-created and artist-led program designed to put Bay Area artists and arts workers back to work after the riskiest and most negatively impactful stage of the pandemic. We are honored to be part of such a creative and resilient group of people, and we hope we can continue to contribute in different capacities moving forward!
2. Preservation & Promotion of Roots Arts: La Peña is a cultural homeplace where every week, children and adults study the musical and performance traditions that have nourished struggles of resistance, sustained cultures, and contributed to the well- being of communities in Latin America and beyond. Every year, we offer weekly roots arts classes and rehearsals, monthly Community Jams, special dance class series, and one-off workshops with local & traveling cultural bearers.
3. Community Celebration & Solidarity: When working at the intersection of the arts and social justice, it is essential that we prioritize the co-creation of safe and welcoming spaces in which our communities can get together, celebrate their whole selves, and uplift each other with tenderness and respect. In March of 2022, we debuted a monthly community dance party called BAILA to create an inclusive space of belonging for folks of all backgrounds to enjoy latinx dance & music. Featuring special collaborations each month, BAILA actively supports local musicians, dance teachers, and grassroots organizations! In addition to dedicating full programs towards honoring our community’s diversity, creativity, and resilience, we advance this culture of mutual care by setting up clear expectations and accountability through our Community Agreements, which we establish with the community and share at the beginning of each of our events.
4. Support for Local / Emerging Artists: Recognizing the importance of creativity in any healthy and thriving community, in 2022 we launched an Empowering People of Color Open Mic series, we grew our Arts & Crafts Tianguis, and we developed a digital Artists Directory to celebrate and support emerging/local artists through a lens of equity and inclusivity.
5. Collaboration with Grassroots Social Justice Movements: Understanding that our fight for liberation needs culture to be the lens through which we imagine, desire and enact radical change, we focus on nurturing social justice movements through fundraisers, panel discussions, free workshops for the community, and our ever-growing digital Resources Page.
6. Memory & Historical Grounding: La Peña is historically rooted in the International Solidarity Movements that responded to the U.S.-backed coup that, on September 11th of 1973, overthrew the democratically elected governement of Salvador Allende and inaugurated seventeen years of dictatorship in Chile. Today, upholding that legacy of deep cultural and political rebellion, we sustain yearly programs that are intended to keep our memory alive, to ground our present in the lives of our ancestors, and to pass our dreams and knowledge onto the new generations. Our Sept. 11th, 1973 Memorial and our Día de Muertos Celebration are good examples of this type of events.
7. Collective Education: One of the main pathways through which we push our culture forward is by providing different opportunities for us to learn from each other, discussing complex and timely topics that shape the way we interpret the present and imagine the future. Youth Workshops, Masterclasses, and Film Screenings + Q&A’s are examples of this type of programming that seeks to be highly accessible for the community and very diverse in its content. Thank you to our partners and collaborators who open a space for us to ask the questions that need to be asked!
8. Digital Documentation: Due to all the changes and new challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic brought to us, we are committed to expand the reach and accessibility of our programs so that they can be enjoyed by all of our community members, including those who are unable to come to our space due to geographical distance, health conditions, or personal preference. Thanks to the efforts and expertise of our Production Crew, we have developed a digital strategy through which we can document our artists’ performances, ideas, and projects via professional videography, giving them high quality materials to advance their careers and take their work to the next level.