PURIM PARTY with Mariposas Galácticas and West Philly Orchestra

6PM KIDS HOUR

FOOD 4 SALE- PUPUSAS

SHOW: 7:30PM 

COSTUME PARTY

$18 adv, $20 door, Kids under 12 by donation (NOTAFLOF)

Purim is a favorite Jewish holiday for anti-fascists, queer folks, young people, feminists, and people who love to party. The holiday calls for noise making, rule-breaking, binary-blurring and an end to business as usual. Come party with West Philly Orchestra and the Mariposas Galácticas, as they call in the holiday with the raucous and joyful sounds of Klezmer and Cumbia, two vital folk music traditions with deep legacies of resistance. There will be costumes, clowns, Yiddish dancing, pupusas, and even a kid’s hour to start the night, so bring the whole fam!

Mariposas Galácticas

Kumbia / Klezmer / Punk

https://www.instagram.com/mariposasgalacticas

Mariposas Galácticas is an 8-piece Cumbia Klezmer Punk band based in Philly. Combining band members’ South American and Jewish ancestries, the band creates a unique diasporic sound that gets audiences everywhere dancing with rebellious joy. By honoring their Indigenous Andean musical heritage, blended together with punkified ancient Jewish melodies, the band plays a mixture of original and classic tunes that span different languages, cultures, and genres.

West Philadelphia Orchestra

Balkan / Brass / Klezmer

https://www.westphiladelphiaorchestra.net/

West Philadelphia Orchestra (WPO) is an avant-village folk brass band founded in 2006, known for explosive, dance-driven live shows. Drawing inspiration from Balkan brass, klezmer, and New Orleans traditions, as well as punk, soul, and free jazz, their original music blends global folk roots with raw street-band energy. With driving percussion, blaring horns, and a yawping tuba, WPO’s sound hits hard and lifts spirits.

THIS SHOW MAY SELL OUT! Advance tickets can be purchased HERE 

The West Philadelphia Sanctuary invites you to Bookmark Making!  Enjoy creating art in conversation with others, alongside board games, snacks, and good company!

This event is open to ALL!

When: Monday, March 2, 11am-1pm (you don't need to be here for the whole time!)

Where: The Rotunda, 4014 Walnut Street

What is the West Philadelphia Sanctuary?

WPS represents a physical space for all people of the West Philadelphia community to gain respite and engage with one another. We aim to reduce stigma and loneliness and create a generative space in which people of all backgrounds can engage with each other.

FREE (UR) WRITING with Alex

Hi! Finding time to write can be difficult. That’s why I’ve scheduled a chance to share space with writers who are developing, who have been practicing, and who have been published far and wide! All ages, styles, and genres. 

The Rotunda is a third space that can be transformed. It can be liminal or maximalist, depending on the event. Here we will have snacks, some very soft film score music (or not– depending on the group!), and casual socializing, creating a free third space to meet writers, co-write, and even get feedback on the work.

We’ll start with a workshop designed to answer some questions we may not be thinking about directly when it comes to our writing practice. Then move on to free writing and co-writing with friends, newly met and old. Sounds fun doesn’t it? 

Doors: 6:00pm

Workshop and QnA: 6:15

Free Write/Co-write: 7:00-8:00pm

Reading: 8pm

Things to think about:

**what are your writing goals

**is your work public facing?

**how in your head are you and does it translate on the page?

**are you reading? and who are you reading?

**how does genre constrict you?

**what’s this political and social climate doing to affect your writing?

**are you allowing yourself space to play in your writing?

HOST: Alex Smith, Pew Award Grantee and published Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Afrofuturist writer, thinker, activist, artist. Smith has been published in anthologies like Black Quantum Futurism, The Black Fantastic (Library of America), Island (Image Comics), Stories for Chip (Rosarium) and Black Punk Now (Soft Skull). He’s worked for Bandcamp, Pitchfork, Philly Artblog and WXPN/The Key for art and cultural criticism. He also creates queer/Afrofuturist collage art and music. His story collection ARKDUST is out on Rosarium Publishing. 

This event is FREE with any donations being greatly appreciated. 

RISO EXPO PHILLY: A risography appreciation festival!art, comics, zines, prints, posters, books!12pm-6pm

Special Featured Guests Rich Dana & Leisha Nicole Stanek!

https://obsoletepress.bigcartel.com/https://obsoletepress.blogspot.com/https://nudepoet.com/

Exhibitor list coming soon. 

more info HERE

Admission is FREE

Presented in collaboration with Philly Iranians

Niloufar Shiri & Bahar Badieitabar:

Kamancheh player and composer Niloufar Shiri began her musical journey at the Tehran Music Conservatory in Iran. She later immigrated to the USA and pursued her studies in composition at the University of California, San Diego, and Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology (ICIT) at the University of California, Irvine.

Niloufar’s musical world lies at the intersection of classical Iranian music, contemporary music, and improvisation. Her focus revolves around exploring the concept of displacement in relation to familiar and distant environments. Her music closely examines textural and timbral spaces, drawing inspiration from staggered pitch relations found in the Radif, as well as bird sounds, noise, and feedback. Her unique and radical approach to kamancheh performance significantly expands the sonic capabilities of the instrument and places her at the forefront of its practice.

Bahar Badieitabar is an Iranian Oud player and composer, recently graduated on a full scholarship with a double major in composition and performance from Berklee College of Music. At the age of 12, Bahar began her musical training at the Tehran Music School, where she earned her high school diploma in music. She studied under notable oud players, including Siavash Roshan, Negar Bouban, and Yurdal Tukcan. Bahar won first place at the Iranian Youth National Music Festival for two consecutive years at ages 16 and 17. She has performed as both a performer and composer at numerous venues, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, MCG Jazz, and Groton Hill Music Center, as well as at music festivals in Iran and the United States, collaborating with musicians of diverse backgrounds.

In 2017, Bahar began her undergraduate studies in Oud Performance at the University of Tehran before moving to the United States to study at Berklee. She has studied and worked with acclaimed musicians such as Marti Epstein, Kris Davis, and Alain Mallet, and has been a part of Berklee's Institute of Jazz Gender and Justice since 2022.

Bahar's background contributes to her authentic composition approach, rooted in Iranian classical music, contemporary concert music, and jazz. Currently, she is a member of Danilo Perez's Global Jazz Messengers. She has shared the stage with Grammy-winning, world-renowned musicians, including John Patitucci, Brian Blade, Danilo Perez and Bruno Raberg.

Parsa Ferdowsi:

Parsa Ferdowsi is a musician and improviser, born and raised in Karaj, Iran. He is a member of Shiraz Ensemble (with Sina Homaee, Noushin Nowroozi, and Sepehr Pirasteh), and Taarof Duo (with Matt Wellins.) He has regularly worked with artists such as Nat Baldwin, Shawn O’Sullivan, Michael Pestel, and Negar Soleymanifar. His works have been performed by ensembles such as Pamplemousse Ensemble, String Noise Duo, and Wesleyan's Toneburst Laptop and Electronic Arts Ensemble. He also collaborated on some projects with Peter Zummo, David Vantieghem, Alex Waterman (as a part of the Arthur Russell’s City Park project led by Nick Hallet), David Behrman, Nicolas Collins, and Lea Bertucci.

He works with sound, space, image, words, expectations, and frames. His works include compositions, photographs, videos, improvisations, performance, poetry, and acting. His compositions usually benefit from use of verbal notations, theatrics, collaborative environments, site-specificity, and collective improvisation. As an improviser, he implements some of his compositional techniques and issues around decision-making alongside the language and affordances of Iranian Dastāghi music.

He is currently studying Music Technology in the graduate program at Temple University. He holds an MA in Experimental Music/Performance from Wesleyan University where he worked with Ron Kuivila, Paula Matthusen, and Neely Bruce, and a BA in Composition from the Tehran University of Art. He studied tombak with Mahmoud Balandeh, santur and Radif of dastgahi music with Behnam Mehrabi and Majid Kiani.

Admission is FREE, donations appreciated! 

Bowerbird presents Screening: Cunningham Ballett and Channels/Inserts David Tudor/Merce Cunningham collaborations on Film, Part 2

David Tudor’s musical partnership with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company spanned nearly five decades, from the company’s founding in 1953 until Tudor’s death in 1996. As a founding member, Tudor served not only as a virtuoso performer of revolutionary piano works but also as an essential collaborator in shaping the company’s sonic identity. Working alongside John Cage, Gordon Mumma, Christian Wolff, and Takehisa Kosugi, Tudor helped pioneer a radical approach to the relationship between sound and movement—one in which music and dance coexisted independently yet in the same time and space. This screening, the second of two film programs dedicated to Tudor’s work with the Cunningham company, presents “Cunningham Ballett” (1958) and “Channels/Inserts” (1982).

PROGRAM:Cunningham Ballett (1958) | 24 min, black & white, sound, digital transferPerformance for Camera: Brussels, Belgium, 1958. This film for television includes “Changeling” (1957), “Suite for Two” (1956), and “Springweather and People” (1955). Dancers: Carolyn Brown and Merce Cunningham. Musicians: John Cage and David Tudor.Channels/Inserts (1982) | 31:40 min, color, sound, 16 mm film on HD videoChoreography: Merce Cunningham. Direction/Editing: Charles Atlas. Music: David Tudor, “Phonemes”

ABOUT THE FILMS

To create Channels/Inserts, Cunningham and Atlas divided the Cunningham Dance Company’s Westbeth studio into sixteen possible areas for dancing and used chance methods based on the I Ching to determine the order in which these spaces would be used, the number of dancers to be seen, and the events that would occur in each space. Atlas employed cross-cutting and animated mattes or wipes to indicate a simultaneity of dance events occurring in different spaces, as well as to allow for diversity in the continuity of the image. The sound score is a recording of David Tudor’s PHONEMES.

Dancers are dressed in everyday clothing and at times stop dancing to congregate casually. This cessation, of course, is legible neither as dance nor “not-dance,” but is in-between and liminal, pointing to Cunningham’s persistent interest in “pedestrian” movement. Movement, the choreographer seems to indicate, exists in a continual tension—the everyday appears in the dance phrase and the dance phrase appears in the everyday, or bear each other’s traces. The dancing body is always-already an everyday body and in turn, the everyday body always-already contains the potential for movement read as dance.

This event is part of DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE, an exhibition at Drexel’s Pearlstein Gallery from January 15 to March 21, 2026.

Major support for DAVID TUDOR: A VIEW FROM INSIDE has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, with additional support from the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia.

Admission is FREE/pay-what-you-can

Join us for readings of excerpts from a collection of full length and short dramatic works by Abrams Artist in Residence Ricardo A. Bracho that cover the gamut from the underground house music scene and underground revolutionary organizations; the AIDS pandemic and George Floyd protests; the conquest of the Americas and what to wear to the afters. Cast will include Penn students and alums. Post-show discussion with the playwright and UC Riverside Associate Prof. Keith M. Harris.

Admission is FREEPhoto credit: Andrés González-Bonillas 

Patchwork Storytelling Guild Presents: Light in the Dark — A World Storytelling Day Celebration of Story, Community, and Creative RenewalPatchwork Storytelling Guild invites the public to celebrate World Storytelling Day with a special event titled Light in the Dark, a joyful afternoon of storytelling, creativity, and connection. This community gathering will feature an interactive storytelling workshop, a shared lunch experience, and a dynamic showcase of live storytelling performances.

This year’s theme, Light in the Dark, is an invitation to pause and remember what stories have always done for humanity: illuminate, heal, challenge, comfort, and connect. Whether humorous, poignant, or mythic, storytelling offers us a way to find meaning and beauty even in uncertain times.

Featured storytellers include: Michele Belluomini, Carin Bonifacino, Tesia Nicoli Campbell, JR Denson, Paul Heery, Karen Reiner, Tannia Schrieber, Barbara Sherf, Christina Sturgis, Christopher Wade, and Denise McCormack.

 Denise McCormack, Patchwork’s president and torch-bearer, will host the event and shares:

“Stories are the lampposts given to us by our predecessors in life. They encourage us, mark the way, and smooth the road—often revealing bypasses and shortcuts—so that we might stride toward our destinations with confidence and clarity. And it is our stories that will one day light the way for others. This showcase is a testament to that power, and to that generosity of spirit.” 

Patchwork’s event welcomes both longtime lovers of storytelling and those discovering it for the first time.   Whether you attend to learn, to listen, or simply to share in the warmth of community, this celebration promises an afternoon of inspiration and connection through story. 

BE PART OF OUR STORY

Patchwork Storytelling Guild believes that storytelling is more than entertainment—it is cultural preservation, emotional truth-telling, and a bridge between people. 

Tickets are pay-what-you-can and can be purchased HERE

Glitter & Fried Fish pres. The Film Domme FundraiserA multi-film fundraiser and director panel discussion. more details coming. 6pm-8pm