Recipient of the Rex Foundation's 1998
JERRY GARCIA AWARD
Established in memory of Grateful Dead guitarist and founding Rex board member Jerry Garcia (1942-1995), this award is designed to honor and support individuals and groups that work to encourage creativity in young people.
La Pena Cultural Center is a multi-cultural community arts center whose mission is:
- To encourage the development of art that keeps alive cultural roots of diverse heritages.
- To present programs that increase understanding of different cultures.
- To operate a multi-use center/gathering place.
- To support the work of community organizations that are active in social justice issues.
Integral to La Pena's mission is the belief that art-ists and cultural workers can contribute to building a just society. A key to this progress lies with children. La Pena programs for youth include:
Los Amiguitos de La Pena - Saturday morning affordable family concerts during the school year. Since 1985, Los Amiguitos offers families with young children exposure to a variety of arts forms from a broad range of cultural traditions.
Community Arts Project - Provides free visual art, music, hip-hop and poetry classes in the San Antonio district of East Oakland. Invited by local community organizations, La Pena has brought artists into the community to provide free after school workshops, and to curate cultural events.
Poetry for the People - An ongoing collaboration between La Pena, Berkeley High School, and poet-activist June Jordan, with her Poetry for the People students from UC Berkeley teaching issue oriented poetry to students from Berkeley High. Each year the students produce a bound anthology of poems and have public readings at La Pena and on the University campus.
Afro-Cuban Youth Ensemble Class - Taught by La Pena artist in residence Guillermo Cespedes, this free class, open to youth ages 12-16, teaches the musical concepts and vocabulary of Cuban music and provides cultural history and context of the Afro-Cuban music idiom.
La Pena Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 · www.lapena.org
