jalylah burrell

writer· dj · educator

[jalylah]

Summer Spectacular Free Event Calendar | Picks for 7/28 - 8/2

Credit: Picture of the late Betye Saar from current exhibit Let Get it On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar free to view at Roberts Project on Tuesdays - Sundays between 11 am and 6pm until August 22.

The best things in life are free. We can be in community and exercise or witness the brilliance of others without spending much. Gather together friends and family to head out to some free fun or roll solo! Many more events on the full calendar which can be accessed here. The url is: bit.ly/LAFREEFUN26

Tuesday, July 28

Coloring for Adults (18+) @ Washington Irving Library (RSVP Req.), 3:30pm

Wednesday, July 29

Free Sew Session @ Silver Lake Library, 3pm

The Future of Afro-Indigenous Solidarity w/ Robin D. G. Kelley + Kyle T. Mays @ CAAM (RSVP Req.), 6pm

Thursday, July 30

Tortoise / Kassa Overall @ Skirball Cultural Center, 6pm

Friday, July 31

Cumbia and Merengue Lessons @ The Music Center, 7pm

Saturday, August 1

Uptown Jazz Fest feat. Morris Day & the Time @ Houghton Park, 2pm

Garifuna Punta Dance Class @ Estrella Park, 5pm

A Tribute to Roy Ayers @ California Plaza, 6pm

Sunday, August 2

Agatha Christie's 'Black Coffee' @ Dr. Paul Carson Park, 2:30pm

Los Angeles Arts and Crafts Show, 10am

Have fun!

[jalylah]

Summer Spectacular Free Event Calendar | Picks for 7/20 - 7/26

The best things in life are free. We can be in community and exercise or witness the brilliance of others without spending much. Gather together friends and family to head out to some free fun or roll solo! Many more events on the full calendar which can be accessed here. The url is: bit.ly/LAFREEFUN26

Tuesday, July 21

Healing Though Collage Workshop @ Somos Familia Valle, 5:30 PM

Wednesday, July 22

Shakespeare by the Sea @ Roxbury Park, 7pm

Thursday, July 23

Terrace Martin Plays Miles + Brandee Younger @ Skirball Cultural Center, 6:30pm

Friday, July 24

David Ornette Cherry Heritage Ensemble @ LACMA, 6pm

Saturday, July 25

Let’s Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar Book Launch & Signing @ Roberts Project, 12pm

Afro Mujeres Fest/International Afro Women Day LA @ Plant Chica, 1pm

Film Screening of Isaac Julien's 'Looking for Langston’ and ‘Derek’ (2008) @ Hauser and Wirth, 1:45pm

Velvet Dragons Exhibition Opening @ Easter Projects, 5pm

Sunday, July 26

Nikka Costa and DJ Anthony Valadez @ Plummer Park, 4pm.

Have fun!

[jalylah]

Summer Spectacular Free Event Calendar | Picks for 7/14 - 7/19

The best things in life are free. We can be in community and exercise or witness the brilliance of others without spending much. Gather together friends and family to head out to some free fun or roll solo! Many more events on the full calendar which can be accessed here. The url is: bit.ly/LAFREEFUN26

Tuesday, July 14

Bastille Day Festival w/headliner french rapper, Black M at Grand Performances, 5pm.

Wednesday, July 15

KIDS | Summer in the Plaza @ Freedom Plaza, 4pm

Coriolanus at Griffith Park Shakespeare Festival (RSVP Req.)

Thursday, July 16

Cory Henry and The Funk Apostles/Katalyst @ Skirball Cultural Center, 6:30pm

The Blackout Game Night at Sole Folks, 6:30pm (RSVP Req.)

Friday, July 17

Reggaeton and Bomba Lessons @ The Music Center

Saturday, July 18

Wonder-FULL @ Grand Performances, 6pm

Sunday, July 19

Watch the World Cup final (Allez Le Bleus!!) at one of the watch parties on the calendar or find one at city park/recreation center close to you on LA's "Kick It in the Park' website.

Marooning Bodies Immersive World-Building Game Play at Christine Emerson Park, 2pm.

Have fun!

[jalylah]

Summer Spectacular Free Event Calendar | Picks for 7/8 - 7/12

The best things in life are free. We can be in community and exercise or witness the brilliance of others without spending much. Gather together friends and family to head out to some free fun or roll solo! Many more events on the full calendar which can be accessed here. The url is: bit.ly/LAFREEFUN26

Wednesday, July 8

Guided after hours tour of Space is the Place exhibit at the Hammer Museum.

Thursday, July 9

DTLA Artnight. With 46 creative spaces, four starting points, live music, galleries, installations, pop-ups, and more, Downtown Los Angeles becomes one giant art walk for one night each month. More information here and on the DTLA Artnight IG. Featured Stops:

⭐️ The Broad (221 S Grand Ave) – Grand Avenue starting point ⭐️ MOCA (250 S Grand Ave) – Grand Avenue starting point ⭐️ The Braly (126 E 4th St) – Historic Core starting point 🌿 Garden Party at Redbird (114 E 2nd St)  🎶 Grand Performances (340 S Grand Ave) – Free live music on Grand Avenue 🎨 Eastern Gallery (849 S Broadway)

Friday, July 10

Lil June Afro Punta w/ Gahfu Garifuna Drumming Ensemble & Grupo Bomba Mix at MacArthur Park.

Saturday, July 11

DAY: LAPL Centenary Festival. Celebrate the Los Angeles Central Library's 100th birthday with a day of free programs, performances, exhibits, hands-on activities, and special guests.

NIGHT: FILM | Stories of the Soul @ sister dreamer. Stories of the Soul takes viewers behind the velvet rope, revealing the foundations of Soul Train and SOLAR Records. Prior to the screening, guests are invited to an engaging panel discussion featuring original Soul Train dancers, the film’s director, and aothers.. RSVP here.

Sunday, July 12

Before checking out any one of the many World Cup watch parties on the calendar, take some dance lessoms in South La or Downtown:

Line Dancing w/Sisters of Watts @ sister dreamer. (RSVP Req.)

House Dancing Workshop @ Gloria Molina Grand Park (RSVP Req.)

Have fun!

[jalylah]

The Return of the Summer Spectacular Free Events Calendar | Los Angeles Edition

The free summer calendar is back! Many of you remember the calendars I would make back in my NYC days. Well, new city, same curated picks of free concerts, theatrical performances, dance classes, wellness activities, World Cup watch parties and all manner of goodness. The best things in life are indeed free. We can be in community and exercise or witness the brilliance of others without spending much. The calendar will be updated as new events are announced. Moving forward, I'll post my weekly picks on Mondays but here are my picks for the holiday weekend. Access the calendar here. The url is: bit.ly/LAFREEFUN26

Friday, July 3

Blackout Game Night @ Sole Folks (RSVP required.)

Saturday, July 4

Gloria Molina Grand Park's Summer Block Party

Sunday, July 5

Check out one of the many free World Cup Watch parties around the city to see Brazil v. Norway at 1 and/or Mexico v. England at 5 including parties at The Getty (RSVP req.), The Hammer (RSVP req.), or the Fanzone at Magic Johnson Park. RSVPs are closed for the Magic Johnson Park fanzone BUT they are encouraging walkups. Bring a picnic blanket and arrive early!

[jalylah]

“Hands down, nobody’s doing what we’re doing.” Meghan Stabile (2008)

Donate to this GFM to assist with funeral expenses.

[jalylah]

“Back by Black Demand”

(Poster for Wine in the Wilderness by Alice Childress, 1969)

[jalylah]

A Blind Publisher, Poet — and Link to the Lower East Side’s Cultural History

Steve Cannon is a bridge to 50 years’ worth of thinkers in New York, and a point of contact to David Hammons, one of the most elusive artists of our age.

“[Hammons] talks about the importance of humor in his work ('When someone laughs at a piece, you don’t have to ask if they like it') and why he does what he does: 'You just do these things. No rhyme or reason, just to go through the thing. Visual artists are afraid to be laughed at. Black folks are afraid to be laughed at. But you must be willing to be laughed at, ’cause it’s that feeling that hurts.’ Here, Henderson suggests that ‘black folks being afraid to be laughed at’ is a ‘postmodern thing.’

[jalylah]

Please join me this Sunday in Chicago!

[jalylah]

Most, if not all, human lives are full of fantasy—passive day-dreaming which need not be acted on. But to write poetry or fiction, or even to think well, is not to fantasize, or to put fantasies on paper. For a poem to coalesce, for a character or an action to take shape, there has to be an imaginative transformation of reality which is in no way passive. And a certain freedom of the mind is needed—freedom to press on, to enter the currents of your thought like a glider pilot, knowing that your motion can be sustained, that the buoyancy of your attention will not be suddenly snatched away. Moreover, if the imagination is to transcend and transform experience it has to question, to challenge, to conceive of alternatives, perhaps to the very life you are living at that moment. You have to be free to play around with the notion that day might be night, love might be hate; nothing can be too sacred for the imagination to turn into its opposite or to call experimentally by another name. For writing is re-naming.

Adrienne Rich. “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision,” College English (1972) 

[jalylah]

I try to illustrate the strong, reassuring and free expressions of proud Black people. I get my subjects from the people I see and the places I go within my community. . . what I am doing is creating a historical record. I feel that it is important for Black artists to interpret their feeling and experiences. Who else is going to create the painting and who else is going to deal with our triumphs and our sufferings if it is not us?

Varnette Honeywood, qtd. in Darlene Clark Hine, “To Be Gifted, Female and Black,” Southwest Review (1982)

[mnifst]

[jalylah]

I need two beats to warmup before I break it down #aswell

[jalylah]

Worth revisiting.

[jalylah]

        i have a secret to tell you

i got old, looking at myself young

        i learned how to run standing still

                i gave up, holding on...

Carolyn Rodgers, “Black Licorice,” The Heart As Ever Green (1978)

[jalylah]

Free and open to the public.

[jalylah]

[jalylah]

Auteur and icon Spike Lee hosts his annual celebration for the late King of Pop’s genius this Saturday in Bedford-Stuyvesant from noon to 7pm. The block party is a guaranteed good time for all-ages.

Summer Spectacular Picks

August 21 - August 27

August 21, Harlem Run, Marcus Garvey Park August 22, Digger’s Delight Park Jam, St. Nicholas Park August 23, Double Dutch, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 2 August 24, Vinyl Nights Dance Party w/ Dj Misbehaviour, Plaza 33 at Penn Station August 25, Freshen Up Friday w/Soul Science Lab, West Harlem Piers Park August 26, Brooklyn Loves MJ,  Stuyvesant Ave. between Lexington Ave. and Quincy St. August 27, Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, Tompkins Square Park

See the full 2017 Summer Spectacular: Free Fun in NYC Google Calendar HERE.

[jalylah]

Avant-garde singer-songwriter Bilal, photographed by me performing at SOBS in the mid-aughts, returns to Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park Wednesday evening. His concert will be preceded by an opening set by DJ Reborn.

Summer Spectacular Picks

August 14 - August 20

August 14, Big Daddy Kane + C+C Music Factory + Chubb Rock + Das EFX + DJ Enuff + DJ Scratch + M.O.P. + Special Ed, Wingate Field August 15, Poetry Reading w/ Camille Dungy and Afaa Weaver, Bryant Park  August 16, Bilal, Marcus Garvey Park August 17, Film Screening: Mad Max Fury Road, Brooklyn Bridge Park August 18, African Diasporic Dance Lessons, West Harlem Piers Park August 19, Film Screening: I Am Not Your Negro, St. Nicholas Park August 20, Boogie on the Boulevard, Bronx Museum of Art

See the full 2017 Summer Spectacular: Free Fun in NYC Google Calendar HERE.