3rd Friday Festival: Beyond Borders

Meet the people making change happen in Santa Cruz County. Share your own projects. Engage with community activism through hands-on workshops, demonstrations and performances.

Dance to colorful Oaxacan performers with Senderos. Push your perceptions of science by extracting DNA from a strawberry. Explore a pop up photo exhibition of the recently contested Beach Flats Garden. Dive into a visual telling of the story of an indigenous transwoman from Oaxaca.

Live Performances & Food

6-6:30pm: Storytime with Bevey Calahan. Join us for storytime and Q&A with Bevey Calahan, the author of Shirley’s Surprise Bus Ride.

6:30-7pm: Orchestra Music Beyond Borders with El Sistema: Enjoy a joint performance of El Sistema Santa Cruz and El Sistema Puerto La Cruz, Santa Cruz’s sister city in Venezuela. El Sistema music programs are designed to improve the life trajectory of youth as a paradigm for social change.

7-7:30pm: Centeotl Danza y Baile and Ensamble Musical with Senderos: Senderos' dance group, Centeotl Danza y Baile, will perform traditional folkloric dances from regions in Mexico, and our youth band, Ensamble Musical will perform traditional Banda de Viento musi Senderos is a multi-service nonprofit creating successful pathways for the Latino community of Santa Cruz County and building cross-cultural connections locally and abroad.

7:45-8:15pm: Music by Postures of Grace. Sarah Cruse of Postures of Grace will be performing original, and creatively inspired poetry and song.

8:30-9pm: Film Screening of Documentary Libertad. Libertad is a documentary featuring the incredible Alejandra Santiago, an indigenous transwoman from Oaxaca who currently lives in Santa Cruz, but whose life journey transcends multiple borders.

Tamales and Drinks by Senderos. Senderos will be selling Tamales (chicken and vegetarian), Tejate (a traditional Oaxacan beverage), sodas, and water in the back patio.


Drop-in Workshops & Demonstrations

Chair Massage with Rising Root Wellness: Rising Root Wellness provides quality and affordable massage to care for the marginalized residents of Santa Cruz County. Come receive a complimentary chair massage to experience the benefits of therapeutic touch.

Shifting Fences, Shifting Borders and Caution Tape Crochet with the Beach Flats Community Garden Coalition

Scientists Beyond Borders with SACNAS: What do you think science is? SACNAS wants to push your perceptions of science. SACNAS be playing “Guess who’s the scientist” and give you a chance to conduct your very own experiment – a strawberry DNA extraction!

The Border as a Blank Canvas with El Centro: Chicano Latino Resource Center at UCSC
Take a piece of a border, made out of Popsicle sticks, and make it your own blank canvas to share messages about politics, friendship, and unity. This project is inspired by art on the Mexican-US border done by "Border Bedazzlers" and artist Ana Teresa Fernandez. These artists have transformed parts of the border into a blank canvas to produce art with political messages of peace and tolerance, taking a wall meant to keep people apart and creating art that brings people together.

Second Chances: From Incarceration to Community with United Way of Santa Cruz County: Watch the local short-film documentary Second Chances and craft messages for individuals who will be leaving jail. Second Chances shows how communities can break the cycle of incarceration through support for reentry, increasing public safety, restoring human dignity and creating hope for a brighter future. The film features residents and leaders in Santa Cruz County.

Shift – Indian Country’s Changing Landscape Installation with Wayne Marci: Settler colonialism, genocide and imperialism are often normalized in U.S. ideologies. Shift, Indian Country’s Changing Landscape offers a reversal of those ideologies into decolonial data-visualizations. Data is of and from the Indigenous peoples of the area now known as the U.S.

Berries and Borders: Farmworkers and Multinational Big Ag with Santa Cruz Support Committee for the Driscoll’s Berry Boycott

Make, Create, Build, Hack, Repeat Jumping Cups with Santa Cruz Mini Makers Faire

Mosaic Mural Making for Santa Cruz Mission State Historic Park’s 25th Anniversary with Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks. Help breakdown the border between downtown and the park as we kick off a mural project for the retaining wall along Mission Street. In celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the opening of the Santa Cruz Mission State Historic Park, join Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks in a hands on art project using tesserae tile for one of the panels of the mural scheduled to be installed on May 21st

Reel Work Film Festival Shorts with The Reel Work May Day Labor Film Festival. The Reel Work May Day Labor Film Festival takes place in California’s central coast each year during the week of May First. Reel Work presents cultural events, bringing together award-winning documentary film producers, workers, activists, students, and the public with the goal of increasing community awareness of the central role of work in our lives, and economic and global justice.

Pop Up Show with Artist Dwight Chism in the Kinsey Collection of African American Art and Artifacts (in the Solari Gallery). Dwight will be exhibiting and discussing some of his visual art works.

Stranger Bracelets with MAH Intern April Riddle: Test the social borders in your life by crafting bracelets. We've all heard of friendship bracelets, but the goal of this activity is to create new friends through the gift of jewelry. Bead it, braid it, add a compliment tag, and use it as a way to introduce yourself to someone new!

Mail Art Beyond Borders with MAH Intern Trinity Esola: Craft messages out of different media and send them to people all over the world.

Beach Flats Community Garden Pop Up Photo Show with Photographer Jasper Lyons: View a collection of 15 photos and captions that document the Beach Flats Community Garden and gardeners from October 2015- March 2016..