events
Upcoming
Events Schedule
Sou Sou! Saturdays: Heat, Marronage & Liberation
Our ancestors and freedom fighters intentionally and expertly used ecology as a tool for liberation. From the engagement with the physical geography, to information gathered from the movement of celestial bodies, to the symbiotic relationship built between us and the animals in these environments, we have forged a pathway to our freedom.
Join us on Saturday, September 26 for “Sou Sou! Saturdays: Heat, Marronage & Liberation”, presented in collaboration with artist Lizania Cruz and her Adobe Creative Residency at MoMA, for an intergenerational exploration of the links between ecology and resistance through storytelling, collective artmaking, conversations and heat generation through movement.
FEATURING:
📚 Storytelling
We will revisit and reimagine the role of the mosquito as a character in folktales that link West Africa to the Caribbean.
🗺️ collective mapping
Through collective mapping of our stories and practices, we will explore the use of ecology as a tool of healing.
🎤 PANEL CONVERSATION
A panel discussion will engage the integrated topics of heat, marronage and liberation through plant knowledge and carnival characters such as Dame Lorraine and Jonkonnu.
🎉 FETE
We close the day with a Fete that allows the embodiment of heat as a tool for individual and collective liberation.
📅 Saturday, September 26, 2026
🕚 12 PM – 5 PM
📍 CCCADI Ilé Oyin (208 E 126th St.)
💫 FREE | RSVP REQUIRED
About Sou Sou! Saturdays:
Inspired by the financial resource-sharing traditions known throughout the African Diaspora by such names as "Colecta", "Box Hand", "San", "Partna", or "Sou-Sou", this family-based art and education program reinterprets Sou Sou as an exchange of cultural resources. Sou Sou! Saturdays celebrates and honors our connections by upholding our traditions of collective growth, mindfulness, celebration, and creativity with families of all ages.
Caminando: Bompleneras & Legacy Women concert at CCCADI Ilé Oyin
Join us Friday, February 27th at CCCADI Ilé Oyin as we welcome BomPleneras to New York City for “Caminando”: a celebration of the Afro-Caribbean Women who carry the drum, and with it our ancestral memory and resistance.
🪘 Musical presentations
This evening features musical presentations by BomPleneras (Chicago & Puerto Rico) and Legacy Women (NYC).
🎤 storytelling
We will also experience a special musical storytelling offering featuring CCCADI’s Executive Director, Melody Capote!
CCCADI’s 50-year legacy has been shaped and sustained by the vision of Black Women, from our founder Dr. Marta Moreno Vega to our leader Melody Capote, and all of the Afro-Diasporic women who’ve held positions of leadership at CCCADI since 1976.
The same lineage of leadership lives in BomPleneras, guided by Ivelisse Diaz as they celebrate their 15th anniversary, and in Legacy Women, founded and led by Manuela Arciniegas.
Bomba, Plena, Palo!
Come experience why CCCADI Ilé Oyin has become a sanctuary for movement, release and ancestral connection, as we honor Afro-Caribbean Women and their enduring contributions to our drum tradition.
Harlem Community Digitization Day *Co-Presented with PMCA (Harlem Place, Memory & Culture Archive)
Following the overwhelming response to our last Community Digitization event, CCCADI & PMCA (Harlem Place, Memory & Culture Archive) have teamed up again to host a second Community Dig Day at the CCCADI Firehouse on Saturday, January 31st.
We are looking for your stories and archives about making and preserving Harlem culture! Have you or your neighbors, friends, and/or family members been block and tenant association members, homemakers, artists, activists, teachers, small business owners, street vendors, church members, elected officials, community benefit organization leaders (and more!) in Harlem?
Bring your scrapbooks, flyers, photos (slides and negatives, too!), agendas and meeting minutes, artworks, home videos, journal entries, poetry, family archives, music and audio recordings, stories & memories. Together, we can tell the story and preserve the memory of everyday Harlemites caring for each other and our neighborhoods!
***We will have digitization stations and a storytelling booth set up to process your materials. You’ll leave with a USB of your digitized files and recorded stories and the opportunity to share them publicly on the Harlem Place, Memory & Culture Archive website!
This intergenerational gathering invites our community to explore the power of archiving as an act of cultural preservation.
We will have digitization stations for the following formats:
Mini DV tapes
VHS tapes
Hi8 tapes
Negatives
Slides
Photos
Documents
Big thanks to our community partners who will be hosting digitization stations on 1/31: The Feminist Institute, Maysles Documentary Center, XFR Collective
📅 Saturday, january 31, 2026
🕚 11 AM – 5 PM
📍 CCCADI Firehouse (120 E 125th St.)
💫 FREE
Fire, Drum & Memory: Changó Through the CCCADI Archives
On the eve of Changó’s feast day, we honor his fire and strength in our ongoing fight for social justice with a first-of-its-kind Changó Celebration at CCCADI Ilé Oyin featuring:
🎥 Archival Screening
Special screening of archival footage of Changó celebrations across CCCADI’s 50 year history.
🎤 Panel conversation
Esteemed practitioners from across African Traditional Religions reflect on the archival screening and on Changó’s legacy and presence.
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Shantrelle P. Lewis is a multi-hyphen creative and scholar who accesses multiple disciplines to help elucidate African Diasporic history, aesthetics, culture and spirituality. After premiering at BlackStar Film Festival, her critically acclaimed directorial debut, IN OUR MOTHERS' GARDENS, was released on Netflix via Ava Duvernay's ARRAY. Her book, Dandy Lion: The Black Dandy and Street Style, was published by Aperture in 2017. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, LA Times, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, NPR, BBC, Washington Post, Slate, The New Yorker and the Philadelphia Inquirer. As an initiated Lukumi Sango Priest, Hoodooist and New Orleans native, Shantrelle can be found waxing poetics about all things African spirituality online and in person at the BEAUCOUP HOODOO Shoppe, the annual BEAUCOUP HOODOO FEST this October and within her community, the ATRS BOOK CLUB.
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Mahalia Stines Is a Brooklyn based Fiber Artist and Culture conservationist. Although formerly trained as a Costume designer Mahalia has always had a strong interest in fiber and it’s infinite possibilities and applications, an interest that grew from watching and assisting the Russian-Haitian Artist Tamara Baussan at work.
In recent years her practice has evolved into the production of large scale Art Quilts, small mixed media collages and wall scluptures, incorporating various fiber processes and the skills she’d acquired over the years from weaving, felting, embroidery, quilting to beadwork, while exploring themes that range from the Natural World with Mother Nature’s chaos to History in Ayiti Tonma or Our Story
Cultural elements from her Native Haiti often feature prominently in her work. She firmly believes that Culture is our greatest natural resource, therefore sharing the vibrant culture of Haiti has become a mission.
She was drawn to the culture of Vodou and all of it’s facets from an early age, the community centered philosophy of the Lakous, to the music and Esthetics, she finally went through her final initiation in 2015.
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Michael Manswell-Dancer, Singer, Choreographer, Teaching Artist, Artistic Director, Orisha devotee He studied music at Brooklyn College and has toured Europe, the UK, the Caribbean, Central America, and Africa. He studied dance at the Trinidad Dance Theater, worked with Geoffrey Holder and the powerful Cheryl Byron. Mr. Manswell is the Artistic Director of Something Positive, Inc. and performs, and presents lectures and workshops in dance, music, and traditional religious practice both nationally and internationally with the company. He has worked closely with the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI)& the Interfaith Center in their programs. Mr. Manswell was named one of “Brooklyn's Black Men of Distinction 2000” and one of “Brooklyn's Black Dance Kings 2010” and is NYSCA/NYFA Fellow 2022(Choreography). He is currently a Lecturer in Dance at Lehman College (CUNY and teaches for Something Positive, CCCADI, & Abundance Arts Academy.
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Iyalaxé Rita Silva was born in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. She has been initiated in Candomblé for over 23 years and has been a priestess for the last 14 years. She has also been a dancer for more than 40 years and performed with the international dance company Viva Bahia. Rita founded her own company, Bahia Magia, and traveled throughout Brazil and internationally for 20 years. She is also a yoga teacher and has taught Afro-Brazilian dance workshops in New York City public schools since 1994. Her classes introduce participants to the principles of Afro-Brazilian movement and to dances associated with the gods of Candomblé.
🪘 musical offering
A powerful performance in honor of Changó, the owner of the drum, by Melvis Santa & Ashedí
🕯️ community altar
for changó
Help us honor Changó on the eve of his feast day by bringing an offering for a community altar in his honor.
Annually, CCCADI presents a Sacred Traditions program commemorating the feast day of Changó by exploring the many ways African Diasporic communities have preserved Orisha traditions. In this way, CCCADI advances the cultural equity, racial and social justice of African descendant communities through the education of these spiritual traditions.
Sou Sou! Saturdays: Crafting Memory, Building Legacy
Our Community Archiving Lab for Culture and Justice has reminded us of the importance and urgency of archiving our Afro-Diasporic histories- especially in times when our legacies and institutions are under threat of erasure.
Join us on Saturday, November 15th for a special edition of Sou Sou! Saturdays titled “Crafting Memory” — co-presented with PMCA (Harlem Place, Memory & Culture Archive) and guided by our Community Archiving Lab for Culture and Justice.
This intergenerational gathering invites our community to explore the power of archiving as an act of cultural preservation:
🎞️ Community Digitization Day
(All Day)
Bring your photos, slides, negatives, CDs, DVDs, or video tapes (DV, VHS, Hi8) to be digitized and preserved.
🎨 Poster-Making Artivism Workshop
(11:30 AM - 1 PM, All Ages)
Led by artist and CCCADI alum Crystal Clarity, this session looks at CCCADI’s rich history of poster art, and guides folks through the process of creating their own.
📚 Archiving 101
(2 PM - 4 PM, High School & Up)
Learn how to begin preserving your own artwork, family memories, and archival materials with practical tools and guidance from the PMCA team.
🎨 Kids’ Art Corner
(All Ages, All Day)
A creative space for our youngest artists to express themselves while workshops are in session.
📅 Saturday, November 15, 2025
🕚 11 AM – 5 PM
📍 CCCADI Firehouse (120 E 125th St.)
💫 FREE | RSVP via Link in Bio
About Sou Sou! Saturdays:
Inspired by the financial resource-sharing traditions known throughout the African Diaspora by such names as "Colecta", "Box Hand", "San", "Partna", or "Sou-Sou", this family-based art and education program reinterprets Sou Sou as an exchange of cultural resources. Sou Sou! Saturdays celebrates and honors our connections by upholding our traditions of collective growth, mindfulness, celebration, and creativity with families of all ages.
About our partner, PMCA (Harlem Place, Memory & Culture Archive) :
The Place, Memory, and Culture Incubator (PMCI) is a new initiative within the Spitzer School of Architecture. Funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation, it seeks to redefine the role of preservation in the face of ongoing urban transformations in Harlem. The Incubator aims to interact with Harlem communities to transform the ways in which students engage and connect with their deep-seated histories. Design studios will record, visualize, and preserve heritage while projecting innovative, resilient cultural and spatial futures.
The PMCI’s approach is collaborative, ensuring that insights are shared with the broader Harlem community through exhibitions, symposia, a Living Digital Archive, public art, and education programs. Through this outreach, the Incubator furthers its commitment to fostering environmental and social justice in Harlem, promoting positive change and sustainable development within the community.
Critically Black Dialogue: Decolonizing the Archives
Much of the dominant archiving tradition has been shaped by academic and institutional practices rooted in eurocentric and white supremacist frameworks. These systems often determine what is deemed worthy of preservation, how stories are told, and whose voices are amplified—or silenced.
This conversation asks: What happens when we center archives that live outside of those frameworks? What is the role and importance of archives, such as CCCADI’s own archive, built by and for communities of color, by artists, activists, and cultural workers, that challenge dominant languages and practices?
Join us as we imagine together what our archives of the future can, and will, look and feel like.
Moderator:
Dr. Margarita Lila Rosa, CCCADI Resident Archivist
Panelists:
Maria Bear, CCCADI Resident Archivist
Djali Brown-Cepeda, Nuevayorkinos
Alex Moulton, CUNY
jah elyse sayers, PMCI (Place, Memory & Culture Incubator)
The scholarly panel will be followed by a “Deep Dive into CCCADI’s Archives”
Join CCCADI’s resident archivists and staff for a guided tour through the CCCADI Archives, pausing to look closely at curated materials that showcase the diversity and richness of CCCADI’s 49 year history.
Event Details:
1 PM-2:30 PM
“Decolonizing the Archives”
Scholarly Panel
3 PM-5:00 PM
“Deep Dive into CCCADI’s Archives” Tour
![[OPENING] Jab, J’ouvert, Revelry & Resistance](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/631b640f7f3d3d303fe92fa1/1776208244255-NQXDK7LRI7OX09VFFOQC/JJRR+LOCKUP.png)
