La Pena Cultural Center

La Peña's Mission and Overview of Activities

La Peña is a vibrant community cultural center with a national reputation and a global vision that promotes peace, social justice and cultural understanding through the arts, education and social action.

As a welcoming gathering place, La Peña provides opportunities for artists to share diverse cultural traditions, to create and perform their work, and to support and interface with diverse social movements.

Annually, La Peña presents over 200 events with emerging and established artists; organizes an arts education program; produces new works by local artists, presents internationally and nationally renowned artists, and houses a Latin American café which complements the organization's mission.

La Peña’s History

The peña tradition started in Latin America in the early sixties. The main idea, developed especially by Chilean composer and singer Violeta Parra, was to have a gathering place where artists of all disciplines could share a space. The mission of the peña was to provide good food, music and an overall aesthetic response to an institutional culture that did not provide the space for other creative forms to exist. Peñas in Chile became a major backbone of the cultural program during Salvador Allende's government from 1970 to 1973. It was here where artists-poets, musicians, painters, cooks - gathered to preserve cultural forms and to create new ones.

Our Center was modeled on that specific cultural history. La Peña Cultural Center was started by a multi-racial group of Latin Americans and North Americans as a response to the military coup that overthrew the socialist government of Salvador Allende. The coup happened on Sept. 11, 1973 and was aided and abetted by the U.S. government. La Peña incorporated on September 11, 1974, one year after the military coup and opened its doors in June of 1975.

Latest News

Bringing High Quality Queer Arts Programming To The East Bay: Queer Cultural Center (Qcc) and La Peña Present Qcc at La Peña!

Berkeley, CA----The Queer Cultural Center (Qcc) in San Francisco and La Peña Cultural Center in Berkeley have joined forces to present a new LBGT arts series Qcc @ La Peña!... Read more

Astounding East Bay Art Exhibit Gathers The Works Of Noteworthy Latin American Master Modern Artists

Jean & Norman Moore's collection is exhibited for the first time in 40 years Jean Moore and family are pleased to exhibit a selection of 57 works by 21 Latin American modern... Read more

George 'TraGiC' Doman

A member of Krip-Hop Nation: Hip-Hop Artists/Musicians with disabilities.  George recently wrote and remixed Tupac Shakur’s “Brenda’s Got A Baby”, but instead called... Read more

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