Steel City GrandSlam

Alphabet City 40 W. North Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

The Steel City Slam is bringing the city’s top 13 poets together to battle it out at City Of Asylum. This is the poetry show we wait ALL year for! The top 4 scoring poets from this annual GRAND SLAM show will create a team to represent the Steel City in a regional tournament and the Steel City Team plans to bring BRING THE HEAT!  

A New Side of Dwayne Dolphin: Off Minor Jazz Series

Alphabet City 40 W. North Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

Pittsburgh-born bassist Dwayne Dolphin is a world-class acoustic and electric bassist, but in the late 1990s, Dwayne began playing the electric piccolo bass, an instrument rarely outside the R&B funk setting. This Off Minor concert features Dwayne playing his electric piccolo bass in a straight ahead, acoustic jazz setting, something he's never done before!

In-Dialogue series Presented by the #notwhite Collective

City of Asylum @ Home

The #notwhite collective in-Dialogue series features conversations with BIPOC, AALANA, indigenous and immigrant artists and arts administrators.
The series reimagines the past and present history of the arts sector by engaging and presenting the wealth of experience, strategies, and tactics of the global majority, notwhite descendants, inheritors of colonialism, indigenous and immigrants who navigate a predominantly white arts sector. 
June’s program features artists: Staycee Pearl and Kuldeep Singh

Jazz Harpists: The music of Dorothy Ashby

Alphabet City 40 W. North Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

Yoko Suzuki has created a brand new series of jazz concerts at City of Asylum that combine her saxophone skills with her expertise in ethnomusicology. This year Yoko explores the history of female jazz harpists / composers and the rarely heard contributions they made to the jazz scene. The first concert in a series of three spotlights the music of Dorothy Ashby. 

Illegal Crowns

Alphabet City 40 W. North Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

Join us for the US debut tour of Illegal Crowns, a collective quartet that brings together the long-time collaborative trio of guitarist Mary Halvorson, drummer Tomas Fujiwara, and cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum with the French pianist Benoît Delbecq. All four artists are critically recognized as leading figures in contemporary music, and have created multiple original compositions written specifically for this group. 

Cave Canem Faculty Readings

Alphabet City 40 W. North Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

Each June since 2010, City of Asylum has been home to Cave Canem's annual reading to coincide with the week-long Cave Canem Retreat, their long-standing flagship program.  This year we are thrilled to welcome Cave Canem back in person to read and celebrate, featuring an evening of poetry with 2022 retreat faculty. 

Actors Talk August Presented by August Wilson House: Brenden Peifer and Melessie Clark

City of Asylum @ Home

This is an unusual interview for Actors Talk August: a duo of young actors just finishing their first August Wilson play. Brenden Peifer and Melessie Clark are playing Sterling and Risa in “Two Trains Running,” directed by Justin Emeka at Pittsburgh Public Theater (through June 19). Their first encounter with August Wilson traditions, characters and an experienced cast feeds plenty of thought by two lively, smart, responsive professionals just starting their August Wilson journeys.

Stories of Motherhood in the Time of Covid with Sharing our Story & Hello Neighbor

Alphabet City 40 W. North Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

Sharing Our Story works with people to create their own digital stories in the form of short 3 minute videos.
“Stories of Motherhood” is the fourth storytelling celebrating its completion at City of Asylum. The videos and digital stories shared are from refugee and US-born mothers whose lives and families were impacted by the pandemic. Participating mothers are connected to the Hello Neighbor Network. 

TierrAdentro: Music from Argentina

Alphabet City 40 W. North Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

An evening of performance that crosses the musical frontiers of Argentinean folklore, art song and improvisation. 
Folklore refers to a body of popular music created in Argentina and based on indigenous dance rhythms like the zamba, cueca, chacarera, carnavalito and vidala. These songs were passed on through oral tradition and were virtually unknown outside their own region until the early 20th century. 

“Finlandia” Presented by ReelQ Film Festival

Alphabet City 40 W. North Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

Finlandia explores the lives of a group of muxes—the third gender of the Zapotec indigenous community—as they navigate transphobia, globalization, and love in southern Mexico. Awarded Best Feature Film at the OUTshine Film Festival as well as the Audience Award at the Festival de films LGBTQI+ de Toulouse.
Run time: 120 minutes
Language: Spanish