Night of Ideas 2026
Enlightenment, Now! Join us for a nocturnal celebration of art, philosophy, and activism! Enlightenment, Now! As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of its independence, the 2026 Santa Cruz […]
20 events found.
Performances
Events
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Institute of the Arts and Sciences 100 Panetta Ave, Santa Cruz, United States
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4th Annual Mother Earth Drag Extravaganza
FeaturedSeymour Marine Discovery Center 100 McAllister Way, Santa Cruz, CAGet ready to slay and celebrate nature’s fierce beauty at the Mother Earth Drag Extravaganza! A student drag show and queer prom! You won’t want to miss the 4th Annual Mother Earth Drag Extravaganza. ABOUT Mother Earth is inherently queer. Come celebrate nature with performances from student drag artists, tabling from queer groups as well […]
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DRAIN – Quarry Amphitheater (April 18th)
FeaturedUpper Quarry Amphitheater 15 McLaughlin Drive, Santa Cruz, CATickets are on sale at quarryamphitheater.com, starting at $55.96 for general admission DRAIN came together in the sleepy, oceanside NorCal climes of Santa Cruz in 2014 when Ciaramitaro met up with guitarist Cody Chavez and drummer Tim Flegal while attending college. “We had no idea or gameplan of what we were trying to do,” says […]
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Field Trip to ALBA
MJ Organic Farms 1700 Old Stage Rd, Salinas, CaliforniaJoin us for an opportunity to visit the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (ALBA) in Salinas! ALBA is a non-profit whose mission is to create economic opportunity for aspiring organic farmers and ag professionals — many of whom are local field workers and first-generation college students — through land-based education in the heart of the Salinas Valley. […]
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Arts & Ecology Festival: Creative Resistance
Digital Arts Research Center 407 McHenry Rd, Santa Cruz, CAOn Earth Day, UC Santa Cruz launches the inaugural Arts & Ecology Festival: Creative Resistance, a campus-wide gathering that refuses to treat climate change as a problem of carbon alone. Instead, it brings together artists, scientists, students, and community partners to engage the deeper conditions of the crisis, and to open space for cultural, political, […]
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Palaver Strings—April in Santa Cruz
Kuumbwa Jazz Center 320-2 Cedar St, Santa Cruz, United StatesKuumbwa Jazz, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, and the Arts Division at UC Santa Cruz partner to present: A Change is Gonna Come, featuring Palaver Strings and tenor Nicholas Phan. Grammy award-winning tenor Nicholas Phan joins Portland, Maine-based ensemble Palaver Strings, in a program that explores our country’s rich legacy of protest songs. Repertoire includes […]
$31.50 – $89.25 -
Harriet: Performing Anarchive
Digital Arts Research Center 407 McHenry Rd, Santa Cruz, CAThrough motion capture, immersive sound, and real-time digital systems, CHARI (Dr. Chari Smith) performs alongside Harriet, a life-scale avatar carrying a living archive of Black sonic and vernacular memory. Drawing from Black archival traditions rooted in call-and-response, improvisation, and communal stewardship, the performance understands memory as relational and alive. Together, our movements shape the environment […]
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Harriet: Performing an Archive
Digital Arts Research Center 407 McHenry Rd, Santa Cruz, CAThrough motion capture, immersive sound, and real-time digital systems, CHARI performs alongside Harriet, a life-scale avatar carrying a living archive of Black sonic and vernacular memory. Drawing from Black archival traditions rooted in call-and-response, improvisation, and communal stewardship, the performance understands memory as relational and alive. Together, our movements shape the environment as the performance […]
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Pianist Keisuke Nakagoshi—April in Santa Cruz
Music Center Recital Hall 400 McHenry Road, Santa Cruz, CAPianist Keisuke Nakagoshi graces UC Santa Cruz’s Music Center Recital Hall with Rippling, Resistance, and Rain, a unique concert of 21st century piano music written by composers from Japan and the United States. The program opens with an imaginative fantasy of a bird, explores the psychology of addiction and mental illness, explores a liberating sense […]
FREE and open to the public -
Denim Day Open Mic & Survivor Share-Out
Namaste Lounge 615 College Nine Road, Santa Cruz, CAJoin CARE in closing out Sexual Assault Awareness Month 2026, during Denim Day, for a space where we’ll connect as a community, hand out copies of the new volume of the CARE Art Zine, and hold an open mic and survivor share-out, open to all UCSC survivors, their supporters, and allies! Food and refreshments provided, […]
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Percussionist Christopher Clarino—April in Santa Cruz
Music Center Recital Hall 400 McHenry Road, Santa Cruz, CAJoin percussionist Christopher Clarino in a concert of revolutionary work that invites listeners of all kinds to rethink hearing itself. This concert features a wide range of pieces—some well known […]
FREE and open to the public -
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Music on the Meadow—April in Santa Cruz
Music Center Recital Hall 400 McHenry Road, Santa Cruz, CAMusic On The Meadow (MOTM) presents “Episode 0: Music with the Meadow.” MOTM showcases engagement from students, artists, scientists, scholars, and culture bearers, who engage in “listening with the meadow” through genre-defying works. MOTM is a site for low-key (but not low-quality or low-impact) celebration, gathering, mourning, remembering, rethinking, unlearning. This event is presented as […]
FREE and open to the public -
Guitar Virtuoso Hao Yang in Concert—An Evening of Classical Guitar Music from Around the World
Music Center Recital Hall 400 McHenry Road, Santa Cruz, CAJoin acclaimed classical guitarist Hao Yang as she brings her extraordinary talent to the stage, fresh off winning the prestigious 2024 Koblenz International Guitar Competition, “Hubert Käppel,” and placing second at the 2024 GFA International Concert Artist Competition. A recipient of the Clifton Foundation’s Emerging Artists Award, she has captivated audiences at Carnegie Hall, the […]
FREE and open to UCSC affiliates. -
UCSC Wind Ensemble
Music Center Recital Hall 400 McHenry Road, Santa Cruz, CAUCSC Wind Ensemble concert
Free – $12 -
Where Cultures Bloom — We Belong here
Oakes Learning CenterWhere Cultures Bloom is a large-scale cultural celebration centered on community, expression, and belonging, grounded in the idea that UCSC is shaped by the diverse identities and voices of those who call it home. This event serves as an open platform for students to showcase their creativity and lived experiences through mediums such as spoken […]
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ABC Ensemble and This Never Happened—April in Santa Cruz
Music Center Recital Hall 400 McHenry Road, Santa Cruz, CAPianists/experimentalists Amy Beal and Ben Carson, and friends in the This Never Happened Ensemble, present a concert of toys, noise, open-questions, and a love of play, including one piece involving no fewer than five concert grand pianos. Featuring the music of Shanna Sordahl, Marc Perez, Mexican composer Rodrigo Barriga Lopez, and legendary experimentalists Johanna Beyer […]
FREE and open to the public -
STEM Culture Festival
FeaturedJack Baskin Engineering Baskin Engineering 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CAThe STEM Culture Festival is returning to UC Santa Cruz on Friday, May 15 from 1-4pm in the Baskin Engineering Courtyard. Join us! This year, we’re expanding with even more performances, activities, and creative ways to celebrate UCSC’s vibrant, diverse, and excellent STEM culture! What to expect: Cuban Dance Master Susana Arenas and her troupe […]
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Rasanblé/Rasanblaj: Call & Response
Institute of the Arts and Sciences 100 Panetta Ave, Santa Cruz, United StatesJoin us for an evening of call and response between Portsha Jefferson, dancer and artistic director of Rara Tou Limen, and artist-scholar Gina Athena Ulysse. Jefferson will offer a Haitian dance response to Ulysse’s art exhibition Redwoods Rasanblaj: Origins & Disentanglements and screen her short film IMAMOU: Hotô to Shore… Agbe | Agwe. Ulysse will read from […]
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UCSC Concert Choir
Music Center Recital Hall 400 McHenry Road, Santa Cruz, CAUCSC Concert Choir
Free – $12