[photo credit: Pasadena International Film Festival]

 “Everything is gone,” a parent said. “We needed something to hold onto.”

They were talking about baseball — about the Central Altadena Little League season that nearly didn’t happen after the Eaton Fire burned through the neighborhood in January 2025, destroying more than 9,400 structures, according to Cal Fire. But the words describe something larger: what a community reaches for when the places that held its identity are gone.

Filmmakers in Altadena reached for cameras. Their work is now reaching screens.

The 13th annual Pasadena International Film Festival — founded by Pasadena residents and opening April 9 at Laemmle NoHo 7 in North Hollywood — has dedicated a cluster of five films to the Eaton Fire and the California wildfires. Among them is Altadena: The Heart. The Art and the Soul, a short documentary by Eric A. Dyson that examines what the community was before the fire. Dyson made the film through a grant from Ashes to Films, a nonprofit created specifically to fund fire-affected artists. It screens Thursday, April 9, at 3:40 p.m. in Block 2.

“The Eaton Fire was not getting a lot of attention in general,” said Sue Cremin, producer of Going for Home, another film in PIFF’s wildfire cluster. “It was being overshadowed.”

Going for Home, directed by Academy Award winner Eric Simonson, spent nine months following the Central Altadena Little League through a season played in the shadow of the fire. An estimated 60 to 90% of the league’s families were affected by the Eaton Fire, according to a review in Film Threat. The season continued anyway. The league partnered with West Pasadena Little League to make it work. For the kids, as the documentary captures, the field was one of the few things the fire hadn’t taken.

Dyson’s film had an earlier Pasadena-area showing: it screened at First United Methodist Church of Pasadena on March 21 as part of a program called “We Are Not the Disaster,” organized by Ashes to Films. Four other fire-affected filmmakers showed work at the same event. The nonprofit, founded in 2025 in the wake of the Eaton and Palisades fires, has raised approximately $85,000, according to Variety.

Going for Home screens Wednesday, April 15, at 5:50 p.m. in Block 31 alongside Embers, a wildfire-related music video. PIFF’s full slate of wildfire films also includes California is Burning and Echoes of the Palisades, the latter in Block 11 on Saturday, April 11, at 1:25 p.m.

According to its press release, PIFF 2026 presents more than 160 films — the festival’s own homepage lists 130 or more — from more than a dozen countries over eight days. Screenings are sponsored by First Entertainment Credit Union and each block ends with a moderated Q&A with filmmakers. PIFF was founded in 2012 by Jessica Hardin and Marco Neves, described in the festival’s own press release as “industry veterans and Pasadena residents.”

The festival’s closing gala takes place in Pasadena — not in North Hollywood — at Der Wolf RestoBar, 72 N. Fair Oaks Ave., on Thursday, April 16. Red carpet begins at 7 p.m.; the awards ceremony follows at 8 p.m.

PIFF 2026 Film Screenings: Block 10 | Saturday, April 11, 2026 at 11:30 a.m. | Cost: $35.00 | For more information call: 310-478-3836 | Or click here: https://www.pasadenafilmfestival.org/piff-2026 | Venue: Laemmle NoHo 7 5240 Lankershim Blvd. North Hollywood, CA 91601

[photo credit: Lanterman House]

Historian Nathan Marsak brings Bunker Hill’s lost transit history to Lanterman House — a story about what gets saved and what gets razed

Nathan Marsak goes to work each day at Angels Flight, the century-old funicular railway tucked against the eastern face of Bunker Hill in downtown Los Angeles. He pulls the levers. He runs the cars. He ferries strangers up and down the same steep slope that Victorian-era Angelenos once climbed to reach their mansions — before the automobiles came, and the streetcars faded, and the redevelopment agency arrived, and the mansions came down.

That neighborhood — Bunker Hill — is what Marsak has spent nearly two decades writing about. It is also the subject of his free illustrated lecture at Lanterman House on Sunday, April 19, just minutes from the Altadena border in the La Cañada Flintridge foothills. The talk will trace how the horse-drawn world of one of Los Angeles’s most storied hilltop communities gave way to streetcars, then automobiles, and ultimately to a wholesale clearance that erased a neighborhood of Victorian Queen Anne homes and Edwardian apartment buildings from the city’s map.

For Pasadena and Altadena residents — who live in communities where Craftsman bungalows, 1920s storefronts, and century-old street grids continue to navigate the pressures of development — the history Marsak tells is less a distant cautionary tale than a recurring set of civic questions about what cities choose to keep and what they choose to remove. Readers should note: the Pasadena Now calendar lists this event on April 5; the Lanterman House website lists April 19. Attendees should confirm the date directly with Lanterman House at 818-790-1421 or lantermanhouse@gmail.com before making the trip.

Marsak is the author of five books on the subject: Los Angeles Neon (2002), Bunker Hill Los Angeles (2020), Bunker Noir! (2021), Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill (2023), and a revised edition of Arnold Hylen’s Los Angeles Before the Freeways. He worked on the curatorial staff of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and served as historian for the LAPD Museum archives. He also writes the blogs OnBunkerHill and bunkerhilllosangeles.com, where — since 2007 — he has maintained a detailed public record of the neighborhood’s lost built environment.

His interest in Bunker Hill, he said in a 2025 interview with the Los Angeles Public Library, has the quality of an obsession with a place that no longer exists. “I suppose it’s akin to being interested in Atlantis,” Marsak said. “It’s a lost world and mythic, and whose stories are often more mythical than rooted in reality.”

The talk will focus on what the Lanterman House event listing describes as “one particular hallmark of the modern age: the automobile, and its role in reshaping the Bunker Hill landscape.” According to the event listing, Marsak will trace how the neighborhood’s horse-drawn infrastructure responded to the arrival of “new motive power, streetcars, emerging systems of access, and an era rooted in speed” — a progression that ended, ultimately, not with adaptation but with demolition. Bunker Hill, according to that same listing, “failed to conform to modernity, and was ultimately wiped away in the name of progress.”

The setting for the lecture — Lanterman House — adds a layer of contrast the event listing does not supply. The 1915 concrete-and-craftsman residence, designed for Dr. Roy Lanterman and his family in what was then a rural La Cañada valley, is one of the few surviving pre-1920 residences in La Cañada Flintridge — a house that weathered a century of change and remained standing. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994 and maintained since 1993 as a museum by the nonprofit Lanterman Historical Museum Foundation under a city ownership arrangement, it offers a different answer to the same question Bunker Hill posed: what survives, and what does not.

Marsak’s work as a historian and his daily role at Angels Flight place him in an unusual position relative to his material. Angels Flight, the funicular he now runs, is itself one of the few physical remnants of Bunker Hill’s transit infrastructure. Dismantled in 1969 when the Bunker Hill Redevelopment Project cleared the neighborhood, and stored for nearly three decades, it was reinstalled in 1996 half a block south of its original location and reopened to the public on August 31, 2017, following safety upgrades.

The lecture is free. Seating is first come, first served. Event day parking is available at La Cañada Congregational Church, 1200 Foothill Blvd., La Cañada Flintridge; on-site parking at Lanterman House is limited to 10 vehicles. The event runs from 1 to 2 p.m. Confirm the date with Lanterman House before attending.

What Marsak understands, having spent years in the archives and each working day on the railway, is that the neighborhood did not simply disappear. It was pushed out by a set of decisions about how a city should move — decisions made in the name of speed and modernity, decisions that still carry consequences. He operates the railway that survived those decisions. On Sunday, he will explain how most of the neighborhood did not.

HISTORY OF BUNKER HILL AND TRANSPORTATION Date & Time: Sunday, April 5, 2026 at 1:00 p.m. Venue: Lanterman House, 4420 Encinas Drive, La Cañada Flintridge, CA 91011. Phone Number: 818-790-1421. Website: https://poodle-trumpet-ndyy.squarespace.com/lanterman-house-tours

[photo credit: Pasadena Museum of History]

Historian revisits her acclaimed work, “Altadena: Between Wilderness and City,” at the Pasadena Museum of History.

Altadena, a community nestled between the untamed San Gabriel Mountains and the bustling urban sprawl of Pasadena, possesses a unique spirit forged by its distinctive history. Two decades after its initial publication, Michele Zack’s nationally recognized local history, “Altadena: Between Wilderness and City,” continues to illuminate this singular identity. On Thursday, March 26, Zack will return to the Pasadena Museum of History for a compelling discussion, offering fresh perspectives on her acclaimed work and the forces that have shaped Altadena.

Zack, a recipient of the prestigious Pfleuger Award for best history writing in 2005, delves into Altadena’s evolution, placing its narrative within the broader context of Pasadena, the region, and the nation. Her meticulous research and engaging prose earned her praise from State Librarian Kevin Star, who lauded her work as “urban history at its best.” This special presentation promises an updated exploration of the unincorporated community’s past, including a poignant examination of the devastating Eaton Fire and its lasting impact.

Attendees will have the opportunity to gain insights directly from the author as she shares her updated findings and reflections. The presentation will commence at 7:00 p.m., with the museum galleries opening an hour earlier, at 6:00 p.m., for those wishing to explore before the talk. Advance reservations are required for this event, which offers a unique chance to engage with a pivotal work of local history and its auth.

Michele Zack — “Altadena: Between Wilderness and City” Book Talk will run on Thursday, March 26 at 7 p.m. Galleries open at 6 p.m. Pasadena Museum of History, 470 W. Walnut St., Pasadena. For more information, call (626) 577-1660 or visit pasadenahistory.org. Advance reservations required.

Glendale’s poet laureate uses $50,000 national fellowship to fund writing sessions, anthology, and scholarships at the Collaboratory

A free poetry workshop for people affected by the Eaton Fire will be held Friday at the Eaton Fire Collaboratory in Altadena, the second in a three-part series funded by a $50,000 Academy of American Poets fellowship.

The March 21 session, led by poet and literary advocate Linda Ravenswood, runs from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at 540 W. Woodbury Road. A third workshop on April 25 will be led by Carla Sameth, who served as Altadena’s Co-Poet Laureate from 2022 to 2024. Both sessions are free and open to anyone directly or indirectly affected by the January 2025 fire, according to a press release from the organizers.

The San Gabriel Valley Phoenix Poets project was founded by Raffi Joe Wartanian, Glendale’s inaugural Poet Laureate and a UCLA Writing Programs lecturer who received the fellowship from the Academy of American Poets in 2025, according to the Academy. The Mellon Foundation funds the fellowship, which supports community poetry projects in cities across the country, the Academy said.

The Pasadena-based Light Bringer Project, a nonprofit arts organization founded in 1990, serves as fiscal partner for the program, according to the press release. Teresa Mei Chuc, who grew up in Pasadena and served as Altadena Poet Laureate Editor-in-Chief from 2018 to 2020, led the series’ first session on February 28.

Participants may submit writing for a planned anthology and scholarship program. The submission deadline is April 1, according to the press release. Submissions can be made at https://forms.gle/oeCvZBbebNPadVTh7.

“Literal and figurative fires can silence us, so aftermath moments like these are critical to elevate overlooked perspectives and stay rooted in the complex truths of what communities endure and process,” Wartanian said in the press release.

Ravenswood, who leads Friday’s session, founded The Los Angeles Press in 2018 and helped establish the Glendale Poet Laureate Program in 2022 alongside Mayor Ardy Kassakhian, according to The Los Angeles Press. Sameth, who will lead the April session, is also a 2023 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow, according to the Academy.

The Eaton Fire claimed 19 lives and destroyed thousands of buildings in and around Altadena. The Collaboratory, which opened in October 2025, serves as a central hub where survivors access recovery resources and connect with more than 200 community organizations, according to the Eaton Fire Collaborative.

The broader fellowship project also calls for a public mural and scholarships for young poets, according to UCLA’s Newsroom.

[photo credit: Whitney Museum of American Art]

A 13-foot chimney built from 821 cast glass bricks recreates the sole structure surviving the January 2025 blaze

A glass reconstruction of the chimney that was the only structure left standing after the Eaton Fire destroyed Kelly Akashi’s Altadena home is now on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, part of the 82nd Whitney Biennial running through August 23.

The installation, titled “Monument (Altadena),” places the community’s fire loss explicitly on a national stage. Akashi, 43, is an associate professor in the Graduate Art program at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena. Her colleague Ei Arakawa-Nash, a core faculty member in the same program since 2022, will also, separately, represent Japan at the 61st Venice Biennale with an exhibition opening May 9.

Both faculty members are now presenting work simultaneously at the Venice Biennale and Whitney Biennial.

Akashi’s Altadena home, a Spanish Colonial bungalow she purchased in 2021, burned in the Eaton Fire in January 2025, according to the New York Times. The chimney, originally built in 1926, was the only structure that survived, according to a Hyundai Motor press release announcing the commission. Akashi worked with a mason to reconstruct it piece by piece using luminous cast glass bricks.

The chimney’s 821 glass bricks and metal armature weigh approximately 6,550 pounds, according to the New York Times. Another 538 bricks form a pathway sunk flush with the Whitney’s fifth-floor outdoor terrace, recreating the walkway to her former home.

“The act of rebuilding is not simply about material endurance; it is a deliberate labor of care, an engagement with history, and an act of reclamation,” Akashi said in a statement released by Hyundai Motor.

“It only functions with a home,” Akashi said of the chimney in an interview published by the Los Angeles Times. “It always signals that absence.”

The installation also includes “Inheritance (Distressed),” a Cor-Ten steel work referencing doilies that belonged to Akashi’s grandmother, according to Lisson Gallery. Akashi had rescued the doilies from a family garage sale but lost them in the fire.

Arakawa-Nash, born in 1977 in Fukushima, Japan, will present “Grass Babies, Moon Babies” at the Japan Pavilion in Venice, organized by the Japan Foundation. The exhibition runs May 9 through November 22. Both the artist and his co-curators are based outside Japan, a first for the pavilion, according to Call for Curators.

Tonight at 7 p.m., Arakawa-Nash gives a free public lecture at ArtCenter’s Hillside Campus, 1700 Lida Street, Pasadena. The event, part of the college’s spring Graduate Art seminar series organized by Jack Bankowsky and Jason Smith, is open to the public and does not require an RSVP, according to ArtCenter’s event listing.

“I am excited about this opportunity to converse with historical performances at the Biennale,” Arakawa-Nash said in a statement published by Artforum.

ArtCenter’s Graduate Art program has a core faculty of seven artists and writers and approximately 35 students, according to the program’s listing on e-flux. The Whitney Biennial, established in 1932, has featured more than 3,600 artists to date, according to the Whitney Museum.

The Venice Biennale exhibition will feature performances by Arakawa-Nash’s young twins alongside baby dolls, according to Call for Curators, exploring themes of parenthood, the Japanese diaspora, and nationalism.

Akashi’s Whitney commission remains on view through August 23. Admission to the biennial is free for visitors 25 and under, according to Artsy.

The spring musical season at Pasadena Unified School District opens this week, with eight middle and high school productions set to run across Pasadena and Altadena through May 15, 2026.

The district’s annual lineup spans eight campuses, eight titles, and nearly two months of performances — beginning Thursday at Thurgood Marshall Secondary School, which will present Alice By Heart March 19-21. In Altadena, Eliot Arts Magnet will mount Bring It On! The Musical March 26-28, giving that community its own moment in the season. The Altadena middle school’s production is among the most closely watched events of the spring lineup: Eliot was among the schools directly affected by the January 2025 Eaton Fire, according to a statement on the school’s own website.

The full 2026 schedule, as announced by PUSD, is:

• Thurgood Marshall Secondary School — Alice By Heart, March 19-21
• Eliot Arts Magnet (Altadena) — Bring It On! The Musical, March 26-28
• John Muir High School — Ride the Cyclone, March 27-29
• Sierra Madre Middle School — Seussical, April 1-2
• Pasadena High School — Fiddler on the Roof, April 23-25
• Blair High School — Something Rotten!, April 24-25 and May 1-2
• McKinley School of the Arts — Little Mermaid, Jr., May 1-2
• Octavia E. Butler Middle School — Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, Jr., May 14-15

The range of titles reflects the breadth of PUSD’s theater programs. Ride the Cyclone — John Muir’s entry — is a dark-comedy musical in which six teenagers compete for a second chance at life; it is generally recommended for teen audiences and older. Fiddler on the Roof, at Pasadena High, and Something Rotten!, at Blair, are full Broadway titles. The junior editions — Little Mermaid, Jr. and Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, Jr. — are adapted productions suited to younger audiences.

Pasadena Unified describes itself on its official website as an “Arts Equity District,” with standards-based instruction in music, dance, theater and visual arts offered at its middle and high school campuses. According to the district’s performing arts page, all PUSD middle and high schools mount a full musical production each spring.

Thurgood Marshall Secondary School, which opens the season this week, was renamed from Marshall Fundamental in May 2025. Located at 990 North Allen Avenue. in north-central Pasadena, the school houses the Academy for Creative Industries; its website notes that about 70 percent of its students are engaged in the arts. Blair High School’s Something Rotten! runs across two separate weekends — April 24-25 and May 1-2 — giving community members two chances to attend.

In a statement made about the district’s spring musical program in 2024, Karen Anderson, PUSD’s Arts & Enrichment Coordinator, said the district was “building on the momentum developed through vital community partnerships” and that arts programming helps “foster and encourage the diversity and creativity expressed through musical theater,” according to Pasadena Now. A statement from Anderson about the 2026 season was not available at press time.

Tickets and performance details are available at pusd.us/arts.

The season closes May 15 with Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, Jr. at Octavia E. Butler Middle School — the last curtain call of an eight-school spring that stretches from Altadena to south Pasadena.

Rose City High School teens curate more than 300 works — and some young artists won’t know they’ve won scholarships until they walk in Friday night

For the 21st consecutive year, Pasadena Unified School District students will display their artwork in a professional gallery during ArtNight Pasadena — but the students who built the exhibition won’t be the only ones surprised by what they find on the walls.

Before the public arrives Friday afternoon at The Paseo, representatives from ArtCenter College of Design, Armory Center for the Arts, and the City of Pasadena Arts Commissioners will walk the gallery and place small stickers on selected artwork labels. The student artists will not know they have received scholarship awards or recognition until they arrive that evening, according to Karen Anderson, Arts and Enrichment Coordinator for Pasadena Unified School District.

“When the kids come for No Boundaries, they see, ‘Oh my gosh, why does it say ArtCenter next to my piece?’ And then they find out that they won an award for a scholarship to the ArtCenter,” Anderson said.

No Boundaries 21, which opens Friday, March 13, at The Paseo as one of 19 free venues during ArtNight Pasadena, draws more than 300 works from TK-12 students at every school in the district. The exhibition has opened on ArtNight every year since ArtNight began. The show is not assembled by staff. A group of students at Rose City High School curates and builds it through a 12-week work-based learning internship with artworxLA and the LA County Department of Arts and Culture, learning how to develop a professional gallery exhibition from the ground up.

As of this week, those student curators were still finalizing placements — making the creative decisions that determine where each piece lands. On Friday night, they will be present to guide visitors through the gallery they built.

“They are doing something they have never done before,” Anderson said of the Rose City students. “They’re accomplishing something that they never knew they could, and the sense of pride that the students take away is extremely impactful.”

Anderson said she hopes the show leaves a mark on everyone who walks in. “I would like families and parents and community members to feel inspired, to feel awe, to feel pride in their school and their community through this incredible exhibition of student artwork from kindergarten through 12th grade,” she said.

Every art teacher in the district — and non-art teachers as well — receives a package explaining how to submit student work. Every school has art represented in the show, Anderson said. All participating student artists receive letters and invitations to attend. The exhibition is supported by the DAT/CAT — the District Arts Team and Community Arts Team — a group of community partners and arts teachers who provide gallery sitting and support throughout the run. The Pasadena Educational Foundation is a financial sponsor of No Boundaries, according to PUSD arts program materials.

The scholarship and award process involves three partner organizations. “Our partners at the Armory Center for the Arts and ArtCenter College of Design, as well as the City of Pasadena Arts Commissioners, they come and peruse the artwork ahead of time and they give awards to the artwork,” Anderson said. The specific terms of those scholarships — including class types and award counts — had not been confirmed by either institution by publication time. ArtCenter College of Design, the Armory Center for the Arts, and the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division did not respond to requests for comment. Artworks selected from the exhibition are also permanently displayed on the City of Pasadena’s Student Art Wall, according to PUSD program records.

Performances at No Boundaries 21 run the full evening, from 6 to 10 p.m. They include previews of PUSD spring musicals, rock bands, and jazz bands. Later in the evening, a group Anderson called “the Staff Lounge” takes the stage — a jazz band composed entirely of PUSD music teachers. “All of our music teachers doing what they do best on their own instruments,” she said. The performances are funded by a City of Pasadena MiniGrant through the Arts and Culture Commission, as confirmed on the city’s official ArtNight Pasadena page.

After Friday night, the gallery remains open for 10 days — covering two weekends and the week between — with limited hours, according to Anderson. ArtNight Pasadena, produced by the city’s Cultural Affairs Division, offers free admission and free shuttles to all 19 participating venues from 6 to 10 p.m. Wheelchair-accessible buses are also available.

No Boundaries 21 is at The Paseo, 300 E. Colorado Blvd., Suites 159 and 161, Pasadena. Admission is free. For more information, visit pusd.us/arts or ArtNightPasadena.org. The ArtNight Pasadena Hotline is (626) 744-7887.

“When it comes to our students’ potential,” Anderson said, “there are no boundaries, only possibilities.”

[photo credit: Makoto Taiko]

Makoto Taiko performs four free sets Friday at the Shumei Arts Council on East Colorado Boulevard

Makoto Taiko, a Japanese drumming ensemble that has been based in Pasadena since 1999, performs four sets Friday night, March 13, at the Shumei Arts Council during ArtNight Pasadena, the city’s biannual free cultural open house.

The nonprofit ensemble, which began as a private youth group within the Shumei America Spiritual Organization and opened its doors to the broader public in 2009, plays a three-piece program at 6:15, 7:15, 8:15, and 9:15 p.m. at Shumei Hall, 2430 East Colorado Blvd. It is one of 19 venues participating in the event, which runs from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. with free admission and free shuttle service. No tickets or reservations are required.

Artistic Director Hunter Loyd designed the ArtNight program as a three-piece set. The set opens with “Sakura Fubuki” — cherry blossom blizzard — a composition Loyd wrote for the ensemble.

“This piece begins by evoking a gentle breeze among Sakura trees and blossoms, escalating into an intense blizzard (fubuki) of Cherry Blossoms (Sakura), culminating in a powerful explosion of sound, and ultimately returning to calm as the storm passes,” Loyd said.

The second piece is a contemporary work by Makoto Taiko performer Isaac Caldas, blending marimba, taiko drums, and other traditional Japanese instruments. The set closes with “Haruka,” a composition from Japan’s Kodo Taiko Ensemble. The title means “faraway.” Loyd described it as an energetic and vibrant piece that showcases the diversity of drums and instruments in the performance.

The ensemble’s Pasadena roots run 27 years deep. Steven Tokunaga founded the group — then called the Shumei America Taiko Group — in 1999 as a youth activity for members of the Shumei America Spiritual Organization. Koji Nakamura, a Grammy Award-winning taiko musician, expanded the group to the broader Pasadena community after arriving from Japan in 2006 and became its director, according to the organization’s history. In 2009, Makoto Taiko began welcoming the broader public. By 2014, the group had incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, according to IRS records.

Today, Makoto Taiko offers classes for children, teens, adults, and seniors at all skill levels, and has approximately 80 members, according to the organization. The group has performed at the Huntington Library, DineOut Pasadena StreetFest, the Pasadena Heritage Parade, Pasadena City College, and other local venues.

The Japanese word makoto is a fundamental character trait that includes sincerity, truthfulness, reliability, and integrity, Loyd said. The ensemble’s stated mission is to connect and empower people of all backgrounds by advancing the practice of taiko with intention and sincerity.

Loyd, who has played taiko with the group since 2000, said the art form addresses something specific about life in a modern city.

“Urban life is often sedentary and ‘in our heads,'” Loyd said. “Taiko demands a stable stance (kamae) and full-body engagement, turning exercise into a physical release that grounds the player in their physical body.”

He said taiko also builds community through shared rhythmic performance.

“In an era of digital isolation, taiko builds immediate community,” Loyd said. “Success depends on the group hitting as one — a physical manifestation of teamwork that fosters deep connection across the classroom, the stage, and the city.”

Beyond the drumming, the Shumei Arts Council venue offers a Japanese tea ceremony, conducted every half hour from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., and a gallery display titled “The Heart that Seeks Beauty.” The Shumei Arts Council is a nonprofit that has supported Pasadena-area artists and musicians since 1998, according to the organization.

ArtNight Pasadena is produced by the City of Pasadena’s Cultural Affairs Division. This spring’s event highlights Asian arts and traditions as part of a Year of the Horse theme. Free shuttles connect participating venues throughout the evening. For information, call the ArtNight Pasadena Hotline at (626) 744-7887 or visit ArtNightPasadena.org.

Makoto Taiko received a city-funded MiniGrant to perform at the Shumei Arts Council for the event.

“City living can feel restrictive,” Loyd said. “Taiko provides a safe, inclusive space to be loud. Through the kiai (shout) and rhythmic performance, players transform the ‘noise’ of uncertain times into creative, emotional strength.”

The former Disney Imagineer examines how the city’s streets and neighborhoods shape identity, including reflections on the wildfires

The woman who helped write the story of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge has turned her attention to a real city — one that reinvents itself as relentlessly as any fictional planet.

Margaret Chandra Kerrison, the former Walt Disney Imagineer who served as story lead for the Star Wars-themed land, will discuss and sign her new book, “Los Angeles Lost and Found: Essays on Identity, Place, and Belonging,” tonight at Vroman’s Bookstore. The collection applies what Kerrison calls narrative placemaking — the framework she used to build immersive theme park worlds — to Los Angeles itself, examining how the city’s streets, neighborhoods, and landmarks shape who its residents become. The book, published March 3 by ORO Editions, includes reflections on the recent LA wildfires, according to the publisher.

Kerrison was an Imagineer from 2014 to 2021. Her portfolio includes Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, National Geographic Base Camp, and the NASA Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. She is a six-time THEA Award winner. Born in Indonesia and raised in Singapore, she earned her MFA in screenwriting from the University of Southern California and now lectures at Cal Poly Pomona’s Department of Architecture, where she was the 2023 Paul Helmle Fellow.

“Architecture is the original immersive experience,” Kerrison has said. “When we build places that are intentionally designed as human-centered and narrative-driven environments, we encourage community, play, and engagement in meaningful ways.”

The 180-page book is her fourth. Her previous books include “Immersive Storytelling for Real and Imagined Worlds” (2022), “Reimagined Worlds: Narrative Placemaking for People, Play, and Purpose” (2024), and “The Art of Immersive Storytelling: Strategies From the Gaming World” (2025). This is her second appearance at Vroman’s; she discussed “Immersive Storytelling” at the bookstore in September 2022.

Kerrison will be joined in conversation by Diane Ikemiyashiro, vice president of current series and original programming at Disney Junior. Ikemiyashiro, a Los Angeles native and member of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses, previously worked at DreamWorks Animation on franchises including “Shrek,” “Kung Fu Panda,” and “How to Train Your Dragon.”

The event begins at 7 p.m. at Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. For more information, call 626-449-5320.

“Los Angeles is a place where people can lose themselves, reinvent, and emerge anew,” Kerrison has said of the city she now calls home.

The biannual citywide cultural open house features Japanese basketry, taiko drumming, and a pan-Asian mythology exhibition among its broadest lineup

Nineteen cultural institutions across Pasadena will swing open their doors Friday evening for ArtNight Pasadena, offering four hours of free admission to an eclectic program that threads Japanese bamboo art, taiko drumming, and pan-Asian mythology through a lineup spanning jazz, student exhibitions, and community mural-making.

The spring 2026 edition of the city’s signature biannual open house, scheduled for March 13 from 6 to 10 p.m., connects museums, galleries, and neighborhood arts centers on four free shuttle routes. Several of this season’s exhibitions anchor the evening’s prominent Asian arts programming — an emphasis the City of Pasadena’s press release frames around the Year of the Horse celebration.

At the Gamble House, visitors will walk through “From Strand to Sculpture: Contemporary Japanese Basketry,” an exhibition of bamboo art on loan from the collections of Carl and Marilynn Thoma and the Thoma Foundation. The works are displayed in a house whose architects, Charles and Henry Greene, drew deep inspiration from Japanese design. A hands-on basket-weaving workshop led by artist Kelly Dennis Villalba and live music by Jazz Crosswinds, a group blending Japanese koto with guitar, bass, and drums, round out the evening there.

Across town at the Shumei Arts Council on East Colorado Boulevard, Makoto Taiko will perform Japanese drumming at four intervals — 6:15, 7:15, 8:15, and 9:15 p.m. — alongside a casual tea ceremony and the gallery display “The Heart that Seeks Beauty.”

USC Pacific Asia Museum opens its 12-room exhibition “Mythical Creatures: The Stories We Carry,” conceived by Los Angeles-based Korean American artist Dave Young Kim. The museum-wide installation blends approximately 100 objects from the museum’s collection — spanning 5,000 years — with new media technology and works by more than 20 contemporary artists. At ArtCenter College of Design, four galleries include “2-Yokai,” an animated multimedia work by Andy Fedak and Bruce Yonemoto exploring Japanese mythological spirits, alongside the landmark 1987 film “Kappa” with drawings by Mike Kelley.

The Asian arts thread runs alongside programming that ranges widely. The Armory Center for the Arts pairs DJ Trankis with the exhibition “Material Prophecies: Craft as Divination.” The Pasadena Conservatory of Music offers continuous classical, multicultural, and interactive performances, including the Hindustani classical music trio Absolute Focus. At the Jackie Robinson Community Center, Pasadena-born bassist and composer Michael Haggins performs smooth jazz alongside “GLOW: Art That Shines,” an interactive glow-in-the-dark exhibit, and Jackie and Mack Robinson memorabilia.

Altadena is represented at two venues. At Alkebu-lan Cultural Center on North Raymond Avenue, Altadena artist Sam Pace — whose work blends blues and jazz — is featured alongside live painting by Riea Owens and jazz by Clazzical Notes. At Pasadena City College, the Art Galleries present a solo exhibition of paintings by Mark Steven Greenfield, an Altadena resident whose five-decade career has addressed racial inequities and the African American experience.

The Pasadena Unified School District’s “No Boundaries 21″ at Paseo Colorado features artwork from TK-12 students. ArtWorks Teen Center on East Foothill Boulevard offers live screen-printing demonstrations. At Kidspace Children’s Museum, families can contribute to a community mural celebrating neighborhood resiliency. Pasadena Heritage hosts a participatory pattern-making station with artist Shagho.

The Norton Simon Museum opens its galleries and its recently renovated Sculpture Garden, which underwent a major improvement project that began in January 2025. The museum’s collection includes works by Raphael, Rembrandt, Monet, Van Gogh, and Picasso, as well as South and Southeast Asian sculpture.

ArtNight originated in 1999 as “Radical Past,” a five-venue exhibition initiated by ArtCenter’s Stephen Nowlin and Jay Belloli of the Armory Center for the Arts, in which shuttles connected simultaneous opening receptions. The event, eventually adopted by the City’s Cultural Affairs Division, has grown into a biannual fixture that, according to ArtCenter, draws more than 30,000 visitors per edition across more than 20 venues.

The event is supported in part by the City’s Arts and Culture Commission, which funds Mini-grants enabling smaller organizations and individual artists to participate. Each venue offers a Braille version of the ArtNight brochure, and the event website, ArtNightPasadena.org, is available in Spanish. Many venues, including the City Hall hub at 100 North Garfield Avenue, feature food trucks. ArtNight won the Pasadena Weekly’s 2024 “Best Annual Event” award, according to a City of Pasadena newsletter.

ArtNight Pasadena takes place Friday, March 13, from 6 to 10 p.m. Admission is free at all 19 venues. Free shuttles run on four routes: North, East, Central, and Northwest. For the full lineup and shuttle maps, visit ArtNightPasadena.org or call the ArtNight Hotline at (626) 744-7887.

The first Makoto Taiko performance sounds at 6:15 p.m. By 9:15, the drums will still be going.

ArtNight Pasadena. Friday, March 13, 2026 at 6:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. Cost: Free. For more information call: 626-744-7887. Or click here: https://www.cityofpasadena.net/artnight/