Pizza, pizza...and A Gathering of the Tribes

On Tuesday, April 26--Save the Tribes Day--all seven Manhattan locations of Two Boots Pizza will be donating all proceeds of the day's pizza sales to A Gathering of the Tribes, and A Gathering of The Tribes will host an open mic fundraiser that evening at its threatened longtime home.

The Lower East Side arts institution, founded 20 years ago by poet, playwright and novelist Steve Cannon, is on the brink of losing its longtime home at 285 East 3rd Street, as the building is up for sale.

Culminating Save the Tribes Day, in connection with National Poetry Month, Tribes will host an open mic musical performance and poetry reading with special guests at 6pm. Admission is $5 (at the door).
 
Steve Cannon bought the building housing A Gathering of the Tribes in 1970 and sold it in 2004 to help finance the organization's programming. He has since paid rent to continue occupying the space, but recently found out that the building is being sold. So many of the artists, poets and musicians whose careers have been nurtured by Tribes--along with neighbors such as Two Boots--are rallying to help the organization keep its home. You can read more about the situation here in this New York Times article.

About A Gathering of the Tribes

A Gathering of the Tribes is an arts and cultural organization dedicated to excellence in the arts from a diverse perspective. Located on the Lower East Side of New York City, Tribes has been in existence since 1991. In that year, Steve Cannon, poet, playwright, novelist, and retired professor from the City University of New York,  converted a portion of his apartment into an informal salon. Despite his loss of eyesight to glaucoma, he encouraged the exchange of alternative points of view traditionally overlooked by mainstream media. The ideas raised in the discussions served as inspiration to the pieces later published in A Gathering of the Tribes Magazine. In 1993, a further transformation of the space by Dora Espinoza, a Peruvian photographer, produced Tribes Gallery. Since then, Tribes has evolved into a performance venue and meeting place for artists and audiences to come together across all artistic disciplines, all levels of complexity, and all definitions of difference. In this
pan-disciplinary, multi-cultural environment, artists exchange ideas, create peer relationships and find mentorship. Through Tribes' publications, readers encounter a unique synthesis of literature, visual art, criticism and interviews with promising artists of all kinds. In an attempt to attract a wider audience for these artists, Tribes additionally organizes an annual outdoor event--The Charlie Parker Festival--to engage members of the community who have seldom, if ever, attended literary or artistic events.