Friday February 21 * doors at 7:30pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

Alma Laprida's creative pursuits encompass composition, improvisation, performance, installation, and radiophonic pieces. Armed with unconventional instruments and objects such as the tromba marina, field recordings, synthesizers, megaphones and the lyre, her explorations traverse diverse realms in the pursuit of creating captivating sonic experiences. Besides her solo work, she’s part of Hypnotized Chickens and the Bureau of Sensory Affairs.

Stephen Santillan

Crying/Laughing - featuring Christian Best and Jen Kirby of Smoke Bellow, Steve Strohmeier of Midnight Sun, Rose Burt of The Compositions/Bedlam Brass, and Marc Miller of OXES/Microkingdom. “Moondog’s Dog Walkers.”

Saturday February 22 * 9am-6pm * $75-100 * REGISTER

Calling all writers who need time and space and no distractions! Whether you are just starting a project, thick in the middle of it, or needing to finish it, come spend one full day with other writers at RhizomeDC. You will have your own table and space to throw papers and books on the floor, and lots of quiet. Space will be shared but not tight (if you’ve been to Rhizome, imagine two people in each room, each with their own table). Coffee, tea, snacks, lunch, provided. Wine or beer at the end of the day. Phones will be squirreled away by Rhizome’s own squirrels. For an extra fee, we won’t give you the wifi password. (Just kidding; we won’t give it to you for free.) Featuring:
-an inspiring space (old house, big windows, beautiful art)
-delicious vittles you don’t have to plan yourself
-enforced quiet with designated talking times
-one whole day of focused work!

The Rhizome Writers Collective knows how hard it is to enter that writerly trance/get sh*t done. We’re here to facilitate the magic!

Saturday February 22 * 7pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

Vanessa Saunders is a professor of practice at Loyola University New Orleans. Her feminist, experimental novel, The Flat Woman, won the Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize with Fiction Collective 2 and was published by University of Alabama Press. Her writing has appeared in Writer's Digest, Seneca Review, Los Angeles Review, Sycamore Review, Passages North, The Writer’s Chronicle, and [PANK] among others.

K. Lorraine Graham is a poet, diviner and mixed media artist inspired by everyday life and family history. She makes a mix of abstract and representational pieces that evoke introspection and self-analysis. She is the author of The Rest Is Censored (Bloof Books) and Terminal Humming (Edge Books), and an artist book of drawings called Semiotic Squares (Primary Writing). Her work has been featured at the Kreeger Museum, Stable Arts, and But, Also. She lives in Washington, D.C. Follow her on instagram @klorrainegraham.

Sunday February 23 10am-noon Free / donations

Families for Ceasefire began organically after October 7th to create space for families and kids to engage with what was happening in Gaza and to pressure our representatives to call for a ceasefire. Since then, we’ve organized events where local families have come together—dancing, reading, making art—while modeling for our children what it means to take action against injustice. Today, we're facing a violent administration, one determined to make all of us - but especially immigrants, people of color, and trans and non-binary people - the enemy. We're facing mass layoffs and the gutting of our federal government.  In this context, we recognize the expansion of our mission. Families for Ceasefire is evolving into a space to continue advocating for Palestinian liberation while also addressing broader injustices: anti-trans and anti-immigrant policies, racism, police brutality, and mounting economic inequality. We cannot hide injustice from our children, but we can stand up against it TOGETHER. Come join us for snacks, crafts, and community, and a chance and a chance to check-in as we all wade through this chaos. TOGETHER WE CAN IMAGINE OR OWN FUTURE.

Sunday February 23 * noon-4pm * $5-10 suggested * RSVP

The DC Modular Society is a group focused on learning, teaching, and performing electronic music with modular synths. DCMS meetups are open to all with an interest in electronic music, modular and other hardware synths, and hybrid systems for creating and performing music. We encourage and support building a diverse and inclusive community—if you’re wondering if you belong—the answer is yes! No equipment is necessary to attend meetups, but feel free to bring gear if you like. Mixer and PA system provided. We frequently do informal demos of synths and electronic music techniques.

Sunday February 23 * 4:30pm * $15-50 (proceeds to Palestinian Sound Archive) * TICKETS

Listening Is Resistance Inside the Palestinian Sound Archive: preserving the audiovisual legacy of Palestine, one record at a time. Uncovered from old shops and markets across the West Bank, this archive compiles vinyl records and tapes along with stories of their production, distribution and relevance to Palestinian history.

Founder Mo’min Swaitat tells us about the origins of the project, Palestinian Sound Archive is a celebration of music, spoken word and album artwork from historic Palestine, mainly from the 1960s – 1990s. It is part of Majazz Project, a Palestinian-led record label and research platform founded by actor, director and filmmaker Mo’min Swaitat in 2020. Swaitat comes from a long line of Bedouin musicians and storytellers, and the archive references his rootedness in music as a means of celebrating one’s culture and sense of belonging. He plays everything from jazz to funk, soul to dabke, field recordings to spoken word, and folk to electronic music from Palestine, the broader region and across the Global South.

This event explores archival practice as a decolonial methodology and act of resistance, through sharing archival sounds and images that preserve and document Palestinian heritage, culture and resistance.

Sunday February 23 * 7:30-10pm * $5-10 * TICKETS

Jam nights are an opportunity for people to show up and create art together. Bring a guitar, sticks, sketch pad, didgeridoo, or your dancing shoes and come vibe. Amps, speakers, drum set, and microphones are provided. Featured artist: Babs New @newdmodel

Monday February 24 * 7pm * $15 * TICKETS

STRONG BOYS
hardcore punk from dublin ireland

STOCKPILE
richmond style hardcore 

VICIOUS ORDER
new oi tinged hardcore punk from baltimore/gaithers

GLYCINE
new dc band featuring members of cdr, pretty good, coke bust, etc
first show

Tuesday February 25 * doors at 7, music at 730 * $15-25 * TICKETS

Anne-F Jacques is a sound artist based in Montreal, Canada. She is interested in amplification, oblique interactions between materials and construction of various contraptions and idiosyncratic systems. Her particular focus is on low technology, trivial objects and unpolished sounds. Also a member of a.hop and involved with the label presses précaires.

A gleaner of sonorities, AJ Cornell transforms and transmits sonic material over radio channels and through live performance. Her approach employs dense layers of macro and micro sounds evolving over long periods of time, as well as moments of rupture and détournement. She composes and designs sound for moving images, and is a member of Le fruit vert.

Claire Alrich is a multidisciplinary artist using textile and live performance to elevate the mundane and make the magical tangible. Her work moves across mediums, manifesting as site-specific choreography, immersive installation, and soft-sculpture. Based in DC since 2014, her work has been seen in theaters, parks, bars, galleries, and empty lots. Claire will be joined by musical collaborator Maya Renfro.

Blind:Out:Dated - This is a blind date. Duo or solo? Gary Rouzer interacts live on stage with a pre-produced stereo piece by an absent artist, having never heard any of the material before this performance. All acousmatic / pre-produced sounds have been conceived by Nicolas Wiese in his Berlin studio, exclusively out of Rouzer’s improvised recordings.

Wednesday February 26 * 7pm * $15-25 * TICKETS

Washington DC-based ¡FIASCO! was first assembled in 2016 building a unique repertoire of sounds and materials rooted in droning folk songs, jittery hip-hop grooves, grunge, and punk rock. ¡FIASCO! was signed to Unit Records in 2023 and released their Unit debut Anger Artist in January 2024. Throughout years of club gigs, experimentation with original and re-imagined repertoire, and growing sophistication with electronics and effects, combining a jazz form with rock aesthetics and attitude, ¡FIASCO! built a following and a sound uniquely their own. 

Throwaway is acclaimed guitarist Kirsten Carey's post-punk band that acrobatically leaps around virtuosic riffs and unexpected rhythms. Throwaway’s electric energy is “absolutely brilliant” (Soundsphere), with “aerodynamic rock-grit flavors of the likes of Primus or Deerhoof” (eCurrent). In 2019, Throwaway released their debut album, WHAT?, to widespread acclaim, snagging spots on international year-end lists from the likes of Ghettoblaster Magazine, Tinnitist, and Organ Thing.

ZĀM is the guitar-bass-drums trio of Anthony Pirog, Andrew Colwell, and Dan Sharnoff. The trio has been playing music together since they first met in public school in Vienna, Virgina 25 years ago. Rooted in structured improvisation and stretching the boundaries of genre ZĀM plays 'hard ambient music' navigating through noise, rock, ambient, new age, glitch, drone, hardcore, sludge, psychedelic, electronica and free music.

2nd & 4th Wednesdays * online at 8pm Eastern * Free / donation * RSVP

A weekly guided dream-sharing hangout…. Welcome to the theater of your dreams—an inexhaustible source of images and stories that can provide entertainment and insight, and that requires no cable service and no subscription—just attentiveness and an open mind. Participants will share dreams, using a gentle, non-intrusive method for unlocking the metaphors that structure dreams (derived from the long-tested method of Dr. Montague Ullman). We’ll also talk about techniques for recalling and recording dreams, as needed.

Please click through for more details.

Thursday February 27 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $15 * TICKETS 

Baghed (Pennsylvania)

Saafewaay (DC)

Power Pants (Virginia)

Evil Weevil (Maryland)

Friday February 28 * doors at 7, music 730 * $10 * TICKETS

Witch’s Mirror (DC) - They play brooding, charred doom metal infused with grunge, experimental, and hardcore influences. Their debut EP is out now.

Stygian Mind (MD) - The new wave of Maryland heavy metal. Single for the new song “Iconoclast” is streaming now. This date will be the band’s first show!

Drugs of Faith (VA) - The band plays grind ‘n’ roll. This is the first time DOF is playing Rhizome. The new full-length album Asymmetrical is coming out the week before and the band will be playing a few songs from it. 

First Saturday of the month * 10am-noon * to REGISTER, please email rhizomepuppetlab@gmail.com

Rhizome Puppet Lab is committed to the performance side of puppetry. It supports the development of works in progress. You can present work for feedback or direct others in the lab to improvise or puzzle out specific scenes. You may use the group to figure out how your show might work. Anyone may lead a lab about any aspect of performance.

Puppet Lab’s purpose is to be a hub for all those interested in puppet theater who would benefit from: boosting creative power; honing puppet-manipulation skills; cross-pollinating ideas; receiving feedback about works in progress; building puppet community. Types of labs have included shadows, Laban, suspense, metaphor, music, voice, Clown, character development, props, table top, humanette, hand puppets, and much more. Open to all levels of experience.

Saturday March 1 * 1pm * $30 suggested * REGISTER

Are you a beginner in crochet? Want to learn a way to make nearly anything you could want? Then join Fairy Ring Fibers to learn how to make a granny square, a basic crochet square that you can use to make bags, hats, blankets, overalls, and more! Make up to two granny squares in this class and leave the skills to make your own coin purse.

Saturday March 1 * 7pm * $15-25 * TICKETS

Chuck Bettis & Jerry Lim - Chuck was raised in the fertile harDCore soil, nourished within Baltimore's enigmatic avant garde gatherings, and currently blossoming in New York's experimental music realms with his unique blend of electronics and throat. Jerry Lim (b. 1975) is an artist that works with photography, text, sound and video.

Guitarist and composer Mick Barr has released countless recordings. His lightning fast guitar style and singular approach to the instrument goes unrivaled among his contemporaries, leading Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat/Fugazi) to claim that “He is our Coltrane.”

Breath of the Magi is Baltimore-based improvisational ensemble of multi-instrumentalists: Che Davis, Orlando Johnson, and Peter Redgrave.

Weed Tree - Amanda Huron and Layne Garrett play improvised music on drums, prepared guitar, and etc. 15th anniversary show!

Sunday March 2 * 5pm * $15-20 * TICKETS

DONATIONS TO BENEFIT: Action Youth Media / Advocates for Trans EqualityBlack Lives Matter DC / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) / Silver Spring & Takoma Park Mutual Aid / World Central Kitchen

THAT CLOUD -  JS ADAMS, CHRISTOPHER MATHEWS-LARSEN, and CHRIS VIDELL. electronics / loops + processing / manipulation s + effects / field recordings / shortwave radio / prepared vinyl / bass / prepared guitar / melodica / euphonium / drum programming / gong / Tibetan bowl / Aztec death whistle. With CK Barlow (sampler), Jeff Barsky (guitar), Greg Mercer (guitar), Kamyar Arsani (voice) .

OUTBOARD -  guitar drone duo of Christopher Mathews-Larson (Grave Nature, Youth in Government THAT CLOUD) and Greg Mercer. The fewer the chords, the better.

Eyerolls - No sound left unprocessed.

Lucretia Hatchetface - Folk-punk tunes from Bodied + Ukulele Death Squad member.

TL0741 - Structured improvisations on analogue modular synthesizer + effects that create an alchemical multiverse.

Mei Mei Chang: projections - translates the topographical maps of the mind onto multilayered and patterned surfaces as her personal internal landscape takes on its own appearances, colors, attractions, and distractions. 

charlee scythe - sure to ignite a fire with a unique genre-bending experience with influence ranging from late nineties nu metal to 70s Brazilian jazz.

AMERICA A PROPHECY, turntable installation (second floor)

Monday March 3rd * 6:30pm * $5 suggested * RSVP

Who says creativity has to be a solo activity? Parallel play is a behavior regularly observed in children — that is, children sit next to or near each other, while engaged and focused on their own play. For adults, this is a form of quality time and can cultivate a motivating environment for creative play.

In the spirit of Parallel Play, pack and play your craft of choice during these open hours at Rhizome. Bring whatever supplies you need for your creative activity and tinker away alongside others doing the same. Folks are welcome to chit chat while they get their art on or have the freedom to focus in and get down to (creative) business.

This is a co-created space for art exploration. Parallel players will be asked to assist with setting up tables and chairs as needed. If your art form involves music, please bring supplies that you can work on with a headset or at lower volumes, as to provide space for others needing a more quiet environment. Bring snacks, water, noise cancelling headphones -- whatever you feel you need to get into your creative zone.

Parallel play will be offered on Sunday/Monday evenings 1-2 times a month, as space and organizers are available. During the winter months, we will be indoors; mask use is welcomed.

Tuesday March 4 * doors at 7, music at 730 * $15-20 * TICKETS

RAFGAK: Russisches Amerikanische Freundschaft Gegen Atom-Krieg - A joyous noise duo from Berlin, RAFGAK, is a celebration of life and a small gesture against the absurdity of global conflict and self-destruction.

Zottoh - Drone / Noise artist from Argentina, currently based in US (Maryland).

Tracy Lisk is a drummer, painter, and curator who resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although she is an internationally renowned percussionist, a large amount of her creative output has been visual art, which has been a strong source for her free compositions on the drum set. Ms. Lisk’s history as a painter and background in Brazilian percussion inform the substance of her improvisations which contain references to rhythmic structures while maintaining a fluid, suspended continuity. She has recorded and played with Gary Hassay, William Parker, and Mia Zabelka. She has toured extensively as the drummer for Butoh artist, Ryuzo Fukuhara. With Abe Mamet (French horn and effects) and Jamie Sandel (violin and effects). Seeking new sounds, modes, and relationships with music-making devices.

Thursday March 6 * doors at 7, music at 730 * $10-20 * TICKETS

The music of Philadelphia-based Hour cuts a broad pathway, and remains hard to classify or compare. Perhaps most at home beside work from Bill Frisell, Eiko Ishibashi, ECM Records, or the Louisville experimental chamber group Rachel’s. Subminiature, their new live album, comes fresh off the heels of 2024’s ‘Ease the Work’ and provides a capstone for the band’s oeuvre to date.

Adelyn Strei is a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist based in Brooklyn via Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Alone on stage with clarinet, voice and guitar, her live compositions demonstrate a fluid, melodically intuitive and improvisational arc.

Candyweather is a DC-based project comprised of songwriter Katie Pindell on vocals and guitar, Sebastian Rodriguez on synth, Ben Melrod on bass and percussion, and Dan Hockstein on pedal steel guitar. The group collaborates on layered and atmospheric arrangements to complement Pindell's melody and lyrics.

Friday March 7 * doors at 7, show at 7:30 * $15-20 * TICKETS

Ceremony East Coast is John Fedowitz, (member of the shoegaze legend Skywave) and Sandra Fedowitz. They are also the insanely unstoppable rhythm section of A Place to Bury Strangers' present live lineup. The two-piece band was originally formed in 2005 incl. other band members, and has been touring Europe, Asia and the USA. You get fuzz bass lines, ear piercing guitars, savage drums and intense vocals. Nothing polished, highs and lows.

Osmia started as a recording project in Oregon, currently based in Maine. Sometimes fuzz pedals set to ten and sometimes spacey reverberations. Post rock / post punk genre derivations. Loud, quiet rock and roll for a folk soaked sea coast. This is their DC debut.

Caustic Hologram is the algorithmic cyberverse hyper engineered to fragment our souls into compliance and terminal consumption. They are also a band and a group of friends navigating this bizarre dystopian timeline together who believe in the cosmic magic of sound and music, harmony and dissonance, to bring us together.

2nd Saturday of the month * online at 1130am Eastern * to REGISTER, please email rhizomepuppetlab@gmail.com

Rhizome Puppet Lab is committed to the performance side of puppetry. It supports the development of works in progress. You can present work for feedback or direct others in the lab to improvise or puzzle out specific scenes. You may use the group to figure out how your show might work. Anyone may lead a lab about any aspect of performance.

Puppet Lab’s purpose is to be a hub for all those interested in puppet theater who would benefit from: boosting creative power; honing puppet-manipulation skills; cross-pollinating ideas; receiving feedback about works in progress; building puppet community. Types of labs have included shadows, Laban, suspense, metaphor, music, voice, Clown, character development, props, table top, humanette, hand puppets, and much more. Open to all levels of experience.

Saturday March 8 * 4pm * $15-35 * REGISTER

Join us for an afternoon of kinky model drawing, guided by painter and art teacher: Dom. We’ll have models & expert artistic guidance. Meet your fellow Washington DC creatives. After a set amount of time we’ll open up the floor for people to make use of the space and create whatever images they wish. This workshop aims to celebrate body positivity and diversity while fostering a supportive, judgment-free environment for creative exploration.

Community expectations:
-absolutely no photography, phones should be tucked away during drawing

-the live model(s) have consented to being drawn, however, they must not be touched, photographed or talked about inappropriately in any way that could be interpreted as disrespectful

-keep conversations to a minimum, no judgment or shaming, this is a safe space for self expression

-avoid physical contact with other attendees

-if you witness someone breaking the rules all we ask is that you feel comfortable enough to go to the facilitator and explain the situation

-we reserve the right to remove anyone from the space

-no refunds

Saturday March 8 * doors at 7, music 730 * $10-25 * TICKETS

Credit is a band based on baltimore. They only produce live recordings and are from various strategic locations in Maryland, Georgia, and the State of New York which returns unto my hands.

Nice Breeze: "an ever-changing, beautifully-deteriorating sound capable of primitive slobber, muscle-moving fire, and profound Ashbery-worthy poetics, often all within the span of one chopped verse. Let’s call it Nice Breeze." -- Marc Masters    Nice Breeze will release "Everything Disappears" on Siltbreeze Records this spring.

Hatchetface is a DC-based band that blends grunge with experimental elements.

Sunday, March 9 * 7pm * $20-35 * TICKETS

The Abe Mamet Septet is: Abe Mamet, French horn; Alex Hamburger, flute; Jason Torres, tuba; Jamie Sandel, violin; Will Tober, bass; Keith Butler, Jr., drums; Brian Settles, reeds. levitate the heavy partis a new suite of music that uses composition as a platform for each band member’s creative freedom. From a genre perspective, the music is aligned with and informed by the many jazz/Black American/creative music traditions that have come before it, focusing on groove, improvisation, and textured tonality.

tumbleweeds is a new duo from Northern Virginia based collaborators Zoë Jorgenson-Speirs (bass) and Parker Speirs (guitar). Zoë and Parker, both desert natives, reinterpret hymns with a raw touch, approaching these songs with a sense of distance and deep familiarity. Parker Speirs is a guitarist and composer at home playing jazz standards, new music, rock, reimagined classical repertoire, and much more. He has released several recordings under his own name and with The Inventures. Zoë Jorgenson Speirs is a versatile bassist/vocalist and passionate educator, known for her melody-driven, hypnotic sound across multiple genres.

Monday March 10 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $10-20 * TICKETS

Killick Hinds lives in Athens, Georgia. His music is Appalachian Trance Metal made on unusual stringed instruments with an emphasis on unquantifiable rhythms, intuitive intonation, and shamanistic ROYGBIV. The primary sonic influences on Killick are animals, wind, water, fire, electrical hum, and silence. Pop-culture mashups and ancient and obscure forms infuse his music; the effect more closely resembles speech patterns and emotionally-drawn architecture than it does conventional Western music. Despite its eclectic nature the sounds are surprisingly familiar and accessible to audiences of all ages and levels of musical involvement.

Bashi Rose is a theater artist, musician, and filmmaker. He was raised in West Baltimore and was nurtured, inspired, and trained in his craft by the Baltimore Arts Community. As a musician, Bashi uses the drum-kit as a creative tool for mental/spiritual healing and as a bridge between the spirit and physical worlds. He is the co-founder of Konjur Collective, a multidisciplinary group using music, video, and spoken word to create radical, experimental, and spiritual Black art.

Seabunny Trio is Alma Laprida, Ivan Liptak, and Layne Garrett. DC-based improvisers sounding off with trumpet marine, guitar, electronics, percussion, et cetera.

Tuesday March 11 * 7PM * Rhizome DC. Admission $20-$25 * TICKETS

Join Transparent Productions for an evening of music from the trio of Angelika Niescier (saxophone), Tomeka Reid (cello), and Savannah Harris (drums).

Their latest album, “Beyond Dragons”, is on Intakt Records.

This Trio blasts itself and the audience with a breathtaking pace which is a real joy to witness. The trio explores every possible aspect of the interplay, sometimes chamber-musical delicate and transparent, sometimes explosively bold and dense, always charged with tension until the last note and the last break. The complexity and originality of Niescier's compositions are unmissable, the organic structure leads the listener into various musical worlds, which makes the trio's performance so incredibly captivating. With absolute mastery, the three transport a captivating intensity through their music and sound.

Wednesday March 12 * 7pm * $12-15 * TICKETS

BOOTCAMP (Iowa) - Fast d-beat hardcore punk from the prairie. New record coming soon on Convulse Records. Members of Psyop (Iowa)

PSYOP (DC) - DCHC for fans of psychic warfare and mind control experiments. Members of Psyop (DC)

TRIPPER (Baltimore) - Baltimore hardcore with skramz & post-hardcore stylings

OUT TO DESTROY (DMV) - Mosh heavy metallic hardcore

Thursday March 13 * 7pm * $12-15 * TICKETS

A NIGHT OF MUSIC COMING DOWN THE JERSEY TURNPIKE

THOUGHT CONTROL
full on 80’s inspired hardcore assault.

BALLISTIX
Fast and furious ushc

WITH LOCALS

SECLUSION

INVASIVE - FIRST SHOW!
Described to me as “thrashing hardcore punk” Featuring the slime city boy Miles on vocals, mems of Rashoman, Sedative, Sick Fix, etc

Friday March 14 * doors at 7, show at 7:30 * Free / donations * RSVP

Celebrate the DC launch of EMOTION INDUSTRY (Barrelhouse 2024) with readings & performances by the author & friends: Courtney LeBlanc, Tracy Dimond, Amanda McCormick, and Tonee Mae Moll. Books will be available for purchase.

Courtney LeBlanc is the author of Her Dark Everything (forthcoming 2025), Her Whole Bright Life, winner of the Jack McCarthy Book Prize, Exquisite Bloody, Beating Heart, and Beautiful & Full of Monsters. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Riot in Your Throat, an independent poetry press. www.courtneyleblanc.com. 

Tracy Dimond is a 2016 Baker Artist Award finalist. She is the author of the full-length poetry collection, Emotion Industry (Barrelhouse), and four chapbooks, including: TO TRACY LIKE / TO LIKE / LIKE (akinoga press) and Sorry I Wrote So Many Sad Poems Today (Ink Press), winner of Baltimore City Paper’s Best Chapbook.

Amanda McCormick is a feminist poet, bookbinder, lover, healer & all around artist + alchemist living in Maryland. Amanda is the founder of multiple creative brands including THE HOUSE Handcrafted, a waste-reducing art studio and magical oddity shop located in Northeast Baltimore.

Dr. Tonee Mae Moll is a queer & trans writer & educator in Baltimore. Her debut memoir, Out of Step, won the 2018 Lambda Literary Award, and was featured that year on the American Library Association’s annual list of notable LGBTQ+ books. Her latest poetry collection, You Cannot Save Here, won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from Washington Writers’ Publishing House. Tonee Mae’s poetry has also received the Adele V. Holden award for creative excellence and the Bill Knott Poetry Prize. She has been a finalist for the Baker Award, and her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of Net.

Saturday March 15 * 1pm * MASKS REQUIRED * $35-45 * REGISTER

Dye sessions act as an interactive introduction to natural dye. Every dye session is uniquely tailored to each group and may change seasonally due to the availability of natural dye materials. Each participant will work with cotton bandanas to learn and practice a variety of dye techniques.

Fatima Janneh is a Gambian American fiber and textiles artist. Based in DC, she works primarily with natural dye and is an avid knitter. Currently teaching dye workshops and selling at markets around the city.

Scholarships are available - please reach out via email to info@rhizomedc.org

Saturday March 15 * doors at 7, music at 730 * $10-20 * TICKETS

The Delarcos
Like some non regional non denominational non time or place collection of misfits who are the house band on an apocalyptic alien asteroid floating in the stratosphere
http://thedelarcos.notionsunlimited.dx.am/

Cash on the Nail
Cash on the Nail is a heavy, melodic, quiet, and screamy DC punk trio. Like life in the 2020s.

Bohemian Waxwing
Bohemian Waxwing is a local quartet who look for light in dark places. 

Sunday, March 16th * 7PM doors 8PM show * $12-20 / NOTAFLOF * TICKETS

HIDE are an electronic duo based in Chicago. The pair create dark and heavy sample-based compositions using a combination of self-sourced field recordings and various pop culture and media references. Their music is textured, minimal, and powerful, giving raw vulnerability an opportunity to unfurl. Their work is honest, confrontational, powerful and thought-provoking.

Formed in the winter of 2023 from the scattered remains of Atlanta underground staples Predator, Manic, Hawks, No Touch, and Web, Whiphouse has fashioned their first release inspired by their time amongst the wreckage of the abandoned strip mall Earth. Leather & Muscle. A Brief Gnashing Of Teeth Tuned To E.

Struggle: “For them there will be gardens of eternity; beneath them rivers will flow; they will be adorned therein with bracelets of gold, and they will wear green garments of fine silk and heavy brocade. They will recline therein on raised thrones. Excellent is the reward and beautiful is the paradise as a resting place”

Monday March 17 * doors at 7, music at 7:15 * $10-20 * TICKETS

Austin Larkin is a composer primarily working with violin, bells, and sirens. His performance and practice is informed by research into dimensions of vibrating bodies. He lives in New Haven, CT.

Theodor Kentros is a composer and musician based in Stockholm.

Heather Stebbins is a sound artist who makes sparkly, gritty, and pressing music for instruments and electronics.

Wednesday March 19th * 7PM * $20-$25 * TICKETS

Join Transparent Productions at Rhizome DC for a performance by this amazing trio led by bassist Max Johnson with Neta Raanan on tenor saxophone and Connor Parks on drums. They are touring in support of their new release “I'll See You Again” on Adhyâropa Records.

Described as “an intrepid composer, architect of sound and beast of the bass…” (Brad Cohan, NYC Jazz Record) composer, bassist, and improviser Max Johnson is one of the most prolific music makers in the jazz, bluegrass, improvised music, and contemporary classical worlds. "Multi-faceted bassist Max Johnson helms a terrific trio... Here and elsewhere, evidence of Johnson's composer's ear surfaces in how cannily he extracts maximum impact from the three voices." - John Sharpe, The New York City Jazz Record.

Neta Raanan is a saxophonist and composer raised in New Jersey. In her youth, Neta was drawn to the mysterious black and white photos of Thelonious Monk and Lester Young perched on the walls of the record stores in New York.

Connor Parks is from Orlando, FL, where he began studying drums & percussion with Beth and Danny Gottlieb. He performed often in the Jazz and Improvised Music community, being mentored by local hero Benoit Glazer.

Tuesday March 25 * doors at 7pm * $20 * TICKETS

A collective turned trio, Tara Clerkin craft free-flowing psychedelia with heavy dub drums amidst woozy washes of harpsichord and synths. Influenced by the natural landscape and their West Country hometown, their 2023 EP On the Turning Ground is a mesmerising sophomore release.

“Drifting from dubby minimalism to smudged acid jazz, Tara’s stark and tuneful voice acts as the vehicle for her concise poetic lyricism. The group coalesce disparate influences into a cohesive sound, reflecting a romantic view of a familiar world.” - The Wire

The Caribbean - "They're taking Brill Building songs and writing them in invisible ink, turning jazz standards into Twilight Zone episodes, turning folk songs into clouds of fog." - PopMatters

Wednesday March 26 * 7pm * $15-35 * TICKETS

Jules Reidy’s sublime music maps the human experience in glittering constellations of sound. The guitarist is a driver of Berlin’s fertile contemporary music scene, a respected polymath whose prolific output and worldwide touring has led to performances and collaborations with myriad lauded artists. Reidy’s breathtaking recordings and magnetic performances offer a truly futuristic, singular vision of guitar music. Explorations of microtonal mysticism and alternate tunings drawn from transcendental folk and minimalism color Reidy’s playful experiments with smudged pop melodics and sampling. A wide-eyed imagination combined with technical mastery guide each work in Reidy’s extensive catalog, from solo guitar albums and collaborations with innovative peers, including recent works with claire rousay, Oren Ambarchi, Andrea Belfi and Sam Dunscombe to major commissions from institutions such as JACK Quartet and Zinc & Copper.

The Soft Pink Truth is the shapeshifting solo project of Drew Daniel from Matmos. For this show he'll be presenting previously unheard material for laptop utilizing processed chamber ensembles, focusing on explorations of texture and space. 

Nate Scheible is a DC-based experimentalist of many stripes. In 2024 he released the album or valleys and on Outside Time, which was called "a haunted symphony" by Boomkat. He will be performing new and improvised works for electronics.

Saturday March 29 * 1pm * in the backyard * $15-25 * REGISTER

Itching to get creative? Come dye with me! This class will cover making and dyeing with indigo, including the basics of shibori (Japanese tie-dye).

You'll learn how to:
-make an indigo vat
-dye with indigo for long-lasting color
-tie up the cloth for a variety of beautiful patterns
-care for your indigo-dyed items

Each participant will receive 1 bandana to dye with. All other materials provided. You may bring a few additional items to dye from home. Small to medium sized items with 50% or more natural fiber content work best. In addition, wear clothing that you don't mind getting stained. Bring an apron if you wish, and rubber gloves if you have them.

Saturday March 29 * 3pm * Free / donations * Use this form to offer your skills or request an opportunity to learn new skills

We are hosting a community-driven event where neighbors can learn and share skills to navigate and thrive in today’s political environment. Skills shares like this help support resilient, empowered communities, providing practical knowledge on navigating government bureaucracy, accessing public services, and securing basic necessities. While this event is focused on Takoma neighbors, it is open to anyone interested in attending.

How It Works:
Fill out this form to offer your skills or request an opportunity to learn new skills. We will match the skills offered to the requests and invite those offering relevant services to set up a table before the event (on or around March 8). While not all skills will be needed for this event, we will keep a running list for future events, opportunities, and needs.

Saturday March 29 * 7pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

Alexis Almeida grew up in Chicago. She is the author of the chapbooks I Have Never Been Able to Sing (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2018), and Things I Have Made a Fiction, which was recently the winner of the Oversound Chapbook Prize. Her first full-length book, Caetano, will be out with the Elephants in 2025, and her translation of Roberta Iannamico's Many Poems will be out with The Song Cave later this year.

Matthew Gordon is a poet and artist based in the Washington DC area. His work has been published in numerous publications including Mirage #4/Period(ical), Personal Space (Vallejo) and theplaidreview. His visual art has been exhibited at Southern Exposure, Patricia Sweetow Gallery, Pulliam Deffenbaugh Gallery and other venues.

Tuesday April 1 * doors at 7, event at 730 * $10-20 * TICKETS

An 80-minute talk and listening session surveying the immigrant performers who recorded in Lower Manhattan during the first half of the 20th century, giving detailed biographies that illuminate the context of their time and place in New York. The lives and music of immigrants from Aleppo, Baghdad, Ioannina, Istanbul, Izmir, and Thessaloniki who settled in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx and worked with Albanian, Armenian, Bulgarian, Greek, and Syrian compatriots here in New York as well as the touring performers from Cairo and Athens who collectively provided music for their communities will be given an opportunity to be heard and felt again.

Ian Nagoski is an independent music researcher and reissue record producer in Baltimore, Maryland who has specialized for 20 years in early 20th century recordings made by immigrants to the U.S., especially musicians from the Ottoman Empire. He has made anthologies for Dust-to-Digital, Tompkins Square (including To What Strange Place: The Music of the Ottoman-American Diaspora in 2011), the Database of Recorded American Music, Mississippi Records, and his own Canary imprint which has released over 150 digital albums.

https://canary-records.bandcamp.com/

Friday April 4 * 7pm * $15-25 * TICKETS

Dave Rempis (sax) / Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello) / PNL (drums, Norway).

This free-wheeling trio first came together at a closed session in 2009, and as any fan of improvised music can imagine, the band hit hard from the first note and hasn’t looked back since. The unabashed energy of Rempis and PNL, coupled with the electrified cello antics of Lonberg-Holm, make for a powerful listening experience that combines driving grooves with noisy textures and occasional melodic interjections. These sliding and overlapping rhythms often give the music a feeling as if a rug is slowly being pulled out from underneath the listener while the music still maintains a strong forward momentum. Reference points include the Julius Hemphill groups of the 70's and 80's featuring Abdul Wadud, Ornette Coleman's Prime Time, and the early-70's explorations of Miles Davis' electric bands.

Saturday April 5 * 7pm * GA $25-30, Low income / student: $15-25 * TICKETS

Brìghde Chaimbeul is a leading purveyor of celtic experimentalism and a master of the
Scottish smallpipes – the bellows-blown, mellower and more emotive cousin to the famous Highland bagpipes – and she’s taken them to the global stage. A native Gaelic speaker from the Isle of Skye, Brìghde roots her music in her language and culture. She has devised a completely unique way of arranging for pipe music that emphasises the rich textural drones of the instrument; the constancy of sound that creates a trance-like atmosphere, played with enticing virtuosic liquidity.

Henbane was formed in the summer of 2023 by Kohoutek percussionist Scott Verrastro and bassist Griffin Vernor Drutchas based on the framework of 1968-1970 Fairport Convention, covering a repertoire of traditional British Isles folk ballads, lyrical gems from '60s and '70s songwriters, and original compositions. Like Fairport, Henbane aims to adapt traditional ballads to contemporary times with their own arrangements. The quintet also features vocalist Eva Sheppard, guitarist John Comune, and violinist John Coursey.

Friday April 11 * doors at 7 show at 730 * $20 * TICKETS

Assholeparade (Gainesville, FL)

Triac (Baltimore, MD)

Pilau (Washington, DC)

Skallar (Baltimore, MD)

Sunday April 20 * doors at 7pm * $10+ * TICKETS

Please join us to help raise funds for moving expenses for a community member who has made the difficult decision to return to their country of origin due to threats made by the incoming Administration.

Gloom Merchants (RVA)
Tristan Welch (DC)
Alex Harvelle (FXBG)
We’ll get it next time (VA)
Programmed Cell Death (FXBG) 

+ poetry and live painting!

Monday April 21 * doors at 7pm, music at 730 * $25 / sliding scale * TICKETS

Rhizome DC, DC Jazz Festival, and Transparent Productions present…

Zoh Amba Sun Ensemble, a remarkable project led by saxophonist and composer Zoh Amba, will release their debut record this spring on Smalltown Supersound. The ensemble blends avant-garde jazz with spiritual intensity, featuring Lex Korten (piano), Miguel Marcel Russell (percussion), and Kanoa Mendenhall (bass).

Opening set by Mark Cisneros and Nik Francis.

Zoh Amba (Roulette 2023-24 Commissioned Artist) is a composer, saxophonist, and flutist from Tennessee. Her music blends avant-garde, noise, and devotional hymns. Before studying music at the San Francisco Conservatory Of Music, New England Conservatory and studying with David Murray in New York, she spent most of her time writing and practicing saxophone in the forest near her home. Today, her powerfully unique avant-garde music is full of folk melodies, mesmerizing refrains, and repeated incantations.

Mark Cisneros (Marcos Aurelio Cisneros) is a Washington, DC based Chicano/Indigenous American artist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser whose creative output shifts between the Jazz, punk, experimental, and improvised music worlds. Born in Los Angeles but relocated to the East Coast in his 20s. Before settling in Washington DC, he lived in Brooklyn, NY and studied as a saxophonist at the New School in Greenwich Village learning from such greats as Ahmed Abdullah, David Schnitter, Joe Chambers, and Tim Price. Though a tenor saxophonist primarily, over the past decade he has placed a dedicated focus on the Stritch. An antique straight saxophone (sibling of the Eb alto) whose modern name was coined by its most famous player, Rahsaan Roland Kirk.

Nik Francis is an improvising musician with a primary focus on the drum kit, occasionally integrating electronics and small acoustic instruments to expand his sonic palette. Through topology.systems, Francis maintains a library of his solo work and collaborative projects, documenting his evolving approach to rhythm and sound.

Thursday April 24 * 7pm * Free / donations * RSVP

About ten years into a routine of running every morning, the music critic Ben Ratliff realized that listening and running have something in common. Maybe a lot of things. If you like, start with the word "track." Consider that music suggests its own atmosphere, and that running is rhythmic. Remember that both practices involve moving headlong into the near future and staying aware. Keep going.

He set out to write about music in a new way--new to him, at least--in which the motion of a body through the atmospheres of his New York running routes could correspond with the motion in the music he heard through his earphones. The result, Run the Song, is a new book of interconnected essays on music, motion, criticism, the future, and the ways that cities reveal their divisions to a runner. Within each chapter, one piece of music, one run, one atmosphere. 

Ratliff will talk with the Washington Post music critic Chris Richards about running and listening, and play some of the music described in the book.

Saturday April 26 * 7pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

Holly Melgard is the author Fetal Position (Roof 2021), named one of “Artforum’s Best of 2021,” and Read Me: Selected Works (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2023), which surveys her poems, short stories, and critical essays. Prior to this, she co-edited and designed Troll Thread Press for over a decade, a dual release print-on-demand + free .pdf platform, where she self-published ten other books, including several co-authored with Joey Yearous-Algozin. Her work has appeared in Best American Anthology of Experimental Writing, BOMB Magazine, and the German journal Merkur among other places. She lives in Brooklyn where she designs books and teaches writing.

Joanna Fuhrman is the author of seven poetry books, including To a New Era (Hanging Loose Press 2021)  and the newly released Data Mind (Curbstone/Northwestern University Press 2024.). Her poems have appeared on the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day, The Slowdown podcast and in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies. An Assistant Teaching Professor in creative writing at Rutgers University, she first published in Hanging Loose Magazine as a teenager and became a co-editor in 2022.

Joshua Smith is the author of By (Non Plus Ultra, 2021). His work appears in publications like Yalobusha Review, Word For/Word, and TIMBER and has been exhibited at the Grolier Poetry Book Shop and Harvard University. For more, visit jsmith.bio.

Sunday April 27 * 2pm * in the backyard * $5 suggested * RSVP

Who says creativity has to be a solo activity? Parallel play is a behavior regularly observed in children — that is, children sit next to or near each other, while engaged and focused on their own play. For adults, this is a form of quality time and can cultivate a motivating environment for creative play.

In the spirit of Parallel Play, pack and play your craft of choice during these open hours at Rhizome. Bring whatever supplies you need for your creative activity and tinker away alongside others doing the same. Folks are welcome to chit chat while they get their art on or have the freedom to focus in and get down to (creative) business.

This is a co-created space for art exploration. Parallel players will be asked to assist with setting up tables and chairs as needed. If your art form involves music, please bring supplies that you can work on with a headset or at lower volumes, as to provide space for others needing a more quiet environment. Bring snacks, water, noise cancelling headphones -- whatever you feel you need to get into your creative zone.

Parallel play will be offered on Sunday/Monday evenings 1-2 times a month, as space and organizers are available. During the winter months, we will be indoors; mask use is welcomed.

Monday April 28 * doors at 730, music at 8 * $15-25 * TICKETS

Motherfuckers JMB & Co. came together barely one year ago with a desire to create long improvisational soundscapes akin to music by German rockers Neu and Xhol Caravan (from which they adapted their name). With Geologist from Animal Collective (Brian Weitz) on hurdy gurdy, Marc Minsker on bass, guitar, harmonium, and Jim Thomson (The Alter Natives & GWAR) on percussion, this instrumental trio is preparing for their upcoming release of a debut album.

On Bull Market on Corn, New Orthodox (Nicholas Merz) makes music that responds to the American expanse with plain-spoken thought. The pedal steel player’s songs paint pictures of the fractured ideologies that shape life in this country through the melodic haze of his instrument, the comedy of his lyrics, and the surreal choreography that accompanies his performances. The music is both intimate and grand, charged and claustrophobic, taking the tools of country and spinning them out of context. Bull Market on Corn marks Merz’ debut under the moniker New Orthodox. Each of these songs takes on a different fragment of the American experience, traversing both the personal and political.