Thursday September 18 * doors at 7, music at 730 * $10 * TICKETS

Finnish Postcard

Mannequin Fight

Room Corners

Wishbone Zoe

Saturday September 20 * 12-3pm * Free / donations * RSVP

Hosted by Collective Struggalo DC

Collective Struggalo DC is a mutual aid / resource distribution org based in Washington DC (unceded Piscataway land). We collect scrap metal and other unwanted items from our local community, sell the material to scrap yards, and use the money we get back to deliver both direct cash aid and other material support to struggling folks in DC. 

Come join us for our first workshop where we will:
- introduce ourselves to the community
- teach the foundations of how to scrap
- demo examples of scrappable material

This is a 100% free event. We will be accepting scrap metal and monetary donations!!

Saturday September 20 × 5-10pm * $10 * TICKETS

INFINITE CHAOS III
Presented by Tripping Corpse, Bananafish Productions, and Alana McCarthy Light

Lineup:
IN JEST (PA METALCORE)
KNIFESPITTER (BALTIMORE DEVIL WORSHIP)
TRIPPING CORPSE (CHAOS PUNK)
GIST (METALLIC HARDCORE)
CULTURE EFFECT (ROWDY MD PUNK)

Vendors:
BBUGNUG (Artist)
THIRD I CHARMS (Jewelry)
EVAN BAILARD (Cajun BBQ)
TINY TATTER (Permanent/Non-permanent tattoos)
KYRA FRISBY (crocheted/knitted items with beaded accessories)
DISCLOSE MAGAZINE

*PORTION OF PROCEEDS WILL BE DONATED TO RAMORA HOUSE (A DC COLLECTIVE GIVING RESOURCES TO THE HOMELESS)

Sunday September 21 * 12pm * $25 / scholarships available * REGISTER

This is an in-person workshop on the basics of vocal feminization: raising your pitch, shifting your resonance, and sustaining your trained voice. It'll be interactive, so come prepared to try the exercises in a judgment-free setting. Instructor: Jessica Austin

Scholarships available - please email info@rhizomedc.org

To find out more about me or schedule private lessons, visit my website: https://thetransjessicaaustin.com/

Sunday September 21 * 3-5pm * RSVP

Death Cafes are opportunities for people to enjoy refreshments together and discuss the topic of death. The objective is to “increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives.” There are Death Cafes all over the country. What's on your mind about death and dying? Contact Death Cafe Facilitators Margaret Branch at margaret603@gmail.com or Monica Lynch at mlynch19@comcast.net.. Death Cafes are NOT therapy, grief support, or counseling sessions. Cost: Free (small donation for the space encouraged)

Sunday September 21 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $20-30 * TICKETS

Join Transparent Productions at Rhizome DC for a solo woodwind performance by Avram Fefer.

Avram Fefer is a New York-based composer, improviser, bandleader and player of multiple woodwinds. He has appeared on thirteen CD’s as a leader, many more as a sideman, and has performed in clubs and festivals throughout the USA, Europe, Japan, Africa, and the Middle East. His recent quartet recordings —Testament and Juba Lee -- featuring Marc Ribot, Eric Revis, and Chad Taylor — have garnered rave reviews, many Best of the Year listings, and numerous International festival invitations.  

Avram’s work is notable for its diverse and multi-faceted approach to music making, embracing many styles and influences while maintaining a consistently strong personal voice across genres and instruments. He has performed with Brooklyn Raga Massive and with numerous West African Ensembles. He has also been a long-term member of Greg Tate’s Burnt Sugar Arkestra and Adam Rudolph’s Go:Organic Orchestra, touring and recording many fine albums together.

Monday September 22 * 7pm * $15-25 * TICKETS

Katie Porter: Phase to Phase duo for two bass clarinets
Katie Porter is a clarinetist and curator specializing in experimental music. Passionate about creating musical communities, she co-founded the venue Listen/Space (Brooklyn) and curates the Listen/Space Commissions, responsible for 46 new works for mixed chamber group. She also co-directs the biennial VU Symposium for experimental, improvised and electronic music (Park City, Utah) and is working on a giant multi-year project of experimental works for solo clarinet at Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels, a land artwork in remote northern Utah. She currently lives in New York City. Porter will perform Phase to Phase for two bass clarinets with a special guest from Argentina by way of Berlin.

Naoco Wowsugi is a community-engaged artist who blurs the lines between being an artist and an engaged citizen. As a first-generation immigrant living and working in Washington, DC, Wowsugi's cross-disciplinary projects—including portrait photography, participatory performance, sound healing, and horticulture—explore the nature of belonging and inclusive community building. She will be presenting a solo performance for gong.

Jadyn Brick (she/they/he) is a queer, mixed race, Asian American dancer/maker from Silver Spring, MD. As a creator, Jadyn is interested in storytelling, big emotions, grief, and tenderness. They are currently dedicated to a practice of feeling emotions and resisting numbing. They aim to engage this practice in their artistic work as in life!

Tuesday September 23 * 7pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

ENTROPIC HOP disrupts auditory expectations, presenting a hyperreal triad unfolding in sonic flux. Ayumi Ishito’s saxophone, echoing spectral simulacra, spirals through Aron Namenwirth’s Beuysian guitar alchemy, a molten lattice of fracture and poise, as Kevin Shea’s percussive algorithms traverse alien bliss.

In 2022 Jeff Carey presented a show of concrete and chaotic aluminum sculptures at Rhizome. Since then, he’s continued experimenting with concrete and steel to make tables that have contact mics embedded in the surface. He’ll perform a short blast on his synthetically enhanced noise table to herald the opening of the show.

Gullah Jack is new music from old friends. Thomas Stanley, Elnathan Starnes, and Chris Downing played together in the late 90s as members of a cosmically entrained supergoup called Noumenal Lingam. In Gullah Jack, the three turn their full attention to sonic art as an efficient catalyst for defeating empire. Slave rebellions can be quite ugly: If your weapon is a drum, you must play it very loud to neutralize the carceral institutions and nuclear arsenals of global white power. No tears for Cap’n Kirk – the enterprise of manifest destiny has met its match. Soon the children will be safe.

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 September 25 * 7pm * $10-20+ * TICKETS

Insect Factory
https://insectfactory.bandcamp.com/

Mike Andre
https://mikeandremusic.bandcamp.com/

Weed Tree
https://weedtree.bandcamp.com/

Come out to support the Woodner Tenants' Association Community Defense Fund. One of the Woodner Tenants Union's members was recently abducted by ICE. Tenants are working to support this particular person and to defend their community as the DC attacks continue.

Friday September 26 * 7pm * $15-20 * TICKETS

Butt Mommy is Nat Strickland, an experimental musician from Chicago. They use performance art, noise, viola, found recordings, loops, synths, and field recordings to mirror the chaotic lives of diasporic peoples.

PROFESSOR A (Philadelphia, PA) is the noise project of Alex Domingos (Bison Squad, Media Bias). His work deals with themes of anti-colonialism, afro-futurism, and his familial and cultural heritage.

Melon Sprout (Chicago) makes amplified ceramic instruments, and electrifies them in high energy performances.

Nectar Gnome is Jenny Moon Tucker and Meg Ragan An exploration and experiment in weaving sound through the realms.

Snake Snake Seven Eleven is a new industrial sound and rhythm exploration group featuring Shrew, Haley Dolan, and Sam Chintha who first connected in the weird psych, noise, and electronic zones of late aughts DC.

Saturday September 27 * 12:30-3:30pm * $5 suggested * REGISTER

Join DC Zinefest for a swap, workshop and zine reading at Rhizome! DC Zinefest will bring paper, scissors, pens, collage material, glue sticks, staplers and all the other materials you could need to make your very own zines- even guides on how to make your own one sheet humble but mighty mini-zines. Or if you just want to trade, we'll have plenty of zines from past events on all sorts of topics from witchcraft and wizardry to videotape preservation and we'd love to swap them with you for your own amazing zines! And if you really wanna share what you've made, we'll have a microphone and projector set up for you to read your zines to all the other zinesters there. So whether you want to share your passions with us, or discover other peoples' passions, come and meet us at Rhizome Saturday afternoon on September 27th.

Saturday September 27 * 4pm * Free / donations * REGISTER

Interested in game design but not sure where to get started? Don’t worry: you’ve probably already made a game or two. Join game designers Dominique Dickey and C. J. Linton for an introductory game design workshop. We’ll start with theory and then get hands on to explore the why and how of making a game. This workshop is intended for folks who are new to game design or excited to go back to the basics! 

Lilac Peril is a DC-based small press by and for trans writers, with a particular interest in the subversive and experimental. Our next book TABOO is out now. 

Saturday September 27 * 7pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

Hajar Hussaini is a poet and translator. Disbound (University of Iowa Press, 2022) is her debut poetry collection. She received a 2024 Mo Habib Translation Prize in Persian Literature for her translation of the poetry collection Wounded Vita Nuda by Maral Taheri (Deep Vellum, 2026) and a 2025 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for her translation of Khosraw Mani’s novel, Death and His Brother (Syracuse University Press, 2026). Hussaini has won fellowships from the MacDowell and Baldwin for the Arts, as well as a 2023 Carol Anne Donahue Poetry Prize from Russell Sage College and a faculty development grant from Skidmore College, where she is an assistant teaching professor of English. Alongside Matthew Klane and Amie Zimmerman, she co-curates the Salon Salvage reading series in Troy, NY. Her writings and translations have appeared in Poetry, Poem-a-Day, Annulet, and Asymptote, anthologized in Rumi: Roaming and Daedalus, and translated into Slovak by Terézia Klasová for Revue Prostor.

Jamie Perez is the author of the chapbook There Were Rivers Before There Were People (Big Lucks, 2016), and his work has appeared in various magazine online and in print. In 2020, along with Adam Good, he founded STATIONS, a publisher of creative gaming tools and resources. Together with Adam, Rob Turpin and others, he created and published An Infinity of Ships(2025). Jamie lives and believes in Baltimore.

Saturday September 27 * 7pm * $20-25 * OFFSITE at Tonal Park (7014-C Westmoreland Ave, Takoma Park) *TICKETS*

Join Transparent Productions at TonalPark studios for an evening of music from the trio of Devin Gray (drums), Anthony Pirog (guitar), and Dave Ballou (trumpet). This performance will celebrate the release of their new recording “Live at FEMA” on Out of Your Head Records.

Sunday September 28 * 9:30-11:30am * Pay what you like * REGISTER

Thirty minutes of guided seated meditation followed by prompted art making done in silence, and then sharing of work. Designed to offer a more relaxed and authentic practice, with new insights and appreciation of the process of art making. We will provide basic pencils and paper, but beyond that please bring any supplies you'd like to use - drawing paper and drawing pencils, watercolors and brushes, etc. No art experience needed! Pay what you can.. proceeds go to Rhizome. Sally Brucker is an art therapist and artist who has taught and exhibited widely. She lives in Takoma Park. www.sallybrucker.com

Sunday September 28 * 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 September 28 * 7:30pm * $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: Simone @sunnsimone

Monday September 29 * 7pm * $20 - $30 * TICKETS

Carl Stone is one of the pioneers of live computer music, and has used computers in live performance since 1986. He has been hailed by the Village Voice as “the king of sampling.” and “one of the best composers living in (the USA) today.”. RELIX has written that “Stone makes music that can hit your ear holes like a DMT flash.” He was born in California and now divides his time between LA and Japan. He studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts with Morton Subotnick and James Tenney and has composed electro-acoustic music almost exclusively since 1972.

“He just opens up time in this marvelous way that I’ve never heard another composer do.” – Jonathan Gold, Vogue Magazine 2016

Alma Laprida (born in San Miguel, Argentina) is a multi-disciplinary artist whose creative pursuits encompass composition, improvisation, performance, installation, and radiophonic pieces. Her artistic journey began with formal training in piano at the Julián Aguirre School of Music, followed by studies in Arts Management and Electronic Arts at the Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero.

Tuesday September 30 * doors at 7, show at 8 * $15 * TICKETS

For fans of the song and how to feel it. Kath Bloom (Connecticut) is some kind of legend. She comes from a  special place where country, blues and folk are made beautifully translucent and emotive. She has a special gift – her voice is delicate and tender, yet retains that raw emotion and hard worn truths that allows each sung word to be felt.

Growing up in the Annapolis area and attending University of Maryland with friend and labelmate Robbie Basho, Max Ochs contributed two tracks for the 1967 "Contemporary Guitar" on John Fahey’s Takoma label. Inspired by his friend Fahey, Ochs developed his own interest in fingerstyle guitar, learning from one of the masters, Mississippi John Hurt, during a one-month residency in Ochs’ New York apartment when Hurt reappeared on the folk scene in 1964.  Ochs was also performing with the legendary band, Seventh Sons, founded by Greenwich Village mainstay and early folk innovator Buzzy Linhart. 

Suzanne Doogan - song-poems; Baltimore.

Wednesday October 1 doors at 6, show at 7 * outside, weather permitting *$12-20 * TICKETS

On October 1st at Rhizome DC, select members of the New-York centered but diasporic puppet show collective "We Wiggle Dolls” will perform a new adult-aimed puppet cabaret set! We Wiggle Dolls (ig:@wewiggledolls) is a diasporic puppet show collective spun out of a popular Brooklyn Puppet Slam.

Peter Redgrave and Khristian Weeks are celebrating 10 YEARS of performances together. In this collaboration, movement, sound, lighting, and the space itself are used as materials. Their pieces are constructed with highly adaptable and improvisational scores. Character and dialogue become elements to construct and enact purposeless task-oriented spectacles.

Georgia Beatty is a songwriter and fiddler, focused on cycle, lineage, and healing through cultural transmission. Her first full-length album, Apprentice to Transformation, (self-released Oct 2022) is a collection of original and traditional fiddle tunes devoted to the practice of witnessing Death as a moment in cycle, rather than the end. The stories told in Georgia's music come from a faith that our liberation will be embodied and communal.

Thursday October 2 * 7pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

Jayden Barber is an experimental sound artist, composer, and award-winning filmmaker from Providence, Rhode Island. Barber experiments heavily with large, exposed tape loops and granular synthesis. The ritualistic atmosphere and sonic intensity of his work is documented on Live at All Saints’ Memorial Church, the first-ever night of experimental music held in the historic 19th-century Providence landmark. Barber has shared the stage with artists such as Alessandro Cortini (Nine Inch Nails, Mute Records), Benoît Pioulard (Kranky Records), Daedelus, and was featured in Italy’s Radioaktiv as one of the hottest names in the international experimental scene, in praise of his EP Border Shift.

In Order Not To Be Here is an uncompromising look at the ways privacy, safety, convenience and surveillance determine our environment. Shot entirely at night, the film confronts the hermetic nature of white-collar communities, dissecting the fear behind contemporary suburban design. An isolation-based fear (protect us from people not like us). A fear of irregularity (eat at McDonalds, you know what to expect). A fear of thought (turn on the television). A fear of self (don’t stop moving). By examining evacuated suburban and corporate landscapes, the film reveals a peculiarly 21st century hollowness… an emptiness born of our collective faith in safety and technology. This is a new genre of horror movie, attempting suburban locations as states of mind.

Friday October 3 * 7pm * $15-25 * TICKETS

Join us for a night of solos and duos from four transcendent improvisers!

KEVIN MURRAY (drums, NYC) and WILL GREENE (guitar + sax, CHI) have collective resumes that include recordings and tours with John Zorn, William Parker, Joe Morris, Chris Pitsiokos.  They play with bands as varied as Tredici Bacci (progressive italo-pop), Trigger (noise-metal) and Fake Pollacks (alt-rock). Murray and Greene are both members of legendary NYC outfit, PEAVEY. They are currently on a nationwide tour supporting every album ever recorded. 

Majid Araim is an Iraqi-American multi-instrumentalist, composer, educator, curator, visual artist, researcher and a fixture of the Atlanta improvisation and new music communities. Majid's prolific work as a composer focuses on resonance and dynamics, experimental approaches, and is oriented towards the natural world and reimaginings thereof.

Simone Baron is a polyglot pianist, accordionist, improviser and composer whose work “ego-less, genre agnostic and without expectations” (JazzTimes) engages curiously and charismatically with a broad spectrum of idioms.

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.

Sunday October 5 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $13 advance, $15 day of * TICKETS

Red Brick Presents

GOOD FLYING BIRDS (Indianapolis)
https://goodflyingbirds.bandcamp.com/track/erics-eyes-2

JANITORS (DC)

WORLD RECORD (Baltimore)
https://worldrecord2.bandcamp.com/album/the-away-team-ep

Monday October 6 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $15-30 * TICKETS

Presented by Outside Time. Season Pass for all four Outside Time shows in Fall 2025 available HERE.

Neti-Neti is the lo-fi ritual music duo of Matt Evans (drums/electronics) and Amirtha Kidambi (vocals/electronics) that formed amidst their mutual experiences surrounding grief after the death of loved ones. Neti-Neti, translated as “It is not this, it is not that” from Sanskrit, is a contemplation on the nature of reality, life, death, birth and rebirth extracted from the Hindu text of rituals The Upanishads.

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. Layne Garrett plays prepared guitar and found object percussion in the long-running improvising duo Weed Tree and myriad other ad hoc formations. Sarah Hughes’ music is intuitive and genre-liberated while displaying an unquestionable command of her instrument and musical vocabulary. Nate Scheible has performed and recorded in a variety of bands and ensembles spanning multiple genres over the past 25 years. His background is largely based in improvisation on drums, electronics, and analog tape.

Max Hamel is a craftsperson, musician, artist and instrument maker with diverse practices ranging from professional fine violin luthiery to handmade live electronics. Their performance work builds upon a foundation of circuit bending, feedback, touch and chaos, delighting in subtlety, pliable gesture and flippant ambiguity.

Tuesday October 7 * 7pm * $10-15 * TICKETS

Evil Sword To experience Evil Sword is to run through the forest with a pack of feral children as your guide, their motives unclear. Will they ambush you in a thicket and steal your trinkets? Or lead you laughing to hidden wonders? The bass lines lurch like a lumber cart careening downhill surrounded by a swarm of bells and whistles, and out of dark hollows echo haunting chants of life and death.

Katie (Magician) Macyshyn (they/she) is an artiste and play practitioner. Their collaborative new media art creates communal rituals exploring alienation and reconciliation. Macyshyn holds a BFA from the Corcoran College of Art + Design. They have been featured in performance art festivals, DIY venues, and galleries such as Transformer DC, MoCA Arlington, VisArts, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

Suburbanabuse is happening in this slough.

Wednesday October 8 * 7pm * $15 * TICKETS

Sensor Ghost
Luke Stewart
Aaron Leitko

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 October 9 * doors at 7, music at 730 * $10-20 * TICKETS

If Gus Englehorn didn’t exist, one of his songs would have to invent him. A former pro snowboarder reborn as a nomadic psych-pop prophet, Englehorn has lived a rollercoaster life that reads like one of the fantastical fables that fill his songbook. Gus's latest album The Hornbook magically transmutes the entire history of 20th-century rock ‘n’ roll—’50s golden oldies, ‘60s garage spunk, ‘70s glam flamboyance, ‘80s indie transgression, ‘90s lo-fi weirdness—into an alien transmission from the future.

Mia and the Argonauts - A new quartet from Washington, DC featuring all teachers from Jackson-Reed High School, formerly known as Wilson. Singer-songwriter Mia Chu on guitar and vocals, with James Kelly (Boys Club) on lead guitar, Marc Minsker (MFS JMB & Co.) on bass, and Tom Murphy on drums.

Overtime ZZZ is the leftfield, guitar pop solo project of PJ Brownlee (Art Sound Language, ex-Plums).

Friday October 10 * 7pm * $15 * TICKETS

As a multi-instrumentalist and producer, Asher White’s auteurish pop vision is vulgar and transcendent: marrying skittering noise with swooping strings, lively banjo with blasts of feedback, dissonant flutes with elegant bossa nova. Since the early 2010s she has developed a sprawling discography that spans experimental drone, tropicalia, noise rock, and folk. Her heartfelt and compulsively inclusive aesthetic is often informed by her transness, her Jewish spirituality, and her ongoing negotiations with hedonism. Her music runs in parallel to her work as a visual artist and writer; her first book was published by Atlantic Filtration Systems in 2024.

Cathartic and cerebral, Richmond, VA quartet Hotspit offers a penetrating style of music with dense layers of emotion and resonance. This sound roots itself in the fully explored genre of alt-rock while also reaching upward for something more to add to its venerated tone. The band lands upon an expansive sound that helps decipher the enigmatic nature of everyday emotions that haunt our lives.

Rosslyn Station is Guinevere Tully, an anti-folk artist from Herndon, Virginia. Recorded cheap and released for free, her songs reach gently into past hurts and present despair for something kind to share. She sings about heartbreak, depression, and dysphoria with softness and sincerity in the stubborn hope that you'll sing along.

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.

Sunday October 12 * 3-5pm * RSVP

Death Cafes are opportunities for people to enjoy refreshments together and discuss the topic of death. The objective is to “increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives.” There are Death Cafes all over the country. What's on your mind about death and dying? Contact Death Cafe Facilitators Margaret Branch at margaret603@gmail.com or Monica Lynch at mlynch19@comcast.net.. Death Cafes are NOT therapy, grief support, or counseling sessions. Cost: Free (small donation for the space encouraged)

Sunday October 12 * 7pm * $20-25 * TICKETS

Transparent Productions presents... Byron Asher and Tomas Majcherski (reeds), Matt Booth (bass), and Doug Garrison (drums).

Sonic Chambers Quartet is a new formation co-led by New Orleans-based clarinetist and saxophonist Byron Asher and New York City-based saxophonist and clarinetist Tomas Majcherski and performing original music that sits at the nexus of new composition and free improvisation. The multi-instrumentalists and composers have known each other and performed together for over 10 years, primarily in the New Orleans music scene, though their collaboration on this project began in 2023. In addition to their shared experiences as musicians, their connection is deepened by strikingly similar life paths prior to meeting – including past work in avant garde theater and formal studies in philosophy and religion. Their music is richly informed by these experiences, grounding their collaboration in dialogues around improvisation and composition, performance, art and collectivity. In the group, they are joined by North Carolina-based bassist Matt Booth and veteran New Orleans drummer Doug Garrison. Their debut record Kiss of the Earth was released in April 2025 on 577 Records and hailed by Dave Sumner of Bandcamp Daily as "wonderful, wildly melodic and a rhythmic dynamo."

Wednesday October 15 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $10-20 * TICKETS

Glowhazel is the solo project of Arlington-based mountain dulcimer player Thiel Secrist, in an attempt to queer the boundaries between traditional music and experimental soundscapes.

Cyrus & Oz blurs the lines between left-field electronica, bedroom folk-pop, and experimental noise ambience in a musical style that is mellow, playful, and endearing.

James Wolf is a DC-area composer and musician. He has played violin, guitar, and keyboards in many groups over the last 25 years, including The Orchid, Fern Knight, Phoenix Auto Group, Laconic Chamber. and Air King.

Iliana Yare creates soulful, immersive ambient music with her harp and effects.

Thursday October 16 * 7pm * $15-30 * TICKETS

Join us for a night of outward-bound music celebrating the release of Broadsides, the new album by Berlin-based sound artist and composer Weston Olencki. The album is the first LP release on DC-based label Outside Time. Each artist's work speaks to concepts of tradition and innovation in striking, unique ways. Olencki will perform work from Broadsides, Pneumwrights (Alma Laprida, Jamal Moore, and Samuel Burt)  will improvise, and niki afsar will perform a composition entitled "baraye nika (for Nika)". 

Presented by Outside Time

Season Pass for all four Outside Time shows in Fall 2025 available HERE.

Friday October 17 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $15 * TICKETS

Chris Ryan Williams is an improviser, composer, and artist based in Brooklyn, NY. His work spans electroacoustic composition, improvisation, and performance installation, investigating resonance, memory, and the thresholds between interior and exterior sound.

Truculent is the moniker for Philadelphia guitarist Dan Timlin. Since 2016 Truculent has developed his sound by blending melodic rhythmic guitar compositions with field recordings and found sounds to create atmospheric soundscapes.

Broommaker began as Teething Veils in 2006 in Washington, DC, playing occasional live shows at places such as the Montgomery College Planetarium and their own living room at 611 Florida Ave, becoming more active about six years later. They have played live for audiences in 48 US states and the District of Columbia, and two Canadian provinces

Drone City Tyranny - D.C. Tyranny is a new collective born from Tristan Welch, Gangstalker and other collaborating musicians. This is our first action.

Saturdays: August 30, September 13, October 18, November 8 * 10am - noon * Free / donations * RSVP

Come join us as we plunge into The Fire Next Time, a collection of essays by James Baldwin, as we read to each other in community (or just listen!). Each week we'll pick up where we left off in the previous meeting, but please feel free to join in on any of the days we hold the book club. We'll take time to reflect and discuss what we've read, making this the ultimate, casual, zero-homework book club.

Saturday October 18 * 1pm * Free / donations * REGISTER

On Saturday October 18 from 1-2:30 pm, we'll be playing the appropriately spooky Fork Creek Almanac by Alex Dodge and Matt Jent, a game about regret, small-town gossip, and the inevitability of death. 2-20 players will take on the role of a ghost in the small Appalachian town of Fork Creek on a night when the veil between worlds wears thin, allowing them to interact with each other and recover lost memories of their lives. The tone is contemplative but not necessarily scary, and we can adjust for any and all player tastes. If you're a fan of the Death Cafes run here at Rhizome, this might be a game that interests you!

Saturday October 18 * 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 itemsEach 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.

Instructor: Sophie Kanter: www.thebluesti.com/

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 October 23 * 7pm * $15-25 * TICKETS

Transparent Productions presents…

Michael Sarian’s ESQUINA is a cinematic, electro-acoustic project blending jazz improvisation with modular textures and ambient soundscapes. Shaped by Sarian’s Armenian heritage and Argentine roots, the music explores identity, dislocation, and ritual through long-form compositions and extended trumpet techniques. Out now on by Greenleaf Music, ESQUINA invites listeners into a bold, immersive experience that pushes jazz into new territory. Michael Sarian (trumpet), Santiago Leibson (keyboards), Marty Kenney (bass), Nathan Ellman Bell (drums).

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. 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. Andrew Frankhouse (sax), Nelson Dougherty (guitar), Steve Arnold (bass), Keith Butler, Jr. (drums).

Friday October 24 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $15-25 *TICKETS

Martin Bisi is an original No Wave and Post-Punk producer from New York City who has been part of its musical history for the past four decades.

Rip Room - Once described as “dance music for people who don’t like to dance,” Rip Room prefers the humble designation “dance music for people who like to dance … but are also bummed out”.

Quattracenta is a three-piece art rock band from Baltimore, MD, who draw on post punk and no wave influences to create cathartic and meditative songs about mortality and longing.

Saturday October 25 * 9am-6pm * $60-100 * 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!

Sunday October 26 * 7pm * OFFSITE at Tonal Park * $25-30 * TICKETS

Transparent Productions presents…

Adam Rudolph (handrumset, electronic processing, thumb pianos, mouth bow, bamboo flutes, glockenspiel, gongs, vocal, percussion)
Kaoru Watanabe (taiko, Japanese percussion, noh kan and fue flutes, electric koto, vocal and electronic processing)
Alexis Marcelo (piano, electric keyboards, kalimba, melodica, percussion)

Composer, improviser, and percussionist ADAM RUDOLPH has been hailed as “a pioneer in World music” by the NY Times and “a master percussionist” by Musician magazine. Rudolph has released several albums as leader and has also recorded with musicians Sam Rivers, Omar Sosa, Wadada Leo Smith, Pharoah Sanders, Bill Laswell, Herbie Hancock, Foday Musa Suso, and Shadowfax. Acclaimed composer and instrumentalist KAORU WATANABE'S work is grounded in traditional Japanese music while imbued with jazz, improvisation, and experimental music elements. ALEXIS MARCELO is a New York City-based pianist whose musical journey began with classical training at the Harlem School of the Arts. As a Black Latino artist Alexis was highly influenced by the vibrant musical landscape of New York in the 80’s and 90’s.

Sunday October 26 * 7:30pm * $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: Kira @kirakimora

Wednesday October 29 * doors at 7, show at 730 * $15-30 * TICKETS

Presented by Outside Time. Season Pass for all four Outside Time shows in Fall 2025 available HERE.

Saxophonist, composer and improviser Cole Pulice traffics in shimmering, otherworldly beauty. On Land's End Eternal, their first album for Leaving Records (releasing May 9th), the Oakland-based artist expands their compositional palette beyond signal-processed saxophone to include layers of electric guitar and lush choral arrangements. The result is a prismatic collection of pastoral chamber jazz in six parts.

Heather Stebbins is a DC-based composer and multi-instrumentalist whose work explores the porous boundary between memory and emotion. She foregrounds cello, synthesizer, and an array of other electronics, creating music that is imbued with patience, unfolding slowly over the course of multi-movement suites. Her new album, On Separation, was released by Outside Time in May.

Lispectre is Jonathan Williger taking baby steps into the sonic unknown. Tools and methods are variable, but always outward bound. JW is the proprietor of the Outside Time label and show series.

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.

Tuesdays November 4 - December 9 * 7:30pm * $60-100 * REGISTER

Fieldwork is a non-directorial feedback method that supports the development of new work without the pressure of producing a finished product. Participants meet weekly to share works-in-progress and exchange objective, artist-to-artist feedback in a studio setting, guided by an experienced peer-facilitator. The session culminates with an opportunity for participants to share work in an informal showing.

Fieldwork is for creators of all types! [solo performing artists, writers, composers, choreographers, playwrights, multidisciplinary artists, poets, painters, vocalists…and more!] Honed by artists around the world for over 30 years, Fieldwork has been an incubating space for DMV-based artists for 20+ years. The Field/DC is a member of the international Fieldwork Network.

6 sessions plus a Public Showing on December 16. Class size 6-8 people plus facilitator.

Wednesday November 5 * doors at 7, music at 8 * $10 / pay what you can * TICKETS

Gusher (Richmond No-Wave Art Punk)
https://gusher1312.bandcamp.com/album/kiissiiiing

Slot (Baltimore Industrial Pop)
https://slotmp3.bandcamp.com/album/limbo

Saafewaay (DC Evil Corp Punk Muzak)
https://saafewaay.bandcamp.com/album/thank-u-4-shopping

Saturdays: August 30, September 13, October 18, November 8 * 10am - noon * Free / donations * RSVP

Come join us as we plunge into The Fire Next Time, a collection of essays by James Baldwin, as we read to each other in community (or just listen!). Each week we'll pick up where we left off in the previous meeting, but please feel free to join in on any of the days we hold the book club. We'll take time to reflect and discuss what we've read, making this the ultimate, casual, zero-homework book club.

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.

Sunday November 9 * doors at 630, show at 7pm * $15 * TICKETS

“For 15 years the trio of Ak’chamel has built a solid reputation as a compelling stage project. Wearing nightmarish costumes and engaging in hallucinatory “rituals”, their singular sound comprising desert-scorched psychedelia, post-apocalyptic shamanism, and lo-fi ritual-folk is as unique as the physical theater of their live performances.”

Zelzeleh - Iranian multi-instrumentalist Kamyar Arsani (Faraway Ghost) and Indian-born drummer/electronic music producer Ravish Momin (Sunken Cages) create their own brand of digital folk music that draws on Sufi mysticism, traditional Persian Music, street rhythms from Mumbai and contemporary electronic music at once. Momin accompanies Arsani’s vocals and daf (frame-drum) with a masterful blend of electronic and acoustic percussion, including live-looping via his unique drum-loop performance system.

Derek Monypeny sees his musical mission as adding to and expanding on what he calls the "desert continuum;" the psychedelic sirocco swirl of desert-based stringed instruments played with utter abandon by musicians the world over. Derek is a former member of the bands Oaxacan (Oakland, CA), ALTO! (Portland, OR), and Sir Richard Bishop's Freak Of Araby Ensemble. He has an ongoing duo project with Bryan Hillebrandt, OAE (Oakland Afternoon Ensemble). He has performed and toured with artists such as Bill Orcutt, Mike Watt, Jozef van Wissem, Lau Nau, Arrington de Dionyso, and many others.

Friday November 14 * 7pm * $20-25 * TICKETS

Transparent Productions welcomes back William Hooker (drums) with a trio featuring David First (guitar) and James Ilgenfritz (bass).

William Hooker (drummer, composer and poet) has created works that range from jazz and "new" music to experimental genres. He has released over 80 CDs as a leader. William’s latest releases are A Time Within: Live at the New York Jazz Museum, January 14, 1977 and archival recording with Alan Braufman and David S. Ware and The Ancients with Isaiah Collier and William Parker. “Recognized as an iconoclast, and one of the most innovative musicians and drummers of his generation, William knows no genre bounds and ceaselessly searches for new forms of music, always with the intent to inspire.” - THE WIRE

David First has always been fascinated by opposites and extremes. He has played in raucous drunken bar bands, semi-legal DIY basements and in pin-drop quiet concert halls with classical ensembles. First’s performances often find him sitting trance-like without seeming to move a muscle, unless he is playing with his psychedelic punk band, Notekillers, at which time he is a whirling blur of hyperactive energy. He has been called a fascinating artist with a singular technique in the NYTimes, and a bizarre cross between Hendrix and La Monte Young in the Village Voice.

Composer and bassist James Ilgenfritz is recognized in the New Yorker for his “characteristic magnanimity” and his “invaluable contributions to New York’s new-music community." His 2019 album You Scream A Rapid Language collects recent chamber works, and features Pauline Kim Harris, Conrad Harris, William Winant, Thomas Buckner, Kathleen Supové, Margaret Lancaster, and Joseph Kubera, and was noted in The Wire for its "glint of mischief" and ability to "foreground the performative and gestural elements of music making."

Sunday November 16 * 3-5pm * RSVP

Death Cafes are opportunities for people to enjoy refreshments together and discuss the topic of death. The objective is to “increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives.” There are Death Cafes all over the country. What's on your mind about death and dying? Contact Death Cafe Facilitators Margaret Branch at margaret603@gmail.com or Monica Lynch at mlynch19@comcast.net.. Death Cafes are NOT therapy, grief support, or counseling sessions. Cost: Free (small donation for the space encouraged)

Saturday November 22 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $25-30 * TICKETS

Transparent Productions welcomes Otherlands Trio: Stephan Crump (bass), Darius Jones (alto sax), and Eric McPherson (drums). “A massive veteran trio...bassist Stephan Crump and alto saxophonist Darius Jones are not just immense players, they’re also two of the city’s great creative music composers, pushing it into wondrous, unexpected but also inviting spaces.” New album, Star Mountain, arrives October 17, 2025 on Intakt Records.

Stephan Crump is a Grammy-nominated bassist and composer, collaborator and bandleader, soloist and educator, based in New York City since 1994. Working beyond genre, he has become a crucial component of multiple New York music communities in and beyond jazz. Darius Jones has created a recognizable voice as a critically acclaimed saxophonist and composer by embracing individuality and innovation in the tradition of African-American music. Jones has released a string of diverse recordings featuring music and images evocative of Black Futurism. Jones’ music is a confrontation against apathy and ego, hoping to inspire authenticity that compels us to be better humans. A native of NYC, Eric McPherson came to prominence apprenticing with legendary saxophonist and educator, Jackie Mclean, and innovative pianist and composer Andrew Hill. Those foundational experiences cultivated Eric into one of the leading drummers in contemporary creative music.

Sunday November 23 * 7pm * $10-20 * TICKETS

Kristina Warren is a versatile and imaginative sound artist, composer, and performer based on Narragansett land, also known as Providence, Rhode Island. Warren’s performances range from synth voyages and digital soundscapes to concertina meditations and beyond; Warren also presents installations, workshops, lectures, and more. All this work aims in various ways to highlight the ebbs and flows of individual and collective listening attention.

Mike Alfieri (he/him) is a NY-based musician known for his collaboration with experimental pop group Tomato Flower and his solo electronic sets using Sensory Percussion. He’s toured widely and performed with artists like Animal Collective, Melt Banana, Susan Alcorn and Matmos.

Signals Under Tests - Richard Graham, Ph.D., is a musician, technologist, educator, and entrepreneur. His academic and practical pursuits encompass computer-assisted music composition and instrumental performance.

Friday November 28 * doors at 7, music at 7:30 * $10 * TICKETS

Druid Stone - Druid Stone was conceived under the influence of cheap drugs in the Autumn of 2011. Have the members straightened out, or are they still doomed to getting high at the expense of the world? Come see for yourself…

The Lampreys - Laptop-Twee from Richmond, Virginia

Fibbing - Baltimore-based piano rock trio celebrating the release of their first full-length album

The Death of James Dean - DOJD is a Philadelphia-based punk band coursing with Northern Virginian blood. Their often-unintelligible live shows sit at the intersection of hardcore, post-rock, and performance art.

Friday December 5 * doors at 7, music at 730 * $15-20 * TICKETS

In support of her newest album Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark, Gwenifer Raymond returns to Rhizome during her winter tour of the States. The album is Raymond’s first since 2020’s Strange Lights Over Garth Mountain, which drew widespread acclaim for its repurposing of Mississippi blues and John Fahey’s intricate Americana to embody Raymond’s roots in rural South Wales and her interests in folk horror and the avant garde, a new form dubbed Welsh Primitive. Now, on her forthcoming album, Raymond finds herself conjuring the work of pioneering rocket scientists, the words of fictional hobo prophets and the concepts of mathematical infinity. 

Christo Graham began writing his first songs when he was just 13. His effective minimalism is evident in his 2020 album 'Turnin'', whose 12 songs were inspired by a four-track recorder belonging to his grandmother and containing two songs recorded by herself at some point. His latest album “Music For Horses”, released by We Are Busy Bodies in October 2024 was also created on a similarly mystical recorder. Recorded in a 115-year-old classroom, with reduced percussion and restrained guitar, these new songs by Christo Graham emanate an almost meditative contemplation.

Insect Factory is the music of Jeff Barsky (and collaborators) and is a meditative project focused on deconstructing the possibilities of guitar to create detailed, hypnotic compositions. “…densely layered loops, planes of static standing tall like a gigantic back-scratcher of audio, improvised melodies clamoring over drones like they’re peaks in a mountain range…monolithic, moving, fluid and entirely lovely.” – Tiny Mix Tapes 

Sunday December 21 * 3-5pm * RSVP

Death Cafes are opportunities for people to enjoy refreshments together and discuss the topic of death. The objective is to “increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives.” There are Death Cafes all over the country. What's on your mind about death and dying? Contact Death Cafe Facilitators Margaret Branch at margaret603@gmail.com or Monica Lynch at mlynch19@comcast.net.. Death Cafes are NOT therapy, grief support, or counseling sessions. Cost: Free (small donation for the space encouraged)