We are offering two tracks for this series:

• Level 1 & 2 • Level 2 & 3 Please read the descriptions and register on our website :)

Each level is the same price ($65) and each includes: Three classes (1 hour and 15 minutes each) from 7PM to 8:15PM Three social dances from 8:15PM to 9:15PM All classes and dances are located at the 418 Project in Downtown Santa Cruz. Note: all classes are focused on Blues, East Coast Swing, or Lindy Hop, NOT West Coast Swing.

Santa Cruz Swing began in response to the growing interest and excitement the Santa Cruz community has shown for swing dancing. The teachers and those who have supported SC Swing have been swing dancing for over a decade and want to share the silly, playful, cool, and fun nature of the dance.

During our series, we host social dances from 8:00pm - 9:30pm immediately following the dance lessons at the 418 Project. Students from the lessons get into the dances for free. Dancers from the general public are welcome to join as well, for $5 during a regular DJ'd social, and $10 If we have a band.

Disney World Urban Explorers Documentary

**STOLEN KINGDOM (2026, Antenna Releasing, 74 min.) Dir. Joshua Bailey.

STOLEN KINGDOM is a wildly entertaining and jaw-dropping documentary that delves into the history of mischief, scandal, and theft at Walt Disney World, ultimately leading to the theft of an animatronic valued at nearly half a million dollars. The film features key figures from the park’s underground exploration community, each sharing their unique stories. As the narrative unfolds, early pranks and antics are shown to have inspired more recent crimes, culminating in a true crime mystery. What begins as a tale of friendship and passion ends with one lingering question: Who stole Buzzy? A selection of the Slamdance Film Festival.

Zoom discussion with filmmakers following the screening.

“Outrageous, fascinating, and brilliantly well told! See it before it’s illegal!” - Bobcat Goldthwait

"Stolen Kingdom is an entertaining, comical, disturbing and downright tragic look at what was once supposed to be a cultural utopia.” - Orlando Weekly

Doors open at 7:00 PM, film at 7:30 PM at The 418 Project, 155 South River Street, downtown Santa Cruz at the Dragons Gate.

$10 in advance, $15 at the door.

Santa Cruz Premiere – Q&A with filmmaker Valerio Ciriaci

ELVIRA NOTARI: BEYOND SILENCE (2025, Awen Films, 89 min.) Dir. Valerio Ciriaci.

Elvira Notari: Beyond Silence is a feature documentary chronicling the life and work of Elvira Notari (1875-1946), Italy's first woman film director. Despite directing hundreds of silent films that captivated audiences from Naples to New York, Elvira was relegated to the margins of film history for half a century. Her films, poised between realism and staged drama, were deeply rooted in Neapolitan folklore. A woman in a man’s world, her works were targeted by Fascist censorship yet found the embrace of audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. The documentary interweaves voices of those who celebrate her legacy today – from the experts who rediscovered her films to contemporary artists reimagining her vision through new works – to resurrect Elvira’s singular vision. More than a biography, Elvira Notari: Beyond Silence is a prismatic portrait of an artist who continues to inspire new creative pathways.

Discussion following with director Valerio Ciriaci and Shelley Stamp, curator and Professor of Film + Digital Media at UC Santa Cruz.

Elvira Notari - Biographical Overview

Elvira’s films were deeply rooted in local folklore, drawing on Neapolitan songs and adapting them for the screen in the tradition of the sceneggiatatheatrical genre. Stories of intrigue, betrayal, and crimes of passion were intertwined with documentary-style footage of the city: its lively streets and beautiful vistas, but also the hardships of its poorer quarters. Her filming in the streets and immersion in real working-class settings anticipated many of the methods that would define Italian neorealism. Yet within her realist gaze, moments of dreamlike invention emerge: abstract, superimposed, and colorized images that transform the everyday into a realm of imagination and wonder. Among her characters, modern women stand out – figures who embody a sensuality beyond the strict conventions of their time, challenging the rigid divide between victim and femme fatale.

By the late 1920s, Elvira’s films faced growing scrutiny from Fascist censors determined to impose a new national image, purified of regional differences and tales of criminality. To survive, Dora Films shifted its focus to the United States, distributing its productions widely among Italian immigrant communities. An enthusiastic response from these audiences allowed the company to endure even as many others in Naples were forced to close. And alongside its feature films, Dora Film also began producing short documentaries capturing daily life in Southern Italy, commissioned by migrants yearning for a glimpse of home.

In 1930, Elvira withdrew from filmmaking and retreated to Cava de' Tirreni. Her reasons remain uncertain: was it the burden of censorship, the challenges of the new sound era, or unresolved family tensions? Recent discoveries revealed that Elvira and Nicola had a third daughter, Maria, whom they entrusted to the care – a painful decision made perhaps to preserve the fragile balance between work and raising a third child, and one that created rifts in the family. When Elvira left Naples, she went alone. She died in 1946, far from the public eye. For decades, the loss of her films and the silence around her name kept her legacy at the margins of cinema history.

Doors open at 7:00 PM, film at 7:30 PM at The 418 Project, 155 South River Street, downtown Santa Cruz at the Dragons Gate.

$10 in advance, $15 at the door.

Rare Screening – Mystical Mayan Language Feature:

CHAC: THE RAIN GOD (CHAC: DIOS DE LA LLUVIA) -- 1975, Kino Lorber, 95 min.

There was nothing. The expanse of the sky was empty. All motionless silence in the darkness, in the night. Only the Creator, Tepeu, Gucumat, the Progenitors were there in the water surrounded with clarity. – from the Popol Vuh

Based on the culture of the Popul Vuh, as well as stories from Tzeltal and Mayan legend, this gorgeous ethno-fiction film was shot using mostly nonprofessional actors speaking their native Mayan language in the Mexican Chiapas region by Chilean director Rolando Klein. The story focuses on a small Tzeltal village during a terrible drought, with the people desperate for relief, sending thirteen men on a quest to save their people from starvation. They seek a solitary Diviner who lives in the mountains and knows the ways of the Ancients, hoping that he can summon Chac, the Rain God. A magical, mystical, and intensely visual 1970s cult film. In the Mayan language with English subtitles.

Doors open at 7PM, film at 7:30 PM at The 418 Project, 155 South River Street, downtown Santa Cruz at the Dragons Gate.

$10 in advance, $15 at the door.

Friday, August 21st** – 7:30 PM – SMALL THEATER**

**RAM DASS, FIERCE GRACE (2001, Lemle Pictures, 93 min.) Dir. Mickey Lemle.

RAM DASS, FIERCE GRACE is a feature-length documentary that shows the wisdom of Ram Dass aka Richard Alpert (1931-2019), the man who’d been at the forefront of studies in consciousness for over 55 years, as he uses his own practices to deal with the effects of a massive stroke he suffered in 1997. While at Harvard, Alpert’s explorations of human consciousness led him, in collaboration with Timothy Leary, Ralph, Metzner, Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg, and others, to pursue intensive research with LSD and other psychedelics. Out of this research he co-authored two well-known books: The Psychedelic Experiences and LSD, but because of the controversial nature of the research, Alpert was dismissed from Harvard in 1963 and forced to continue his research under the auspices of a private foundation. He did this until 1967 when he traveled to India and met his Guru Neem Karoli Baba, affectionately called Maharaj ji, who gave him the name Ram Dass, which means “Servant of God”. From that point on, his exploration of consciousness transformed and grew with a spiritual practice of yoga and meditation.

Ram Dass wrote many transformational books over his career including: Be Here Now, Journey to Awakening, Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service, Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing and Dying, Grist for the Mill, How Can I Help, and The Only Dance There Is.

RAM DASS, FIERCE GRACE focuses on how Ram Dass deals with the effects of his own stroke, suffering, and alleviation of suffering. Named by Newsweek as one of the five best non-fiction films of 2002.

“Equals any transcendent moment you’re likely to find in a fiction film, a novel, or a ‘manual for conscious being.’” — Michael Almereyda, The New York Times

“Heartbreaking and inspiring. Counterculture mavens will doubtlessly flip…but even mainstream audiences may find themselves nourished by this generous reflection on a life well lived.” — Stephen Garrett, Time Out New York

Ticket Price: $10 advance / $15 at the door.

Time Will Help Us Forever - The 418 Project [SMALL THEATER] Sep.4th 7-8PM

*Time Will Help Us Forever** is a live performance of original music accompanied by projected visuals and spoken word. Part concert, part film, the work explores memory, change, and the stories we tell ourselves about time.
Bio:
Mike O’Hara is a multidisciplinary artist working in painting, sculpture, film, and machine based installations. His work is an exploration of transformation both personal and material shaped by his lived experience and an evolving inquiry into the forces that shape human perception.
Born in Pittsburgh, PA, O’Hara spent his early years skateboarding and composing
experimental music before attending Berklee College of Music. His creative pursuits took an unexpected turn when he became an infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps, serving for seven years in Guantanamo Bay, Australia, and the Mojave Desert. The surreal landscapes of the Morongo Basin, the sensory overload of military machinery, and the tension between discipline and chaos in combat training left a profound imprint on his artistic approach. O’Hara’s work is, in part, a way of repurposing these experiences. The military instilled in him a respect for precision, order, and controlled force, yet it also immersed him in an environment where destruction was both method and purpose. His art serves as an act of reclamation taking materials, symbols, and psychological imprints of violence and redirecting them into spaces of reflection and new understanding. Since leaving the military in 2020, O’Hara has exhibited in solo and group shows in Joshua Tree, Atlanta, and New York. In 2024, he founded Stop Trying Studios, a collaborative initiative that seeks to push the boundaries of contemporary art through interdisciplinary projects. In 2025 he founded the Velonaut Exploration Corps, an experimental organization designed to promote individually designed methods for stepping outside unconscious participation in existing systems. His work has been described as raw, methodical, unflinching yet introspective—holding space for contradiction, tension, and ultimately, transformation. Through his practice, O’Hara works to reorient symbols of power, force, and control into something else entirely.

https://www.zeusbennet.com

Instagram:[ https://www.instagram.com/stoptryingstudios/](https:// https://www.instagram.com/stoptryingstudios/ "https:// https://www.instagram.com/stoptryingstudios/")

Doors open at 6:30 PM, show at 7 PM at The 418 Project, 155 South River Street, downtown Santa Cruz at the Dragons Gate.

$10 Advance/ $15 at door

The Psychedelic Art of 1970s Christian Hippie Comics

Religion and myth scholar Amy Slonaker will present an illustrated lecture on comic books from the 1970s designed by Christian Evangelicals to attract hippies to the Christian faith – including local Santa Cruz artist **Jim Phillips of the famed “Screaming Hand” logo! These “Christian Hippie Comics” present a psychedelicized version of Christianity where Aquarian ideas of free love and spiritual enlightenment merge with the Christian story of salvation through the love of Jesus. This lecture uses visual examples to explore the artwork of Christian Hippie Comics with their eye-popping array of counterculture iconography grafted onto Biblical narratives. The sources explored in this lecture include, among others, the work of Christian illustrator Al Hartley of Spire Christian Comics; cartoon art from the hippie-oriented Hollywood Free Paper; and issues of the comic book series The Crusaders by Jack Chick and Fred Carter (co-creators of many “Chick Tracts”). This lecture presents not only an historical overview of the genre of Christian Hippie Comics but also engages contemporary academic theories about religion and comics like those developed by religion professor Jeffrey Kripal in his book Mutants and Mystics (2003). These comic book theories present a way to understand Christian Hippie Comics as more than throw-away articles of pop culture and instead as visual manifestations of transcendent mystical truths.

Bio: Amy Slonaker** is a PhD candidate at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, CA, pursuing a degree in Mythological Studies with an emphasis in depth psychology. After a career in law, she now enjoys combining her myth scholarship with her undergraduate degree in Religious Studies from UC Santa Barbara to explore the intersection of religion and myth in both high and low art.

Doors open at 7 PM, lecture at 7:30 PM at The 418 Project, 155 South River Street, downtown Santa Cruz at the Dragons Gate.

$10 in advance, $15 at the door.

Restored Perúvian Feature on Shamanic Rituals

THE WIND OF AYAHUASCA (1983, Kino Lorber, Cuba / Perú, 85 min.). Dir. Nora de Izcue. Restored in 2018 in cooperation with the Perú Ministry of Culture, THE WIND OF AYAHUASCA (El viento del ayahuasca) was the first film to offer an authentic and honest depiction of an ayahuasca healing ceremony (a traditional South American shamanic ritual involving a hallucinogenic brewed drink called ayahuasca.). In Iquitos, gateway to the Peruvian Amazon, Nexy (Silvia Chávez) lives on the margins, sometimes as a sex worker, haunted by the memories and folklore of her rural childhood. She meets Miguel (Johnny Palacios) a sociologist visiting from Lima, studying the spiritual traditions and socioeconomic disparities of the region. “I began asking myself what I expected to find in a jungle full of ghosts,” he murmurs shortly after arriving. Miguel encourages Nexy to consult a curandero (Melitón Delgado), who suggests she participate in a healing ceremony to rid herself of her terror of yacurunas, river dolphin spirits in human form. Together, they travel into the jungle, seeking to deepen the healing in a natural environment. When Nexy vanishes, both Miguel and Melitón seek guidance from ayahuasca, and experience profound revelations while in the embrace of the medicine. In depicting ayahuasca-induced visions, filmmaker Nora de Izcue avoided the American tropes of frantic psychedelic visual effects, and instead depicts the spiritual journeys as a series of elegantly composed tableaus, through which the camera often glides on a waterborne platform. These moments of detachment from the “reality” of the narrative enfold the viewer in poignant and often profound meditative states. Melitón Delgado, who portrays the shaman in the film, was an actual ayahuasquero, and served as technical consultant on the film, with his mother Alicia Vda. de Delgado. THE WIND OF AYAHUASCA is also noteworthy as the first Peruvian feature by a woman director. THE WIND OF AYAHUASCA was restored in 2K from an English-subtitled 35mm print. (In Spanish with English subtitles).

Doors open at 7PM, film at 7:30 PM at The 418 Project, 155 South River Street, downtown Santa Cruz at the Dragons Gate.

$10 in advance, $15 at the door.

"CALIFIA'S CHILDREN: ALTERNATIVE SPIRITUAL MOVEMENTS IN CALIFORNIA" with author Mike Marinacci

From sex cults to religious murder-gangs, from UFO devotees to crazy Christian sects, and from psychedelic churches to New Age communes, California has produced more fascinating, bizarre and sometimes sinister “new religions” than anywhere else on Earth. From the Azusa Street Revival Meetings in L.A. in the early 1900s, to the Ancient Mystical Order of the Rosy Cross – or Rosicrucians – which settled in San Jose in 1928, to Church of Satan Founder, Anton Lavey, in San Francisco in the mid-1960s, and hundreds more, California has been a hotbed for alternative spirituality.
Join author and self-described “Scholar of Weirdness” Mike Marinacci for this amazing trip to the fringes of Golden State spirituality. With fascinating anecdotes and rare photos, Mr. Marinacci will cover the histories, beliefs, and doings of California’s strangest and most colorful religious groups.

Bio:
A lifelong California resident, Mike Marinacci has written several books about the weirder aspects of Golden State history and culture. His most recent work, Psychedelic Cults and Outlaw Churches, covers the now-booming phenomenon of religious groups devoted to the use of entheogens. Mike lives in rural Northern California with his fiancée and a French bulldog.

Doors open at 7:00 PM, lecture at 7:30 PM at The 418 Project, 155 South River Street, downtown Santa Cruz at the Dragons Gate.

$10 in advance, $15 at the door.

Friday, Oct. 2nd** – 7:30 PM – SMALL THEATER**

Illustrated Lecture:

“HOW THE VISIONARIES OF EVERGREEN CEMETERY SHAPED SANTA CRUZ'S CREATIVE SOUL” – by Dr. Traci Bliss

How did an isolated seaside town of only 3,500 residents become an unlikely cultural powerhouse? The answer lies at Evergreen Cemetery, where remarkable early artists, musicians, and educators rest within a stone's throw of one another. Discover their extraordinary, interconnected stories of sacrifice, heartbreak, bold ambition, and an unwavering belief that the arts could transform a community. Their influence not only endures but thrives in today's Santa Cruz.

Award-winning professor, historian, and author Dr. Traci Bliss brings a uniquely personal perspective to Evergreen Cemetery. Her ancestors donated the land that promised Santa Cruz a burial ground welcoming to all, and more than two dozen relatives are buried there—including a beloved opera star who helped make Santa Cruz a center of musical life.

Bliss's lifelong interest in cultural history solidified while an Art History major at Stanford University, which included extended study in Florence, Italy. She is the author of Evergreen Cemetery of Santa Cruz, designated a Goodreads Book, co-author of Santa Cruz's Seabright, and author of Big Basin Redwood Forest: Santa Cruz's Oldest State Park. As President of the Santa Cruz History Forum at the Museum of Art & History (MAH), she is dedicated to preserving and sharing the remarkable stories that shaped our community.

Bliss will sign copies of Evergreen Cemetery of Santa Cruz at the conclusion of the event. The book is available at a 20% discount: $20 cash or check only.

Tickets: $10 advance / $15 at the door.

Doors open at 7:00 PM, lecture at 7:30 PM at The 418 Project, 155 South River Street, downtown Santa Cruz at the Dragons Gate.