Activating Open Spaces Through Community Engagement Programs
That Promote Diversity And Cultural Heritage Preservation
2026 EVENTS CALENDAR
• Summer Streets
Locations(s): TBD
Date(s) TBD | 🖼️ 🎥
• Open Streets
Bronx: Beck St (Leggett Ave / Ave St John)
Jun 6, 13, 20, 27 - Saturdays | 6 pm | 💃🏽 🖼️ 🎥
East Harlem: E. 115 St (Pleasant Ave / First Ave)
Aug 22, 29. Sep 5, 12 - Saturdays | 6:30 pm | 🎹 💃🏽
Lower East Side: Suffolk St (Rivington St / Delancey St)
Aug 23, 30. Sep 6, 13 - Sundays | 5 pm | 💃🏽 🖼️ 🎥
• Trick-or-Streets
Location(s) TBD
Date(s) TBD | 🎨
Live Bands: 🎹 | Social Dancing: 💃🏽 | Art-Making: 🎨
Art Exhibitions: 🖼️ | Oral History Collection: 🎥
Salsa Stories is an immersive salsa experience presented in the communities that gave birth to salsa in the streets of NYC.
Our programs activate public spaces with community engagement programs that promote diversity and cultural heritage preservation through arts, music, community building and education.
We have presented over 150 dance events on NYC’s streets, plazas, community gardens, and parks. Our roster of free interactive and participatory art includes augmented reality experiences, oral history pop-ups, video projections, and dance and art-making workshops.
Committed to growing foot traffic in environmental justice areas, our programs cater for different cultures, races, languages, and backgrounds. We design spaces that promote accessibility, considering language barriers and disabilities that reflect the participants’ diverse identities.
Bianka is a Brazilian-born filmmaker, MUSE and Telly® Award-winner producer, a story curator, and an avid salsa dancer.
She created Salsa Stories in 2021 to provide her dance community with a safe open space for them to express their cultural identity amidst the pandemic.
Through Salsa Stories Bianka is a recurring Open Streets partner and Public Space Programming partner with NYC DOT. The project has been awarded with several grants, including the City Artists Corps, the Enfoco 2022 Media Arts WIP, Creatives Rebuild New York, CitizensNYC, Alfresco NYC, and the NYC Green Fund Grassroots Award by the City Parks Foundation.
Salsa Stories gratefully acknowledges our privilege to be able to work and create on the traditional and ancestral lands and waters of the Weckquasgeek, Lenape, and the Siwanoy Nations.
