Events on Central

Sandia Performing Arts brings Rudolfo Anaya's two-act comedy to the Wells Fargo Auditorium, following a pair of New Mexico compadres and their wives through the awkward, tender territory of middle age. Anaya wrote this one with more laughs than his heavier work, but the emotional undertow is still there, and a live Albuquerque audience tends...

Rastas Retro runs two back-to-back sets covering Soda Stereo, Caifanes, MANÁ, Enanitos Verdes, and more, all live, no backing tracks, with both male and female vocalists handling the catalog. The...

Held in the BioPark's Japanese Garden, this annual ceremony draws on Buddhist traditions of honoring the dead through Bon Odori folk dancing, taiko drumming, and lantern rituals, the kind of observance that rewards showing up with some baseline knowledge of what you're witnessing. The Japanese Garden is one of the more quietly beautiful spaces in...

Twenty-nine years on Central is a legitimate milestone for a room that has outlasted a dozen trends and twice as many competing venues, and Launchpad tends to treat its own birthday as an excuse to go harder than usual. Lineup is still TBA at press time, so you're buying the room and the occasion as...

A seated flamenco dinner show in the Old Town-adjacent room at Hotel Albuquerque, with live guitar, cante, and dance performed in close quarters. Tablao format means the performers work within arm's reach of the front tables, which is either thrilling or a lot depending on where you sit. Book tickets in advance and ask for...

Three bailaoras, a cantaor, and a guitarrista perform a full tablao-format flamenco show inside Hotel Albuquerque, right on Central. This is not dinner theater dressed up as flamenco; the company is rooted in serious training and the room is built for the form, which means the sound and sight lines are actually calibrated for it....

Son Como Son brings their salsa and Latin ensemble sound to the Albuquerque Museum's long-running outdoor concert series, now in its 35th year. The museum courtyard fills up faster than most people expect, so arriving early gets you a decent patch of grass before the dancing crowds claim the open space near the stage. Check...

A live improv comedy show at The Box, the UNM Area's most reliably weird little black-box room on Central. The space is small enough that the performers will absolutely make eye contact with you, which is either thrilling or terrifying depending on how you feel about audience participation. Tickets are through Hold My Ticket, so...