Best 9: Top events for the week ahead in Santa Cruz County arts & entertainment, June 26-July 3

Here they are, nine necessary know-abouts for the week ahead. It’s the halfway-to-2026 B9:

➤ Pride Month is coming to a close, and Santa Cruz’s arts community is determined to take it out with a bang. On Friday at 6 p.m., MK Contemporary Art will be the epicenter of an event called “Amplify: Art, Music, Memory & Pride.” It actually begins next door at the Museum of Art & History, with a guided tour of the ongoing exhibition of “Threads of Love,” featuring the AIDS memorial quilt, and “Out of the Closet,” marking 50 years of Pride in Santa Cruz. Then it’s back to MK, and its Pride exhibition, “Here to Eternity,” with live music from violinist Ben Jackson, curated by the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. It’s all to raise a toast to Santa Cruz’s big 50th-anniversary celebration of Pride.

➤ It’s been five years since the murder of George Floyd and the painful reckoning that followed. To commemorate Santa Cruz’s response to the moment, the London Nelson Community Center will be the site of the opening of a galvanizing new photography exhibit titled “From Pain to Power,” featuring the work of the brilliant Santa Cruz news photographers Shmuel Thaler and Kevin Painchaud. The opening features a panel discussion and a film screening on the making of the Black Lives Matter mural on Center Street. It all happens Monday. 

➤ If I’m reading my calendar right, we’re now on the summer side of the solstice, and that means the weekly Midtown Friday Summer Block Party is just rounding into form. With live music and great food and drink in the eternally sunny afternoon, the Block Party is always a good hang. Every Friday, just go up Soquel Avenue toward Midtown and stop where the chill vibes are emanating. You can’t miss it. 

➤ If my friend and Lookout’s own Lily Belli is involved in it, you know it’s top quality. Lily will be on hand Saturday for the Bitter Buzz Block Party at 11th Hour Coffee in downtown Santa Cruz. The free afternoon event promises a midsummer street-festival vibe, but before things get started, Lily will be hosting a special tasting tour at 11th Hour, Chubbs Chicken Sandwiches, Yes Cacao and more. Now that’s a summer Santa Cruz Saturday!

➤ We’re just a couple of weeks away from the opening of Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s summer season, and to get you all geeked up over the offerings at the Audrey Stanley Grove this summer, SCS artistic director Charles Pasternak and his fellow directors and actors come together at Bookshop Santa Cruz on Monday for a nice preview of what’s to come. 

➤ If you haven’t been out to Woodhouse for its Tokyo Hot Tub dance parties, here’s your chance. On Friday, the downtown Santa Cruz brewery marks the first anniversary of Tokyo Hot Tub, a free event where the DJ is the star and everybody be dancin’ to tech house, disco house, every kind of house you can think of. 

➤ Yeah, it’s my own gig. But, it’s true, most who come out to Lookout Trivia Night have a lot of fun and I’ll make sure they learn something. This summer, we’re bringing in some special guests to help with the trivia. It’s free and it all goes down at Abbott Square on Wednesday, July 2 (and the first Wednesdays in August and September as well). 

➤ Rachel Kushner’s 2024 novel “Creation Lake” is set in rural France, but that’s not as charming and cozy as it sounds. The story is set amid the broiling anxiety of climate change, COVID and the absurdities of late-stage capitalism, with a dash of political violence and social alienation. The novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and Kushner visits Bookshop Santa Cruz on Wednesday to meet readers and read from her book. 

➤ Call it Halloween in June, perhaps. But there’s really no bad time of year for a good dose of witchy deathrock. In this case, it’s happening at Moe’s Alley on Sunday with a lineup featuring the cult L.A. band 45 Grave (with legendary frontwoman Dinah Cancer), along with the “horror-punk” band Dark Ride and the aggressive punk sound of Critical Response. Goth only knows what to expect.