Artists Building Worlds. Most Connection-worthy experiences in NYC (Jan 26– Feb 1)
Where New Yorkers go for live music, deep connection, and real community.
ISSUE 04 • HAPPENING THIS WEEK • JAN 2026
This week, we’re witnessing artists building their own worlds.
A Broadway actor who got tired of the system and built a creative factory in Harlem. A tattoo artist whose work could hang in museums, but who chooses human skin - and is now inviting us to create alongside him. An award-winning performer bringing all of himself to the stage for the first time. And Juicy Soul Discotheque returns for round two.
Plus Sunday Gospel for those who want to start February with joy and hope.
Five very different doors into the same thing: people who decided to create the world they wished existed.
Here’s what’s happening.
Wednesday — Juicy Soul Discotheque #2
Dancing · Ciao Ciao Disco · Wednesday, 8 pm
This is what happens when a dance party works.
Last week, Juicy Soul Discotheque launched at Ciao Ciao Disco. The social dancing happened. Strangers cheered for strangers. The room became one organism moving together. Now it’s becoming a residency.
DJ Smurfo returns - the man whose grandmother was Terry Pollard (jazz legend who played with Miles Davis and Coltrane), whose father helped shape the P-Funk sound alongside George Clinton and Bootsy Collins. Smurfo grew up with funk, soul, and disco in his DNA.
Yemen Cafe is the kind of place where the table fills before you even order - soup, salad, warm bread, sauces. Generosity as a default setting. It’s the right place to land after a morning like this: grounded, communal, a little bit holy in its own way.
The flow:
8pm · The Warm-Up - conversation with Smurfo, drawing, games, $10 espresso martinis
9pm · Social Dancing & Moves Exchange - the floor opens, we teach each other 10pm · The Dance Line - two lines, you dance down the middle, pure joy
10:30pm · Open Floor - the party keeps going
This night is juicy for its communal release. Social dancing where everyone participates, everyone cheers, and the room transforms. We're bringing back what dancing used to be.
Put on your dancing shoes. Come ready to move.
Put on your dancing shoes. Come ready to move
Hosted by DJ Smurfo, Aesop Lucy, Juicy NYC, and Ciao Ciao Disco 🍊
Friday — Stage Time: Building the Modern Warhol Factory of Theater
Open Doors · Stage Time Studios · Harlem · Friday, 7 pm
What happens when a Broadway actor gets tired of the system?
He builds his own.
PJ Adzima spent three years playing Elder McKinley in The Book of Mormon on Broadway. He’s been on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Girls5Eva, and appeared in the new Jennifer Lopez film Kiss of the Spider Woman. But performing in other people’s productions wasn’t enough.
So he created Stage Time - a genre-defying variety show that mashes together Broadway, burlesque, drag, standup, circus, and indie artistry. And now he’s gone bigger: Stage Time Studios, a bold new creative hub in Harlem. Co-working spaces. Mentoring. Live events. Community nights. A place for the city’s artistic misfits to make work on their own terms.
This Friday, they’re opening the doors. An invitation to step inside a space built by and for artists who believe the most exciting work happens outside the mainstream… Meet the community. See what they’re building.
It feels like the Andy Warhol Factory might be making a comeback. Except this time, it’s in Harlem and around theatre.
This night is juicy for its proof of concept. The most interesting people are always the ones building their own worlds. Come see what that looks like.
Be the first in the room where it happens
Hosted by PJ Adzima and Stage Time Studios 🍊
Saturday — Travis Fountain: An Invitation to Create
Book Launch · Brooklyn · Saturday, 8 pm
Travis Fountain’s work could hang in museums. Instead, he chooses the most sacred canvas there is: human skin.
As a tattoo artist, he transforms people’s deepest stories - their grief, their joy, their turning points - into surreal, cinematic imagery that lives on their bodies forever. His style blurs the line between reality and dream: otherworldly faces, impossible landscapes, memories made visible. He listens to someone’s life, then draws what he hears.
But lately, something’s been nagging at him. “It feels harder than ever to escape the screens,” he says, “and find ways of spending time that make you feel present and connected.”
So for two years, he poured his soul into a different kind of project: While Some of Me Sleeps, an interactive art book designed to reconnect us with wonder. It’s filled with his pencil illustrations and handwritten reflections—but the real invitation is the 50 pages of lightly stenciled, perforated paper. Just enough of a starting point to dive in. Free enough to make something completely your own.
The flow:
🎨 Giant page from the book for us to create on together
🖋️ Temporary tattoos of Travis’s designs
🎵 Music from DJ Sands
This night is juicy for its radical invitation. An artist actively fighting screen-induced numbness - and asking us to fight it alongside him. A chance to remember what it feels like to make something with your hands, with other people.
Come co-create and get inspired
Hosted by Travis Fountain 🍊
Saturday — Ivan Cecil Walks: I.V.A.N. in Concert
Performance · Pinkfrog cafe · Brooklyn · Saturday, 8:30 pm
Ivan Cecil Walks is an Elliot Norton Award-winning actor. He trained at Boston University, where he also minored in dance. He’s performed at the Huntington Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, and the Goodman Theatre. He made his Hallmark movie debut last year.
And for the first time ever, he’s bringing all of himself to the stage.
I.V.A.N. in Concert isn’t a polished showcase. It’s a becoming. His own description promises: “4 mics. A guitar. A bass. A bass clarinet. Really good hair. Storytelling. An occasional yelp. A tear here or there. Pain. Lust. Rage. Love. A piano. Dance? Acting? Live music. Great hair. Talented Black people. A stage that is stairs. A bar. Chicken nuggets. 1 beret. Pair of loafers. A suuuper hott drummer. And blankets.”
We’re going to witness an artist in the beautiful, messy, brave process of finding his full voice. A 40-minute set being expanded into a 90-minute journey—and we get to be there for the first version.
This night is juicy for its creative courage. Witnessing someone become is one of the deepest forms of connection there is.
Ivan promised us chicken nuggets and a suuuper hott drummer.
Hosted by Ivan Cecil Walks 🍊
Sunday — Gospel at Brooklyn Tabernacle + Yemeni Lunch
Experience · Brooklyn Tabernacle → Yemen Cafe · Sunday, 11 am
This Juicy hang is one of the most joyful experiences in NYC. We’re starting with coffee, then walking into Brooklyn Tabernacle together to witness one of the most celebrated gospel choirs in the world. Grammy-winning, technically stunning, and known for moving rooms full of strangers - regardless of what they believe.
You don’t need to be religious. You just need to be open.
This isn’t about doctrine. It’s about listening to something powerful, noticing what it stirs, and talking about it after with people who were in the room with you.
Then we eat.
Yemen Cafe is the kind of place where the table fills before you even order - soup, salad, warm bread, sauces. Generosity as a default setting. It’s the right place to land after a morning like this: grounded, communal, a little bit holy in its own way.
Come curious. Come kind. Come hungry — in more ways than one.
The flow:
11 am · Coffee meet-up
12 pm · Gospel service at Brooklyn Tabernacle
3 pm · Lunch + reflection at Yemen Cafe
This morning is juicy for its unexpected depth. The kind of experience that catches you off guard—you walk in skeptical and leave moved. A slow Sunday that might just rearrange something inside you.
A slow Sunday that might just rearrange something inside you.
Hosted by Fedor 🍊
If any (or all) of these nights feel juicy to you, this isn’t just about choosing an event—it’s about choosing to show up together.
Inside the Juicy NYC app, the This Week tab is where you RSVP. Then we meet as a community, wander into rooms side by side, and end up in conversations and connections that deeply move us.
Juicy is a new way of moving through the city with intention, curiosity, and company.
New York is better when we show up together.
May all be juicy.
🍊 - Fedor