Kidspace Children’s Museum will open its gates and the surrounding park to a free daylong Neighborhood Block Party on Sunday, May 31, featuring 10 performing groups drawn from the Pasadena and Altadena communities the museum has served since 1979.
The lineup spans folk dance, brass, taiko drumming, punk, bluegrass, Afro-Latin percussion, mariachi, Scottish pipes, and an inclusive dance troupe a roster the museum assembled to reflect the cultural range of its neighbors, according to its event page. Admission to the museum and the outdoor festivities will be free from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. RSVP is requested through the museum’s website.
Among the performers is Mayeya, the performance arm of Rhythms of the Village, an Altadena-based African cultural center founded in 2013 on North Lake Avenue by the Chukwurah family. Baba Onochie Chukwurah, who came to the United States from Nigeria in 1969 as a bass player for the musician Fela Kuti, built the storefront into a cultural hub for African art, handmade clothing, instruments, and community drum circles, according to Inc. magazine and PBS SoCal reporting. The Eaton Fire destroyed the shop in January 2025, along with what his son and co-founder Emeka Chukwurah has described as more than $1 million in inventory. The family has continued performing at community events across the region since the fire. Kidspace previously hosted the group for Black History Month programming earlier this year, according to a report on the Altadena Now website.
The full performance schedule also includes Ballet Folclórico MEXICA, the BLOW Brass Band an eight-piece Los Angeles group formed in 2020 whose members have recorded with Beyoncé, John Williams, and Herbie Hancock, according to the band’s website The Iron Orchids, Long Story Shorts, Makoto taiko drummers, Longfellow Mariachi from Longfellow Elementary School in Pasadena, Scottish Pipes and Drums, and the Thurgood Marshall High Dance Team, according to the Kidspace event listing. Straight Up Abilities, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that provides inclusive dance classes for individuals of all abilities, including those with physical and intellectual disabilities, will also perform. The organization, founded in 2016 by Robin Olive, holds weekly classes in Pasadena and teaches more than 500 students each week, according to its website.
Beyond the stage, the event will include chalk art, community mural-making, kindness projects, water play, food trucks, and Pasadena Humane Society dog adoptions, according to the event’s promotional listing. The museum’s Kidspace Campout programming including the Arroyo Stream splash area, miniature Golden Gate Bridge pedal trikes, and campfire sing-alongs will also be open to visitors, according to the event page. Stilt walkers and jugglers will roam the grounds.
The block party takes place in Brookside Park, the 61-acre city park adjacent to the Rose Bowl where Kidspace has been located since it moved into the historic Fannie E. Morrison Horticultural Center in 2004. The museum sits on 3.5 acres within the park and features more than 40 hands-on exhibits and outdoor play spaces. The Altadena Library District has maintained a weekly mobile library presence at the museum every Friday since April as part of a yearlong collaboration, according to the library district’s website.
Kidspace was founded in 1979 as a project of the Junior League of Pasadena and the Caltech community. It has served more than five million visitors since then, according to the museum’s history page. Lisa Clements has served as CEO since 2020.
The museum played a direct role in the community’s response to the Eaton Fire, which destroyed more than 9,000 structures across Altadena and parts of Pasadena in January 2025. According to the museum’s own account, Kidspace reopened on January 16, 2025, offering 4,500 free admission tickets, bottled water, child-sized masks, and diapers while FEMA trucks still occupied the parking lot outside. More than 85 percent of museum staff reported significant personal impact from the fires, the museum stated. For schools displaced or destroyed by the blaze eight campuses were severely damaged, Kidspace became a free second home for classes and reunions for the remainder of the school year, according to the museum. Nearly 23,000 residents were affected by the fires, with approximately 77 percent of their children under the age of 13, the museum reported.
The block party’s tagline on the Kidspace website reads, “Hey ‘Dena, Let’s Play!” a nod to the shorthand locals use for both Pasadena and Altadena. LAist is the event’s media sponsor, according to the event listing.
The Kidspace Neighborhood Block Party takes place Sunday, May 31, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Kidspace Children’s Museum, 480 N. Arroyo Blvd., Pasadena. Admission is free. RSVP at kidspacemuseum.org. Information: (626) 449-9144.
Families returning to Kidspace on Saturday will find the same museum that opened its doors when the fires were still burning — only this time, the sound drifting through Brookside Park will be drums and brass, not sirens.
