Centro Cultural Multidisciplinario El Casetón

Officially the Centro Cultural Multidisciplinario El Casetón is a cultural center for the Juan Escutia neighborhood. In reality, it’s a giant and very cool center for everything happening in the neighborhood and for nearby parts of Ciudad Neza too. “The Big House,” it opened in 2003 on the site of a former CONASUPO store.

El Casetón is an alternative space that somehow still offers a diverse artistic program for as many sectors of the population as they can reach. It bills itself as a place of “encounter, construction, appropriation and the generation of identity for the community.” The center offers workshops, activities, and events aimed at initiation and learning in the arts. Themes can include music, theater, dance, painting, and photography.

The core curriculum of the center gets carried out in weekly arts workshops. Most weeks they’ll host some 22 in everything from aerial dance, to music, cardboard, clay work, bookbinding, painting for kids, Arabic dance, screen printing, and theater.

But perhaps the Casetón is best known for the Cine-Club film screening program, for a full sleight of gallery exhibitions, and for the area’s most popular book club(s). There’s even a Community Radio program. The overall look of the place is sometimes stark, even aggressive, but the continual presence of the community let’s visitors know: serious work is going on all the time. And by all the best people in the area.