Featured Events in Pasadena in March, 2025 (May Updated)

For several decades, artist Cai Guo-Qiang has used gunpowder and pyrotechnics to create drawings, paintings, and explosion events. The exhibitionCai Guo-Qiang:A Material Odysseywill fill the first floor galleries at the USC Pacific Asia Museum. Based on years of research by the Getty Conservation Institute and the Getty Research Institute,A Material Odysseywill explore the nature and properties of gunpowder and chronicle its use by the artist. This explosive material, invented in China over 1,100 years ago, has come to define Cai’s work. Its unpredictable nature dictates his artistic process and determines the outcome. Through gunpowder, the artist invites uncontrollable forces to participate in the creation of his work. With an abundance of artworks and scientific displays, the exhibition will narrate the lifelong love story of Cai Guo-Qiang with gunpowder. Programs accompanyingA Material Odysseywill include videos illustrating the making of fireworks, the process of creating gunpowder paintings, interactive displays, and a variety of film screenings and conversations.

In 2025, the Norton Simon Museum marks the 50th anniversary of its founding in 1975. The exhibition Retrospect: 50 Years at the Norton Simon Museum, on view in the main-level Focus Gallery from February 14, 2025, to January 12, 2026, celebrates five decades of art, education, research and community. Coinciding with the Exterior Improvement Project, which will transform the Museum’s gardens and grounds, Retrospect offers not only a reflective view of the past but also one of the horizon for decades to come.

Téada Irish Band in Concert Come join us for a lively evening of traditional Irish music with Téada Irish Band! The concert will be held at the Beckman Institute Auditorium at Caltech in Pasadena, CA, United States. Get ready to tap your feet and enjoy the soul-stirring melodies of Ireland. Don't miss out on this incredible live performance! Téada is comprised of Oisin Mac Diarmada on fiddle, Paul Finn on button accordion, Damien Stinson on flute, Seán McElwain on guitar and bouzouki, Tristan Rosenstock on bodhrán and Samantha Harvey on piano (and step dancing). Information Source: Pasadena Folk Music Society | eventbrite

Welcome to the 2025 Old Line Wiffle Season! Get ready for a summer filled with wiffleball fun in Pasadena! Join us for a season of exciting games, friendly competition, and unforgettable memories. Whether you're a seasoned pro or new to the game, this event is perfect for players of all skill levels. Grab your friends, put together a team, and come out to the field to swing for the fences. With a laid-back atmosphere and plenty of laughs, the Old Line Wiffle Season is the place to be for wiffleball enthusiasts. Don't miss out on the action - mark your calendars and get ready to play ball in 2025! Information Source: Old Line Wiffle Club | eventbrite

The kaleidoscopic follow-up to the bestsellingDetransition, Baby In this collection of one novel and three novellas, Torrey Peters’s keen eye for the rough edges of community and desire push the limits of trans writing. In Stag Dance, the titular novel, a group of restless lumberjacks working in an illegal winter logging outfit plan a dance that some of them will volunteer to attend as women. When the broadest, strongest, plainest of the axmen announces his intention to dance as a woman, he finds himself caught in a strange rivalry with a pretty young jack, provoking a cascade of obsession, jealousy, and betrayal that will culminate on the big night in an astonishing vision of gender and transition. Three startling novellas surround Stag Dance: “Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones” imagines a gender apocalypse brought about by an unstable ex-girlfriend. In “The Chaser,” a secret romance between roommates at a Quaker boarding school brings out intrigue and cruelty. In the last novella, “The Masker,” a party weekend on the Las Vegas strip turns dark when a young crossdresser must choose between two guides: a handsome mystery man who objectifies her in thrilling ways, or a cynical veteran trans woman offering unglamorous sisterhood. Acidly funny and breathtaking in its scope, with the inventive audacity of George Saunders or Jennifer Egan, Stag Dance provokes, unsettles, and delights. About the authorTorrey Petersis the bestselling author of the novel Detransition, Baby, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and was named one of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, a finalist for the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize, and longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. She has an MFA from the University of Iowa and an MA in comparative literature from Dartmouth. Peters rides a pink motorcycle and splits her time between Brooklyn and an off-grid cabin in Vermont. Information Source: Vroman's Bookstore | eventbrite

Pasadena’s hottest Salsa and Bachata night is back! 💃🕺 🔥 Live dance lessons by local dance chanpion Rojelio Moreno. Enjoy social dancing with resident DJ Salsa Y Sabor + rotating guest DJs. 🍹 2x1 drink specials & tropical cocktails, Full kitchen and dinner menus. Ample and comfortable lounge seating and spacious dance floors. 🍽️ Dinner & dancing at its best Don't miss the ultimate Latin night—bring your best moves and let’s dance! 🎶✨ Information Source: The Mixx | eventbrite

Accompany Catherine Hess on a tour of a special display at the Norton Simon: Mariana: Velázquez’s Portrait of a Queen from the Museo Nacional del Prado. Diego Velazquez (1599–1660) was a Spanish Baroque painter and the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. Because of his masterful style of dramatic illumination and bold brushwork, Velázquez is sometimes referred to as a painter's painter. In Queen Mariana of Austria, he depicts the teenage monarch in magnificent splendor. It was Velázquez’s first major composition after returning to Madrid from several years in Rome, and it represents a distinctive and final chapter of the artist’s storied career. Exhibited on the West Coast for the first time, Velázquez’s sumptuous and monumental image is installed alongside the work of an international group of artists whose art was collected by the Habsburg court. This is a rare opportunity for us, as there are no other paintings by Velázquez in Californian public collections Information Source: Art Muse Academy | eventbrite

Pasadena’s hottest Salsa and Bachata night is back! 💃🕺 🔥 Live dance lessons by local dance chanpion Rojelio Moreno. Enjoy social dancing with resident DJ Salsa Y Sabor + rotating guest DJs. 🍹 2x1 drink specials & tropical cocktails, Full kitchen and dinner menus. Ample and comfortable lounge seating and spacious dance floors. 🍽️ Dinner & dancing at its best Don't miss the ultimate Latin night—bring your best moves and let’s dance! 🎶✨ Information Source: The Mixx | eventbrite