MAGMA

Matt Jenson: Unmarked Routes
2026-04-18 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | MA
Matt Jenson | Unmarked Routes…through sonic hypnogogy
Solo Ambient Neo-Classical Dub Piano with Electronics and the MAGMA Dance Company
Luxuriating in atmosphere and drone-tones of awe and fascination, where thoughts and feelings of division have no safe harbor. A low-lit bath of sound, where iridescent, gauzy melodies collide in slow motion with decolonized electronic soundscapes, a piano, hushed voices and kaleidoscopic dancers, with the lucid assurance that a beautiful outcome will bloom, if together we direct our attention to it.
Matt Jenson has been on the piano faculty at Berklee College of Music for about 2 decades where he also teaches a class on Bob Marley. Many in and near Gloucester may have seen the Berklee Bob Marley ensemble at the Cut that Matt directs. He has toured and recorded internationally with the jazz-fusion reggae band, Groundation and performs locally and regionally with his reggae and Latin bands (Combo Sabroso and Mix Up Mix Up respectively). All of Matt’s music is informed by jazz, blues, Afro-Cuban and reggae styles and this brand new project, UNMARKED ROUTES, maintains these influences but with a completely new sound and feel. The music is at once spacious, sophisticated and beautiful with the intention to take listeners on a sonic journey that is at times gentle and quiet and at other times subtlety intense and rhythmic. It’s what you might hear if Brian Eno jammed with Igor Stravinsky, King Tubby and Sade at Burning Man!
Matt will be performing new compositions and music from his soon-to-be-released double album illuminated by the MAGMA Dance Company and spectacular ‘screen art’ videos.
Tickets: sliding scale $15-35, buy online or at the door
*when buying tickets online: All tickets are will call, just give your name at the door. No need to fill in names of all attendees, you can proceed to checkout without that step.

True Story Theater
2026-04-19 16:00 - 17:30 | MA
True Story Theater is an improvisational physical ensemble honoring people’s lived experience, including people who are especially vulnerable in these times.
In their MAGMA debut, they will work with stories of neurodiversity and invisible disabilities. Laugh, cry, and gain insights as True Story’s actors and musicians empathetically embody whatever is shared. All are welcome!
Tix $15-25 sliding scale BUY TICKETS
True Story Theater is a nonprofit theater company that offers over 50-75 improvisational performances, skills training, and Active Bystander workshops a year for a wide array of clients in the greater Boston area and beyond. Our mission is to promote social healing through theatre by building empathy, respect, and understanding in the honoring of true life stories.
In addition to offering monthly public shows, True Story’s work has served hospitals, universities, civic and community organizations, human rights commissions, religious communities, the LGBTQIA+ community, seniors, teen leaders, cancer survivors, activists, philanthropists, business leaders and more. We also perform for private individuals — for birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, and other important rites of passage and life events.
True Story Theater performs and teaches a style of improvisational theater called Playback Theatre. Volunteers from the audience are invited and helped to share what’s important in their lives. Actors listen deeply then spontaneously transform the stories into theater, portraying the heart of what they heard using dialogue, movement, music and song. From this simple interaction, people laugh, cry and experience surprising insights.
Our events create a respectful atmosphere where every voice can be heard and any story told — however ordinary or extraordinary, difficult or joyful. True Story Theater offers audiences fresh perspectives, deeper connections, and a renewed appreciation for our common humanity.

When the People Could Fly: a Somovement Journey
2026-04-24 18:00 - 20:30 | MA
Facilitated by Hadley Mays
Trance Dance, experiential anatomy and somatic movement for an integrated
body-mind and soul journey
This experience situates itself within a perspective, that there is no separation between the physical and the spiritual dimensions: the human experience is a spiritual experience, and the human body is both the material of and gateway to infinite dimensions of spirit and cosmos. We can navigate these dimensions through ecstatic and kinetic states of consciousness. Come fly with me: flight as dance, as soul venture, spirit journey and kinetic trance. Dive into a place where your vast interiority opens into the deep space of manifold intelligence.
The Practice
Begins with somatic movement to prepare our bodyminds for trance and the extended ranges of our somatic perceiving. Then we Trance Dance, a blindfolded ritual dance process using breath, movement, and rhythm. Trance Dance is a co-creative call to action with the sacred spirit world; our intention sets a course, our soul unfolds.
Cost: $25-40 sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds –
RESERVE NOW
The Facilitator

Hadley Mays is a certified practitioner of the Trance Dance ritual, created by Wilbert Alix and Frank Natale from collected shamanic traditions and practices spanning over 40,000 years. She has lived, worked, trained, healed and played in altered states, trance and the visionary realms throughout my life in many different countries, cultures, and contexts.
Brief Bio
Hadley Mays is an interdisciplinary theater & movement artist, teacher of contemporary performance, and workshop facilitator, and I am currently on faculty at Boston Conservatory. She holds an MFA in Theater and Contemporary Performance, graduate studies in Psychology and Counseling, and many years of experience and independent research in culture, ritual, and performance studies.
Other details: Please wear comfortable clothing you can move in and something that you can use as a blindfold. Parking in Gloucester is free after 6pm, and there is a municipal lot catty cornered from MAGMA.

The Crystal
2026-04-26 16:00 - 18:00 | MAGMA, 11 Pleasant St., Gloucester, MA, 01930, United States
The Crystal is a contemplative dance practice using Authentic Movement, in which the mover becomes the oracle and the witnesses reflect and refract using silence, sound, movement and automatic writing. A profound experience of vulnerability, intimacy and connection.
suggested donation $10-20, pay at the event

Latin Dance Social
2026-05-03 18:00 - 20:00 | MA
MAGMA welcomes Andres Giraldo from Salsa y Control dance studio and company for a one hour beginner salsa class followed by practice time. Lesson starts at 6pm, open dancing time is from 7-8pm.
Entry is $10-15, sliding scale – BUY ONLINE NOW, or at the door
MAGMA is on the top floor of the Brown Building at 11 Pleasant Street in Gloucester, a beautiful historic ballroom with ocean views.
All levels welcome, no partner required. Feel free to bring drinks as we do not sell any beverages.

Time Travelers Ball
2026-05-09 19:00 - 22:00 | MA
Please join us for MAGMA’s annual fundraiser gala with live performances, participatory dance lessons, and festive refreshments.
Attire: 1920-1940 speakeasy fashion
Doors open at 7pm, programming starts at 7:30pm
$50-100 suggested donation per person, BUY ONLINE
Highlights:
– learn The Charleston and 1930s circle dance “The Big Apple”
– dance performances to live music
– sultry, speakeasy ambiance; signature cocktails and yummy desserts
– support MAGMA’s artistic programming, accessible pricing, and youth scholarship fund

Tango-Salsa-Cha Cha
2026-05-17 17:00 - 19:00 | MA
Learn some easy dance moves with Sarah Slifer Swift at MAGMA and then dance to tango, salsa, and cha-cha music played live by the Walker Creek Saxophone Quartet (David Benjamin, Marsha Jamison, Frank Freedman, and Jamie Klopotoski).

$10 suggested donation at the door

All ages and abilities welcome!
