Best 9: Top events for the week ahead in Santa Cruz County arts & entertainment, May 8-15

Here they are, nine necessary know-abouts for the week ahead. It’s the love-your-mother B9:

➤ For more than 45 years, Janet Johns has been devoted to an art form, reveling in its beauty, resonating with its cultural significance, and dedicated to exploring its many regional variations. That art form is Mexican folklorico dance, and Janet’s instrument to celebrate it is Esperanza del Valle, the Watsonville-based dance troupe she co-founded and still leads. On Friday at the Crocker Theater, Janet Johns herself will be celebrated as Santa Cruz County’s Artist of the Year. Over the course of nearly half a century, Esperanza has not only provided local audiences regular offerings of traditional Mexican dance in all its stunning visual glory, Janet and her troupe have also traveled around Mexico to build cultural bridges with others in the folklorico world. The free event at the Crocker is a chance to reengage with folklorico dance, or, if you’ve never experienced it before, discover something of rare beauty.

So, what are artists supposed to do to stand up for democracy in these trying times? One answer: dance. Longtime local choreographer Karl Schaffer and his dance troupe, MoveSpeakSpin, are translating their political anxiety into art with a new performance called “Calculated Movements.” The show is all about exploring the attacks on diversity and women’s rights, the danger of dissent, the rollback of environmental protections and other red-alarm issues, all through the movement of bodies. Check it out Saturday evening at the recently renamed Scotts Valley venue The Landing. 

Not a lot to laugh about these days? Let’s not scupper our capacity for humor just yet. Let’s see if “The Best of San Francisco Stand-Up Comedy” can deliver a few laughs for these tense times. The Crocker Theater at Cabrillo College is the site for a showcase of the best young comics rising up from the city that spawned Robin Williams, Dana Carvey and so many others. This super-sized variety pack of comedy comes to Aptos on Saturday night. 

There is no grander royalty in jazz than the celebrated Marsalis family of New Orleans. And there at the end of a genealogical line that includes patriarch Ellis and famous sons Branford, Wynton and Delfeayo stands percussionist Jason Marsalis. A talented vibraphonist as well as an in-demand drummer, Jason brings his distinctive sound and that Marsalis mystique to the Kuumbwa Jazz Center on Monday. 

Singer-songwriter Taylor Rae knows Santa Cruz, and we know her, too. The San Lorenzo Valley High grad, who grew up in Ben Lomond, has been living and working the musician’s life in Austin, Texas, since pre-pandemic. On Friday, she returns to her old hometown to play a show at Moe’s Alley, catch up with some old friends and showcase a fine new album titled “The Void,” a collection of long-gestating songs that weave back and forth from the sweet to the gritty. It’s a great opportunity to catch up with a local talent on her climb to stardom. 

Hurray for the Riff Raff is, alas, not a Bernie Sanders campaign slogan, but rather the performance name of New York-born singer-songwriter Alynda Segarra, who grew up in the hothouse of punk but has matured with a broader vision of folk and Americana. Segarra comes to the Rio next Wednesday on the heels of a provocative and deeply personal album titled “The Past Is Still Alive,” which rings with a grieving perspective that’s very much in line with life in 2025.

Separately, Laurie Lewis and Nina Gerber each has cut a wide swath of influence in Northern California’s acoustic music landscape. Together, the two are a powerhouse. Lewis has been the first name in Bay Area bluegrass circles for close to four decades, and guitarist Gerber has simply been the backbone of the Bay Area folk music scene from her collaborations with Kate Wolf to Rosalie Sorrels. Audiences on Friday get to see these two masters together on one stage at the Kuumbwa. 

Back in its early years of the 1970s, punk rock was supposed to be that thing that burned hot, then burned out. And that’s exactly the story of countless bands. But there are survivors like the amazing Buzzcocks. Under the direction of the brilliant frontman Pete Shelley, the U.K. band broke apart and came together again several times. And though Shelley died in 2018, the Buzzcocks continue with founding member Steve Diggle, still generating that distinctive snarling energy. The band’s latest tour brings them to The Catalyst on Wednesday. 

If you’re looking for bummer music, goth vibes or spitting anger, don’t bother with Ziggy Alberts. He’s a singer-songwriter who grew up on Australia’s Sunshine Coast and, listening to his songs, it’s hard not to believe that he’s somehow found a way to internalize all that sunshine in his musical vision. Even Ziggy’s melancholy somehow finds a buoyancy. He brings those good vibes with him to his latest local show, on Tuesday at Felton Music Hall.