Thanks for your interest in Detroit Center events! If you are holding an event at or in partnership with the U-M Detroit Center, add your event to the Happening @ Michigan calendar with the tag “Detroit Center.”
Featured Event
Wolverine Outdoor Stage — 33rd Concert of Colors
The University of Michigan Detroit Center is eager to host the Wolverine Outdoor Stage for the 33rd Concert of Colors cultural diversity festival in Midtown Detroit with free admission for all ages! From Saturday, July 20th to Sunday, July 21st from 11 AM until 7 PM, there will be something for everyone. Bring a lawn chair and your best dancing shoes and enjoy the live music and performances with artists like Mariachi Femenil Detroit, Obie King and the Muthafunkas, Sunday Service by the Ark Detroit, and Isis Damil to name a very few. You can check out the full setlist here.
Upcoming Events
Palladium Legacies: The Past, Present, and Future of Latin Jazz
The story of Latin music in the USA is told by the steps and spins of virtuoso dancers at New York City’s Palladium Ballroom in the 1940s and ’50s. Inspiring those dancers was the music, energized by three charismatic bandleaders: Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez, and Machito (Francisco Grillo). These musicians invented Latin jazz, Cubop, and salsa and catalyzed the Latin dance craze that got nearly every young person in American to dance the mambo, merengue, and chachachá.
Today, the sons of these three bandleaders carry the Latin dance tradition forward through their ensemble—the Big 3 Palladium Orchestra. Prior to their gala performance at Detroit’s Concert of Colors that evening, Tito Rodriguez, Jr. and Mario Grillo—the sons of Tito Rodriguez and Machito—will share the story of Latin dance music in the United States and share the secrets of the Latin rhythms that took the nation by storm.
Please join us at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 20 at the University of Michigan Detroit Center for a discussion and workshop titled Palladium Legacies: The Past, Present, and Future of Latin Jazz,” hosted by U-M faculty member, historian, and musician Ozzie Rivera.
Save your spot for this interactive workshop here. 
Detroit’s Olympic Uprising — A Documentary Screening
It is 1963, Detroit is bidding to host the 1968 Olympic Games and a new energy is sweeping through the Detroit Civil Rights Movement. This is the story of their collision.
On Tuesday, July 23rd from 5 – 7 PM, the University of Michigan’s Center of Race & Ethnicity in Sports, the Arts Initiative, and the Detroit Center are hosting a FREE screening of the documentary Detroit’s Olympic Uprising by Aaron Schillinger, Stefan Szymanski, and Silke-Maria Weineck. Enjoy light refreshments and a thought-provoking discussion led by the production team. Save your spot here. 
