Past Events
Shen Yun show at Wang Theater
Dates: April 2-10, 2022
Location: Boch Center-Wang Theatre, 270 Tremont St.
Catch this vibrant jubilee of classical Chinese culture when it comes to the Wang this April.
Based in New York since 2006, Shen Yun Performing Arts tours the world with traditional Chinese performances like folk dance and story-based dance, along with solo performers. Shen Yun means “the beauty of divine beings dancing.”
Shen Yun celebrates the rich cultural heritage of China—Buddhist and Taoist values mingle with ancient Chinese wisdom, while artistic innovations in dance, opera, architecture, and martial arts all shine in Shen Yun’s stage performance. The show also touches on today’s China, in which religion and spiritual beliefs are often repressed.
Watch Octavia E. Butler’s ‘Parable of the Sower’ opera at the Cutler Majestic
Dates: April 21-24, 2022
Location: Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre, 219 Tremont Street
Based on the classic sci-fi novel by Afro-futurist author Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower is a genre-defying, modern congregational opera that celebrates two centuries of Black music. Written by Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon, Parablechronicles the spiritual awakening of Lauren Olamina amidst an America plagued by the products of unrelenting greed, systemic injustice and climate change denial. Parable of the Sower transforms the operatic form, fusing African-American spiritualism, deep insights into gender and race, and climate activism into a new musical experience that thrills and inspires.
Indigenous Perspectives on Sustainability and the Arts with JoAnn Chase
Date: March 31, 2022 at 5:30 pm
Location: Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground Event Space, 808 Commonwealth Ave. Boston
This event will be live streamed here.
JoAnn Chase, (COM ’85) Director, American Indian Environmental Office, Office of International and Tribal Affairs
JoAnn Chase is a citizen of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Indian Nation and was born and raised on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in central North Dakota. In addition to her work in the EPA, JoAnn has partnered with music icon Nona Hendryx and social justice innovator Makani Themba to launch SisterSMATR.org (Science, Math, Art, Technology, Robotics) which leverages art and community to close the gender gap in science and technology primarily with young women of color.
Presented by the BU Arts Initiative, BU Sustainability, and the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground, part of the Indigenous Voices in the Americas Series
REGISTER NOW – free and open to the public.
Cultural Appropriation and the Intersections of Indigenous Design & Art with Dakota Mace (Diné)
Date: Sun, April 3, 2022, 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM EDT
Location: Towne Gallery, 180 Riverway
This body of work will be an extension of Dakota’s current research on the Long Walk and will focus on the Navajo Treaty from 1868. A selection of 100 cochineal cyanotypes, collected from along the Long Walk, will be set in a tabletop case, arranged in a tight grid. The prints are living artifacts and connect to interviews Dakota recorded of Diné elders. A series of 25 lithographs will hang along one of the walls, an aspect of Dakota’s research on the 1968 Treaty. Two sash belts will be displayed on cases, alongside a second audio piece, a set of interviews of Diné women elders, narrated by Dakota.
19th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Tribute Concert Can you see the Stars? Presented by Boston Children’s Chorus
Date: March 27, 2022, 4:00pm
Location: Symphony Hall, 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, MA 02115
Martin Luther King Day might be in our rearview mirror for 2022, but his message of hope and equality is something we should celebrate every day. Delayed due to COVID-19 surges, the 19th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Tribute Concert by the Boston Children’s Chorus is poised to do just that with its new date — March 27 — at Boston’s Symphony Hall.
The 90-minute performance, “Can You See the Stars?,” highlights the week leading up to the assassination of Dr. King, as Boston Children’s Chorus singers take the stage and shine a light on how equity and justice are critical to the future of our environment. In his final days, Dr. King was marching arm-in-arm with the sanitation workers in Memphis on strike against the city for unsafe and toxic working conditions. His work for labor and civil rights paved the way for the activism that’s embodied in the modern-day environmental movement. Under the guidance of guest conductor Alysia Lee, the children’s voices harness the power and joy of music to unite our city’s diverse communities and inspire social change.