Arts & Culture

Sandra Lovell Taitt-Eaddy has over 25 years of experience in genealogical research with a particular focus on ancestral research in black cultures. Her work began in conversations with her own family and combing through accessible online databases, all efforts that can be performed right now from home while social distancing.

Artists have taken to the Internet during COVID-19, not only to share their art but to teach it as well. It turns out, art appreciation and art-making classes can be taken from your living room.

Poetry helps us find our way to ourselves and to others, and poems can be a source of consolation, courage and connection in a challenging time. An ideal way to begin is to sign up for free daily delivery of a poem via e-mail at poets.org/poem-a-day.

Boston native artist Oompa has been making waves in the local music scene for years. The poet, rapper and educator won the 2018 Unsigned Artist of the Year award from Boston Music Awards and was nominated for an unprecedented six awards total. Now in the age of social distancing Oompa is bringing the community together in a whole new way: through dance.

Weaving together her own life story as a tap dancer with the story of earlier female tap dancers of color is Ayodele Casel, an actor, tap dancer and choreographer and currently a Radcliffe Fellow.

Reading has long been an escape from the challenges of everyday life. While Bostonians stay at home during the coronavirus pandemic, it’s become more important than ever.

With the city of Boston and the rest of the country cut off from live performances, jazz on the internet and showcased on cable are great ways to get through the next few weeks (or months) of social distancing.

The doors to the Museum of Fine Arts may be closed, but the MFA and other cultural institutions are finding new ways to showcase their collections while shuttered because of COVID-19 precautions. Many museums have launched virtual tours, streamed performances and offered collection databases chock-full of interesting information.

The Boston Public Library’s Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center has unveiled its latest research tool: Atlascope. The online resource, accessible from anywhere with an internet connection, allows researchers and history buffs to view historic maps of Greater Boston overlaid on the contemporary maps we use today.

This week is like nothing I’ve ever in my lifetime experienced. Along with everyone, I have been juggling, re-arranging, shifting everything I am involved in to the virtual world while the arts and cultural world from Broadway to Boston and beyond shuts down.

On Thursday, March 12, four of Boston’s biggest art museums made the joint decision to close until further notice due to the coronavirus pandemic and mandates for social distancing. The Museum of Fine Arts, the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the Harvard Art Museums all shuttered until further notice. From there, a wave of theaters, galleries and concert halls followed suit.

Camille A. Brown and her company Camille A. Brown & Dancers began their Celebrity Series of Boston debut at the Boch Center Shubert Theatre Saturday night by summoning the gifts, legacy and complicated history of black performers.