arts

For 15 years, ArtsBoston has partnered with the Mayor’s Office to provide the Mayor’s Holiday Special, a series of discounts on theater tickets and dining during December and January. As the tradition continues, the goal becomes not only to provide accessibility to the arts, but also to highlight all the multicultural talent Boston has to offer. This year, Catherine Peterson, executive director of ArtsBoston, says it’s their most diverse lineup yet.

Between January and May 1979, 11 black women were murdered in Roxbury within several miles of one another. Now, Kendra Hicks, a Roxbury native and community organizer, is turning this painful piece of the neighborhood’s history into public art installations called The Estuary Projects.

Big business and shiny skyscrapers aren’t the only newcomers to Boston’s rapidly developing Seaport district. “Air Sea Land,” a sculpture installation by Spanish artist Okuda San Miguel now lines Seaport Boulevard, bringing bright colors and organic forms to the neighborhood. Through seven large-scale sculptures, San Miguel explores the themes of evolution, the environment and human influence on the animal world.

It was a night of inspiring poetry, music, and comedy at the Hello Sunshine x Together Live event on Saturday night (November 3) at the Wang Theatre. But more importantly it was an opportunity to gather together and engage in community.

Advocates rallied in support of the resident-artists facing eviction from their studio spaces in the Piano Craft Guild building on Tremont Street, last Friday afternoon, demanding that property managers negotiate before turning artists’ workspaces into luxury condominiums.

A founding member of the iconic R&B group Boyz II Men, Nathan Morris makes the leap into flipping luxurious houses in the DIY Network series “Hit Properties with Nathan Morris.”

It was while Nicholas Christopher was at The Juilliard School that he had opportunity to audition for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights.” He was 19 when first he auditioned for the musical and landed the role when he turned 20.

Last weekend, JP Porchfest celebrated its fifth year of bringing music to the streets of Jamaica Plain. 86 artists entertained crowds with music and spoken word over the six-hour event.

The hills may be alive with the sound of music, but the South End is alive with the sound of tapping feet and Salsa beats. Every Thursday in July and August, Berklee and Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción (IBA) put on a Latin music concert as part of the Tito Puente Latin Music Series.

Curators plan exhibitions years in advance, but they have a funny way of becoming specific to our moment. On view through Sept. 30 at the ICA Boston, “We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85” feels painfully relevant.

Tracy Heather Strain and Randall MacLowry, two highly skilled film makers, have produced a documentary on Lorraine Hansberry. The film focuses on Hansberry’s early life and the challenges she faced in getting her play into a major theatre in New York.

The Roxbury International Film Festival celebrates 20 years of amplifying filmmakers of color this month. Independent films telling the stories of unrepresented groups will be screened June 20–30 at the Museum of Fine Arts, the Haley House Bakery Café and Hibernian Hall in Dudley Square.