Press Contacts: Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau: Larry Meehan lmeehan@bostonusa.com direct line for media: 617-867-8231; Joanna Blasi jblasi@bostonusa.com.
Click here to view our 2007 Events Calendar: explore! Multicultural Boston
February 2007 Edition
Boston’s Chinese New Year Celebration
February 25, 2007
Chinese New Year offers visitors to Boston concerts & exhibitions to celebrate
Chinese American culture & heritage
BOSTON- Boston celebrates the Chinese New Year on February 25, 2007 with a dragon dance, lions dance and fire crackers on Beach Street in Boston’s Chinatown
2007 is a particularly exciting year for Boston’s Chinatown with the presentation of the Chinese New Year Spectacular performance at the Opera House in February and the opening of the new Chinatown Gateway Park along the Rose Kennedy Greenway this spring. .
This year welcomes 4705, the Year of the Pig. The traditional celebration of Chinese New Year lasts 15 days, are a time to solicit good luck with symbolic food and rituals. There are many restaurants throughout the Boston area to celebrate 2007 as a year of good fortune and happiness with big helpings of traditional morsels, delicious beverages, and lively rituals. The celebration event for Boston’s Chinatown is on Sunday February 25, 2007.
These events are constantly updated; please return to this site for more events:
“The Other Shore” by the first Chinese Nobel Laureate for Literature Gao Xingjian February 15-17th at 7:30 PM
The Communication Arts Department of Eastern Nazarene College will present a black box production of the experimental play, “The Other Shore” by the first Chinese Nobel Laureate for Literature Gao Xingjian February 15-17th at 7:30 PM with a matinee at 10 AM Thursday in the Cove Fine Arts Center on the campus of ENC. The production opens just days before the start of the Chinese New Year. The play will be followed by a series of talk back sessions featuring Chinese community leaders, Tufts University Chinese theatre scholar Claire Conceison, ENC religion professor Eric Severson as well the director and the cast.
Quincy Lunar New Year Festival at North Quincy High School February 25, 2007 from 10:30am-4pm.
The Asian Lunar New Year is celebrated at the end of the annual cycle of new moons and each New Year is named for one of the twelve animals. According to ancient legend, the Lord Buddha once summoned all animals to come to him. When only twelve came, he rewarded them by naming each year for them. 2007 is the year of the pig. Traditionally, the New Year is a family holiday where families come together to visit, share meals and present gifts of “lucky” red envelopes to children. Quincy’s celebration will reflect this tradition. As a family event, the festival will offer entertainment to delight all ages. There will be performances of Asian music and dance and exhibits featuring the work of local Asian artists. There will also be a children’s area with Asian games and crafts. Local restaurants will serve different types of Asian cuisine including Chinese and Vietnamese foods. New additions to the festival are a reading corner where elders will engage and entertain children by reading popular stories. This activity is being carried out in coordination with Project RISE which strives to increase parents’ understanding of the importance of reading to their young children as a critical component of school readiness. The festival will also work to bridge the past and present by showcasing traditional Asian garments and modern costume characters, such as Minnie and Mickey Mouse, all of which will be worn by local teens. For more information about the Lunar New Year Festival or QARI, please contact QARI at 617-472-2200 or visit www.qari.info.
Ongoing Events during Chinese New Year Celebrations
Korean Film Festival at the Museum of Fine Arts, January
24- February 28, 2007
All films in Korean with English subtitles. "Mirrorball #3 / Made in Japan" Feb.
21, Mirrorball #3 is a veritable box of live action and animated visual styles,
with robots, game, fashion, and art. "Mirrorball #4 / Global Slections" Feb. 24
& 28. Mirrorball #4: Swedish design collective Traktor's interpretation of an
innovative penal system in The Flaming Lips' "Yeah Yeah Yeah Song." Hip-hop mix
in Callum Cooper's video for "How to Make a Beat." American indie band Ok Go in
a bout of boogieing. The extraordinary effects of mixing dogs with trampolines,
and more.
"Curse of the Golden
Flower" by Zhang Yimou playing at AMC Loews Boston Common, Landmark Kendall
Square Cinema, Cambridge and AMC Theatres Fenway, Boston
Colorful 10th-century epic fuses high adventure, romantic intrigue, and martial
arts. Betrayal, deceit and passion inform the volatile balance of power between
the Empress, Emperor, and his three sons. Ugly secrets are revealed; as the
Imperial Family continues its elaborate charade, thousands of golden-armored
warriors charge the palace.
"Mountain Harvests: Chinese Jades and other Treasured Stones" at Worchester Art
Museum Through March 4
Featuring over 90 works of art from Neolithic times onward: jade boulders from
riverbeds; ceremonial objects; magical pendants to preserve the dead and protect
the living; sculptures of mythical beasts; and exquisite pieces of jade artisans
in amber, agate, amethyst, carnelian, coral, lapis lazuli, malachite and
turquoise.
"Contemporary Furniture-Makers Explore Chinese Traditions" at Peabody Essex
Museum Through March 4
29 examples of historic Chinese furniture, with 28 works made specifically for
the exhibition, by 21 furniture-makers from Canada, China, and the USA, all
recognized leaders in studio furniture. Works include an incense stand of
electrical wire, a table primarily of oak and willow twigs, and a wooden stool
in a U shape. Chinese design has long inspired European and American
furniture-makers––notably the Chippendale style of the mid-18th century, the
Aesthetic style of the late 19th century, and modernist design during the 1930s
and 1940s.
"The Emperor Looks West" at Peabody Essex Museum Through March 25
In China, palace workshops have brought forth some of the finest examples of art
depicting historic events. See an exquisite court painting from the 18th
century--on view for the first time in a U.S. museum--that shows a banquet in
the Forbidden City celebrating Emperor Qianlong’s military victory in western
China. "Victory Banquet at the West Garden,” which once belonged to former
French president Paul Doumer, is painted in ink, color, and gold on silk in the
traditional hand scroll format. Other objects reflect the range of international
influences that helped shape imperial art during the Qianlong era: a dazzling
European-style clock; a Mughal jade bowl; ceramics; enamels, and cloisonné.
"Edward Burtynsky: The China Series" at Tufts University Art Gallery Through
April 1
Artist Talk: Mar. 1, Thu., 6:30 pm
Photographer Burtynsky showcases 20 large-scale works on five themes related to
China’s booming development over the past decade: manufacturing; recycling;
shipbuilding; urban renewal; and the Three Gorges Dam.
"Altered States: Views of Transition in Recent Photography" at Tufts
University Art Gallery Through April 1
Photo subjects include Sze Tsung Leong's demolition and rebuilding of entire
cities in China; Mori Insinger's gentrification in Boston's South End; and Xing
Danwen's images of e-waste and to-be-recycled electronic materials.
"Jun Yang: Hero—this is We" at Tufts University Art Gallery Through April 1
Roundtable with the Artist: Feb. 22, Thu., 6:30 pm
HERO explores nationalism in a two-channel video installation. Mass media
sources show China’s development since Yang left the country as a child, as
footage from the 2004 Athens Olympics runs in slow-motion silently.
"Cultivating Virtue: Botanical Motifs and Symbols in East Asian Art" at
Harvard University's Arthur Sackler Museum Through April 8
Plant themes and symbolism are the highlight of this exhibition. Flowers and
plants in East Asian art have held auspicious meanings and moral overtones, such
as the "Four Gentlemen" -- the plum blossom, orchid, chrysanthemum, and bamboo,
which embody the Confucian gentleman-scholar -- and the "Three Friends of
Winter," the pine, bamboo, and Chinese plum, which survive winter and represent
strength in the face of adversity. Flowers are associated with the four seasons
and the 12 months.
"Beyond Basketry: Japanese Bamboo Art" at the Museum of Fine Arts Through
July 6
Woven bamboo containers have emerged as a prestigious art form in the last
century. From their roots in Chinese influence to today's often extravagant
forms, Japanese bamboo art requires years of training and months of work to
complete. Exhibition includes works by Iizuka Hosai and Iizuka Rokansai, who
worked from the 1920s to the 1950s, and Shono Shounsai (1904-1974), Japan's
first bamboo artist to be declared a "Living National Treasure."
"Tsutsugaki Textiles from the Collection of David and Marita Paly" at the
Museum of Fine Arts Through July 6
The Japanese Imperial household, samurai class, and wealthy merchants could
afford luxurious silk garments and textiles. Most Japanese could not; they used
cloth made of ramie, a type of hemp fiber, and cotton, which were more
accessible and comfortable in humid hot weather. They weren't resistant to color
with the brilliant dyes used on silk. Indigo was used for color in a range of
resist-dying methods. This exhibition features a selection of folk textiles
patterned via the technique called tsutsugaki, which involves protecting areas
of cloth with a starch-like, dye-resistant paste, then removing the paste and
hand-painting on the still-white areas to create designs and auspicious symbols.
"Epic India: Paintings by M. F. Husain" at Peabody Essex Museum Through June
3
20 works inspired by Husain’s vision of the Mahabharata, one of India’s oldest
and beloved epics -- for over 2,000 years. For Husain, India's preeminent
contemporary artist, the central paradox of the epic, and of human nature, is
the competition and jealousies that divide family members, forcing them to
choose sides and moving them all inexorably towards an Armageddon.
Did You know?