Free Things to Do in Boston, February 2015
MIT is hosting free screenings of Big Hero 6 this month.
Super Bowl Victory Parade
“Cue the duck boats!” everyone tweeted after the Patriots defeated the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. While heavy snow prompted the parade to be postponed a day, the show will go on Wednesday at 11 a.m. The parade will begin at Prudential Tower, move east down Boylston, north on Tremont, and end at City Hall Plaza.
Free, Wednesday, February 4, 11 a.m., more info.
“Channel/Dance”
Movement, art, and theater collide for this unique public show at Atlantic Wharf. Presented by Fort Point Theatre Channel and Contrapose Dance, the show joined 10 local choreographers with painters, photographers, playwrights, and other artists to make a collection of short performance pieces. Seating is limited, reserve online.
Free, Friday and Saturday, February 13 and 14, 8 p.m., Atlantic Wharf, 290 Congress St., Boston, fortpointtheatrechannel.org.
Film Screening: Black Girl (La Noire De…)
ArtsEmerson is presenting a free screening of Black Girl by internationally acclaimed Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembene. The film is about a Senegalese woman who takes a job as a governess for a French family, only to be mistreated and driven to suicide.
Free, Friday, February 6, 8 p.m., Paramount Center, 559 Washington St., Boston, artsemerson.org.
Valentine’s Day Swing Dancing in South Station
For those of you who ever breezed through South Station and thought, this place could use some dancing, consider your wish granted. New School Swing will teach a free lindy hop lesson on Valentine’s Day at 8 p.m., followed by a swing dance social from 9 to 11 p.m.
Free, Saturday, February 14, 8 p.m., South Station, Boston, south-station.net.
Mardi Gras Parade at Faneuil Hall
Throughout the afternoon, Fan Hall staples like Dick’s Last Resort, Cheers, and Boston Harley-Davidson will compete in a float decorating contest with Salt from the Karson and Kennedy Morning Show on Mix 104.1. Then at 5 p.m., the parade will commence.
Free, Tuesday, February 17, 5 p.m., Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston, faneuilhallmarketplace.com.
Community Day at the MFA
Celebrate the Lunar New Year with a free day at the Museum of Fine Arts. In addition to waived admission, additional programming includes a story hour, arts and crafts, martial arts demos, and festive music and dance performances—including a lion dance.
Free, Saturday, February 21, Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston, mfa.org.
BSO Community Chamber Concerts
To better connect with the community, members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra will perform free concerts at Northeastern and Roxbury Community College over Valentine’s Day weekend. The program for both includes Tchaikovsky’s “Two Romances,” Sibelius’s “Romance,” Mozart’s “Piano Quartet No. 2,” and Brahms’s “Trio in E-flat.”
Free, Friday, February 13, 1:30 p.m., at Northeastern, Sunday, February 15, 3 p.m., at Roxbury.
“Literary Landscapes: Maps from Fiction” at the BPL
Game of Thrones, the Hunger Games, Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings…all of these stories would not have been the same without a sense of place. In a new exhibit at the BPL’s Norman B. Leventhal Map Center, 40 maps of fictitious places show the importance of location and visualization in storytelling.
Free, through October 25, Boston Public Library, 700 Boylston St., Boston, bpl.org.
“Color Fields” at MassArt’s Bakalar and Paine Galleries
This new exhibit pays tribute to MassArt alum and professor Albert Munsell, inventor of the Munsell Color System. The works by 13 internationally known artists use a variety of methods to make vivid art pieces, from Sonia Falcone’s “Campo de Color,” created with various pigments and spices, to John Knuth’s “flyspecks,” which he made by feeding watercolor paints to hundreds of thousands of common house flies and then letting them land on his canvas.
Free, through March 7, Bakalar and Paine Galleries at MassArt, 621 Huntington Ave., Boston, more info.
Four New Exhibits at Brandeis’s Rose Art Museum
The Rose Art Museum in Waltham kicks off four exhibitions this month for its spring season—if you can call it spring, of course. The four exhibit include new acquisitions at the museum, a newly curated gallery of “understudied” pieces, and “Painting Blind,” an exhibit of works that blur touch and vision.
Free, February 11-June 7, Rose Art Museum, 415 South St., Waltham, brandeis.edu.
Seven New Exhibits at Wellesley’s Davis Museum
Four new exhibits? Try seven new shows at the Davis ranging from Rembrandts to Warhols. Check out the colorful “Reconstructing Seurat” by Michael Craig-Martin, work by Parviz Tanavoli—”the father of modern Iranian sculpture”—and the return of two exhibits including “Hanging with Old Masters: The Reinstallation of the Davis Museum.”
Free, February 10-June 7, Davis Museum, 106 Central St., Wellesley, wellesley.edu.
Film Screenings: Big Hero 6 and Roman Holiday at MIT
If you missed Big Hero 6 in theaters and are now regretting it, then take advantage of the MIT Lecture Series Committee, which will host multiple free screenings of Big Hero 6 and Roman Holiday this month sponsored by the de Florez Fund for Humor.
Free, various dates and times, MIT Building 26-100, Cambridge, mit.edu.