Unsatisfied by, or already exhausted everything Netflix has to offer? Longing for artistic and cultural sustenance? Here’s the only guide you need to the best free arts and culture resources available online.
Arts and culture play a valuable and important role in our lives.
Arts and culture have the power to inspire us, to expand our imaginations, simplify complex emotions and ideas, introduce us to alternative perspectives, and challenge our realities.
They can teach us things about our own identities, connect us to others, and perhaps more valuable than ever in these challenging times, they can relieve stress, soothe negative emotions, provide an escape and give us hope.
Life without arts and culture can quickly become very small, drab, one-dimensional and repetitive.
Yet, lockdown measures in many countries mean that museums, galleries, theatres, cinemas and the like are all closed for the foreseeable future – with many cultural institutions facing uncertain futures even when life does return to some form of ‘normality’ – whatever that will look like.
But all is not lost in the meantime. Thanks to advances in technology, streaming, and the hard work and foresight of many behind the scenes at some of the finest cultural institutions around the world – both big and small – there are more than enough arts and culture resources available online to satisfy our desires – if you know where to look.
We created this guide to save you the time and effort of countless Google Searches and bookmarking. It contains resources and recommendations for museums, galleries, theatre, opera, ballet, music, dance, talks and much more.
If you know of something that should be on this list, please let us know by emailing Manbodyspirit@gmail.com
Virtual access to arts and culture institutions
Museums, Galleries & Exhibitions
- Google Arts & Culture has partnered with more than 2500 museums and galleries around the world to provide free-access to virtual tours and online exhibitions.
- Google Art Project, Street Art: Google Art Project lets you explore street art and graffiti from every continent. You can even take a virtual walking tour (with commentary).
- ARTPORT: The Whitney Museum’s portal to Internet art and an online gallery space for commissions of net art and new media art.
- The Barbican continues its highly regarded arts & culture programme through live streams, videos, podcasts, articles and more
- New Museum Online Exhibition, Cassie McQuater: Black Room
- Virtual Views:Home Movies: Nine Films from MoMA’s intended Spring exhibit, Private Lives Public Spaces.
- Andy Warhol, Exhibition Guide: A Virtual gallery tour of The Tate Modern’s Warhol retrospective led by the curators.
- Jordan Casteel: Within Reach: A virtual gallery tour of the New Museum’s exhibit with the Artist.
- Ida Kohlmeyer: Cloistered, Berry Campbell Gallery
- Gene Beery: Transmissions from Logoscape Ranch, Bodega Gallery
- George Condo: Drawings for Distant Figures, Hauser & Wirth
- Rashid Johnson: Untitled Anxious Red Drawings, Hauser & Wirth
- Time Share: PERFORMA
Theatre, Opera, & Ballet
- National Theatre at Home: Every Thursday afternoon the National Theatre (UK) will stream an encore presentation from their NT LIVE series for free on their YouTube channel.
- Shakespeare’s Globe: Bi-monthly youtube premieres of past productions.
- Marquee TV streams Stream acclaimed performances from the Royal Opera House, Bolshoi Ballet, Teatro Real, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Opera Zurich, London Philharmonic Orchestra and more.
- The Public Theatre: Free streams of past performances, including Joes Pub & Shakespeare in the Park, and special talks/interviews.
- Playwrights Horizons, Soundstage: A free podcast of newly commissioned plays & musicals.
- SERIALS @ The Flea: The Flea’s late-night episodic show now have the chance to experience five all-new plays specifically created for digital viewing.
- The Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD Series: Each night of the week the Met Opera will release a different encore presentation for free on their website. Each performance is available for a period of 23 hours.
- Royal Opera House: Every Friday afternoon London’s Royal Opera House will stream an encore Ballet or Opera performance. You can watch the free stream on their YouTube channel.
- Opera Philadelphia, Digital Festival: Archived performances from recent Opera Philadelphia seasons.
- Wiener Staatsoper; Live At Home: The Vienna State Opera is streaming previously recorded ballet and opera performances daily.
- New York City Ballet Digital Spring Season: The NYC Ballet is offering free streams each Tuesday and Friday night on their you-tube channel.
- PBS Great Performances:PBS has released full performances from their Great Performances series. Including the Public Theatre’s 2019 Much Ado About Nothing.
Music, Dance, Talks, & More
- Ticketmaster’s streaming guide is the place to turn to if you’re missing live gigs & comedy, including intimate gigs from the homes of top artists raising money for charities
- Berliner Philharmoniker: The Berlin Philharmonic is making their archive of hundreds of performances available for free.
- New York Philharmonic: A new initiative, NY PHIL PLAYS ON includes free streaming of radio broadcasts and select concerts.
- Philharmonie de Paris: Free streams of past concerts, staged productions, and more.
- Chicago Symphony Orchestra Sounds & Stories: Archived radio broadcast.
- Live with Carnegie Hall:Entirely new programming that feature some of the world’s finest artists as they share behind-the-scenes stories, excerpts from past performances, and live musical moments.
- Kennedy Center Digital Stage: Free streams from various Kennedy Center productions including performances by the National Symphony Orchestra and American Ballet Theatre, and presentations like the Mark Twain Prize and Kennedy Center Honors.
- Kennedy Center Millennium Stage: Free streaming of popular and contemporary music & dance performances from the Kennedy Center.
- PBS: Live from Lincoln Center: PBS has released full episodes from their Live from Lincoln Center series.
- The Fisher Center’s Virtual Stage: Free weekly streams of archived performances and new commissions.
- Joes Pub! : A free series of live-streamed performances from the iconic NYC stage. Performances are streamed every Thursday, Friday & Saturday at 8pm.
- ISSUE Project Room: Issue Project Room, a home for new and experimental music/performance, offers an archive of live-performance videos dating back to 2011.
- Live@National Sawdust: Free weekly streams of archived performances from the new-music venue, National Sawdust.
- Digital Discovery Festival 2020: A weekly program of live performances, interviews, and artist development opportunities from National Sawdust.
- CANLAND: An archive of live-performance audio & video from the ensemble, Bang on a Can.
- UP CLOSE, The Shed: A free series of newly commissioned art works, discussions, playlist, and more, exploring what it means to think about the world and make art right now.
- New York Live Arts: New York Live Arts is offering weekly free streams from their archives. This includes modern dance, interdisciplinary performances, and lectures.
- Ailey All Access: Alvin Ailey is providing streams of past performances as well as virtual dancing workshops.
- The Grand Ole Opry: Returning to their roots, the Opry is streaming their upcoming Saturday night performances on their Facebook and YouTube channel.
- The New Social Environment, Brooklyn Rail: Free-streaming afternoon conversations with notable artists, writers, filmmakers, and poets.
Interactive arts-based activities for children, families & educators
- Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems!: A daily doodle and virtual studio visit with The Kennedy Center’s Education Artist-in-Residence.
- Daily Drawing with Wendy MacNaughton: Illustrator Wendy MacNaughton (Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat / Meanwhile) leads a daily drawing class live on Instagram. M-F, 10am PT/1pm ET.
- Artist Activity Pack: Firstsite gallery has created weekly artist activity packs with contributions from leading U.K. artists including Anthony Gromley, Jeremy Deller, Grayson Perry, and more.
- Lincoln Center Pop-Up Classroom:Daily morning arts lessons from Lincoln Center’s collective of artists and educators. Lessons include arts & crafts, drama, dancing, and music.
- New Victory Arts Break: Designed by New Victory Theater Teaching Artists, this program gives families a weeks worth of arts activities based off of New Victory performance videos.
- Tate Kids: A resource of crafts, games, activities, and videos for children to explore and experience modern art.
- Children’s Museum of the Arts, Resources for At-Home Arts Education: A resource of how-to-videos for at home crafts, curriculum guides based on exhibitions, and DIY Crafts.
- Teacher Guides, Whitney Museum of Art: Guides provide information about selected artists and works of art, topics for classroom discussion, writing activities, and art projects that introduce the key ideas of an exhibition.
- Art Families Can Do at Home, MoMA: Activities for kids ages 6+ inspired by artworks in MoMA’s collection.
- Carnegie Hall, Musical Explorers: Curriculum guides, activities, interactive maps, and recorded performances to teach students about musical genres across the globe.
- New York Philharmonic, Young People’s Concerts PLAY: Curriculum guides, family activities, and composition exercises in tandem with special NY Phil Young People’s Concerts.
- MET OPERA: Opera Based Learning at Home:Activities, listening exercises, composition lessons and more for children K – 12.
- Ballet Breaks: NYC Ballet: Join artist of the NYC Ballet for a series of lively Saturday and Sunday mornings for children ages 3-8.
- TED-ED@HOME: A collection of high quality, interactive, video-based lessons on a daily basis, for free.
- The New York Times, The Learning Network: Targeted for teenagers (13+), The Learning Center offers writing prompts based on NYT articles, photographs, and stories. Additionally, the network provides webinars for parents and educators who are new to remote learning.
