Enjoying the arts has always been a way for people to escape their every day lives. During this time, where most people find themselves staying at home, it may be necessary to find more creative ways to escape into the world of the arts.  Below you will find just a few examples of some of the many free options to help pass the time more enjoyably.

Music and Dance

Andrew Lloyd Weber Free Online Musicals: Andrew Lloyd Webber is streaming a production of one of his musicals on YouTube every week while theatres are closed due to the coronavirus.  The first in the series will be the composer’s 2000 production of Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat starring Donny Osmond, Joan Collins and Richard Attenborough. It will be available to watch on the YouTube channel The Show Must Go On for 48 hours, starting on Friday April 3^rd at 7pm GMT. The series will continue every Friday for the next few weeks. Online Dance Classes: Dancers, choreographers and studios are turning to online platforms including Instagram and Zoom to keep people moving through the coronavirus outbreak. Some of these options are free while others have a charge that’s listed in the info for that site. Virtual 'Love Sweet Love' From Quarantined Berklee College of Music Students: This is a virtual performance of Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "What the World Needs Now Is Love" by students from Boston Conservatory at Berklee and Berklee College of Music. Be sure to watch through the credits to enjoy videos of some of the students dancing. If there's a sliver of a silver lining in these uncertain times, it's music — from free virtual concerts to free streaming music.

Fine Arts and Museums

Free Online Art Classes: Illustrators have stepped up to create virtual resources and free classes for kids, parents, and anyone else who needs a creative break in the midst of the pandemic. Free Online Nkion Photography Classes: Nikon is offering free online photography classes for all of April. Now through April 30^th.  All 10 classes available at the Nikon School can be streamed for free. The classes are normally priced anywhere between $15 to $50 each. Museum Virtual Tours: Experience the best museums from London to Seoul in the comfort of your own home. Google Arts & Culture’s collection includes the British Museum in London, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Guggenheim in New York City, and literally hundreds of more places where you can gain knowledge about art, history, and science. This collection is especially good for students who are looking for ways to stay on top of their studies while schools are closed.

Just for Fun

This section offers a few fun and silly options that can be found to help add joy to your life. These options range from recreating world renown art, having 3D animals appear in your home, and bedtime stories with Dolly Parton. Recreating World Renown Art: Get creative and share your creations. The Getty Museum in Los Angeles tweeted a challenge to art fans to post photos of themselves recreating their favorite works of art from the safety of their homes. People responded with a lot of enthusiasm and flooded social media with their unique artistic interpretations. You can either view the first link to CNN with images of some of the artwork or view the second link to the museum’s Twitter page to see them all. Smartphone fun: If you type an animal name into Google from an iPhone or Samsung phone and then press “view in 3D” it’ll bring up your phone’s camera and within 30 seconds an image of the animal in 3D.   Once it pulls up you can then take a photo of your family “interacting with” the animal anywhere from your residence. If you do not have one of those type smartphones, it’ll just bring up the animal image in 3D making its native sound and you can twirl the animal around from all sides to look at it. Some of the available animals are lion, tiger, cheetah, shark, hedgehog, duck, emperor penguin, wolf, angler fish, goat, rottweiler, snakes, eagle, brown bear, alligator, and horse. Other categories that can be seen in 3D include NASA/space and the human skeleton. Bedtime Stories with Dolly Parton:  Calling herself "the book lady," Dolly invited everyone to join her for "Goodnight with Dolly. " She will start reading to kids every Thursday night at 7 p.m. beginning April 2^nd and lasting for the next 10 weeks. The first book read was “The Little Engine That Could.” The books featured in the series include: “There’s a Hole in the Log on the Bottom of the Lake” by Loren Long; “Llama Llama Red Pajama” by Anna Dewdney; “I Am a Rainbow” by Parton; “Pass It On” by Sophy Henn; “Stand Tall, Molly Lou Mellon” by Patty Lovell; “Violet the Pilot” by Steve Breen; “Max & The Tag-Along Moon” by Floyd Cooper; “Last Stop on Market Street” by Matt de la Peña; and “Coat of Many Colors” by Parton. To see what’s currently on sale at ILA please sign up for our newsletter, view our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter, or visit our website.