Two Dallas performance groups are working to counter the isolating effects of COVID on DISD students. Dallas Black Dance Theatre and Dallas Summer Musicals are collaborating to offer schools access to online performances. The first video from Dallas Black Dance is available now and and will be streaming through Feb. 18. Tatum Rodgers is director of dance and drill team at South Oak Cliff High School. She said even when there were in-person school matinees, only 40 of her students could be bused there. Now all 150 can watch online. “It’s very important for my students to see that level of perfo ..read more

Four Dallas performing arts groups have received a total of $450,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts. Nationwide (including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands), 567 arts groups received nearly $58 million. In Dallas, the Bishop Arts Theatre Center and the Dallas Symphony both garnered $150,000, while Dallas Black Dance Theatre received $100,000 and Cara Mia Theatre received $50,000. The money is from the third installment of the $1.3 trillion dollar American Rescue Plan. The stimulus bill was designed by the Biden administration to provide emergency relief from the pandemic for s ..read more

Vibrant streaks of orange, pink and yellow coat the long hallway on the first floor of the Dallas Museum of Art. A disco ball glitters from atop, and the faint sound of music fills the air. The installation from California-based artist Guadalupe Rosales is a celebration of Los Angeles’ lowrider and cruising culture. “Drifting on a Memory” is the artist’s first mural project,  created with help from Dallas artist Lokey Calderon and Fort Worth artist Sarah Ayala, but Rosales is no stranger to cruising. Her Instagram projects, “Veteranas and Rucas” and “Map Pointz,” archive photos and s ..read more

Last year, Opal Lee wrote her own children’s book about Juneteenth. The Fort Worth activist is known as the “grandmother of Juneteenth” because she successfully championed it as a national holiday. Now, a new children’s book has been released – about Opal Lee herself. As one might expect, Lee — who was interviewed for the book — is pleased with it: “I was just delighted to get it. I was thrilled. “ And the portraits of her – painted for the book? “I thought they were really neat. I really did!” The book from Thomas Nelson Publishing is called Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free. Alice Faye ..read more

The recently announced plan to re-purpose the old Ku Klux Klan hall on Fort Worth’s Northside has been budgeted at $40 million. The aim is to turn it into a “cultural hub” unlike a typical community center or history museum. That’s because the hulking, red-brick building has been an embodiment of hatred and fear since Texas Ku Klux Klan Klavern #101 put it up in 1926. Its purchase by a collective of eight North Texas non-profit groups is the start of the hall’s conversion into a center that’ll give back to the same communities the Klan targeted: Black, Latino, immigrant, LGBTQ. The aim is “rep ..read more

Can a 100-year-old caped crusader – like a rebooted hero out of the Marvel Comics Universe – bring new audiences to opera? Fort Worth Opera is giving it a shot: It’s presenting a world premiere in English and Spanish about the legendary hero, Zorro. Zorro, presented by Fort Worth Opera at the Rose Marine Theater, January 26-30. COVID precautions: Audience members are required to wear masks and provide a negative COVID-19 test with 72 hours before performance or voluntarily show proof of vaccination. Composer Héctor Armienta — founder of the San Jose company, Opera Cultura — wants his adaptatio ..read more

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Many Americans have seen the images of exhausted migrants trekking across the rugged Sonoran desert or wading through the Rio Grande River, all of them trying to reach the United States. But most people have no idea what those journeys are really like – spending weeks traveling by foot, getting attacked by gangs or collapsing from heat exhaustion. Acclaimed Mexican film director Alejándro G. Iñárritu wants to bring the public closer to these kinds of experiences. So, in the exhibition Carne y Arena (Virtually present, Physically invisible) now open in Fair Park, Iñárritu uses virtual reality t ..read more

Singer Meat Loaf performs in support of Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at the football stadium at Defiance High School in Defiance, Ohio, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. Photo: Charles Dharapak/AP File Meat Loaf, the Grammy-winning American singer and actor, has died at the age of 74. An official announcement was posted to his Facebook page early Friday morning. Meat Loaf, born Marvin Lee Aday, was best known for the 1977 album Bat Out Of Hell, one of the best selling albums of all time, having sold 43 million copies worldwide. Meat Loaf won a 1994 Gramm ..read more

Editor’s note:  NPR special correspondent Susan Stamberg checked in on the Milton Avery exhibition, currently at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The exhibition is on view through January 30, 2022. SUSAN STAMBERG: I bet there’s no tally of how many times Milton Avery painted his daughter, March – she’s tall, slim, with a row of straight bangs and pointed chin, unmistakable – on paper canvases, even paper napkins. MARCH AVERY CAVANAUGH: I never posed for him. STAMBERG: Because he knew just what his only child looked like, he could draw her from memory, and he wasn’t making portraits. A ..read more