Guide to what’s happening in Boston this week
Going out
Chinatown Main Street Gala
Saturday, 6 p.m.
Beach St. and Harrison Ave., Boston, $45, 617-350-6303
www.chinatownmainstreet.org
Celebrate the Chinese New Yearwith a 9-course dinner, martial arts performances, a lion dance, Chinese folk dancing, a Chinese dough maker, calligraphy, a raffle and more. That’s right — a 9-course meal. We’re not sure if that’s a Chinese New Year tradition, but it sure is generous — hopefully they’ll provide doggie bags.
Music
Boston’s Celtic Music Fest
Friday through Monday
Various locations
Harvard Square, Cambridge
$15-$28, 617-492-7679
www.bcmfest.com
Although “Celtic” is often used as a synonym for “Irish,” this three-day fest includes performances drawing on music and dance traditions of the whole Celtic world, from Scotland to Brittany to Eastern Canada, displaying the wide variety of styles under the Celtic umbrella. Friday’s highlight is the Boston Urban Ceilidh — a traditional community dance led by a caller, square dance-style.
Naked on Roller Skates
Saturday, 9 p.m.
Great Scott
1222 Comm. Ave., Boston
$10, 21+, 617-566-9014
www.greatscottboston.com
We rolled our eyes at this local band’s name at first, but it turns out their bright, female-fronted power-pop music is good enough to withstand the cheap novelty of such a moniker. Everything about their sound is chart-toppingly accessible. Well, at least, it was about 10 or 15 years ago. But pop was better back then anyway, so we’re not complaining.
Theater
Boston One-Minute Play Festival
Saturday through Monday
Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
949 Comm. Ave., Boston
$20, 866-811-4111
www.bu.edu/bpt/
Who has time for a two-hour play nowadays, especially when you’ll just have to reduce your opinion of it to 140 characters? If your attention span’s been corrupted by the Internet, you may enjoy this awesome experiment in ADD theater, which features over 70 brand new plays, each clocking in at around a minute.
Art
Artefacting into Dharavi
Through March 23
Multicultural Arts Center
41 Second St., Cambridge
Free, 617-577-1400
www.cmausa.org
This multimedia exhibition is the product of a multi-artist pro-ject led by Alex White Mazzarella to artistically document life in Dharavi, one of Mumbai’s most notorious slums. You’d expect results to be dreary and desperate, but they’re vibrant and energetic, crackling with the di-verse humanity of a poor but passionate community. Opening reception is tonight at 6.
Movies
‘The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground’
Wednesday through Jan. 15
Remis Auditorium,
Museum of Fine Arts
465 Huntington Ave., Boston
$9-$11, 800-440-6975
www.mfa.org
This documentary by Erik Anjou, screening as part of the Boston Jewish Film Festival, follows the popular klezmer and Yiddish music ensemble as they tour across the globe in support of their first English-language album, “Wonder Wheel: The Lyrics of Woody Guthrie,” which finds them composing original tunes for recently rediscovered lyrics by the folk legend.
Talks
Thomas Frank
Tonight, 6
Brattle Theatre
40 Brattle St., Cambridge
$5, 617-661-1515
www.harvard.com
This author will discuss his new book “Pity the Billionaire,” which examines the Great Recession’s paradoxical reinvigoration of the American right wing. How could a crisis that so many attributed to economic deregulation inspire such a
passionate response in others for even more thorough deregulation? Frank provocatively asserts a blind faith in laissez-faire capitalism on the right as the culprit.
