Welcome to the 2021 Manhattan Borough Arts Virtual Festival!

What a difference a year makes! The themes of this year’s festival are Hope and Gratitude. Finally, we find ourselves looking ahead towards better times, acknowledging the intense hardships of the past year and the growing awareness of how far we have come since the pandemic began. Last year’s festival was the first time we experienced a remote celebration. We searched for any type of connection we could create through our forced separation and we found it through the creation of shared artistic creations. Now slowly but surely, with hope and gratitude, we are coming back together physically to experience this new chapter of our city’s life. And once again, our student musicians, dancers, actors, and visual artists, with the incredible support of our amazing Manhattan School Leaders and teachers, have met this moment and created performances and artwork deeply reflecting these unique times and their lived experiences.

Rachel Shapiro, Manhattan Borough Arts Director