Create a pencil drawing to take home while taking a closer look at the collection. No experience is necessary. All supplies provided. For ages 6 and up (children ages 12 and younger should be accompanied by an adult).
 

Noel Night is an open house of the Midtown Detroit and Cultural Center districts that celebrates diverse holiday traditions amid the state’s premier arts and cultural institutions, historic churches, galleries, and a growing number of small businesses. Noel Night is the perfect backdrop for an evening packed with performances and holiday experiences—all free of charge.

Hours

• The Cultural Center (North of Woodward) 5–9 p.m.
• Midtown Detroit (South of Woodward) 5–10 p.m.

At the DIA

Detroit Film Theatre 

• Mosaic Youth Theatre Singers | 5–5:45 p.m. 
• Frisson Ensemble Performance - A Classic Christmas | 6:15 p.m. & 7:30 p.m. 

Crystal Gallery

• Free holiday make-and-take crafts | 5–9 p.m. 

Rivera Court

• Montreal Guitar Trio Performance - Holiday Music | 6 p.m. & 8 p.m. 

Great Hall

• Visit with Santa | 5–9 p.m. 

Only the Detroit Film Theatre, Crystal Gallery, Great Hall, and Rivera Court will be open to the public. 

Noel Night features:

• Live music and interactive holiday experiences
• Holiday shopping at local businesses and pop-up marketplaces
• Make-and-take activities for families
• Visits with Santa throughout the Noel Night area
• Lots of restaurants and bars to visit
• Food trucks and hot beverage stands
• Free shuttle service

Noel Night is produced by Midtown Detroit Inc., a nonprofit planning and development organization that supports the maintenance and revitalization of the Midtown Detroit and New Center neighborhoods.

For a schedule of all Noel Night events and performances at the DIA, visit their website.

The DIA Teen Arts Council invites teens ages 13–19 for a night of artmaking, mingling, exploration, and fun! Centered around the exhibition After Cubism, teens will have the opportunity to tour the gallery with Dr. Clare I. Rogan, curator of Prints & Drawings, before heading into the studio for collage making. This event includes a free pizza dinner!  

Take in the audience favorite and award-winning films from the 2023 New York International Children’s Film Festival! These amazing short films inspire curiosity and conversation for viewers big and small. With animation, live action, and documentary shorts, Kid Flicks programs offer a chance to explore new frontiers from around the world, across the street, and the ever-expanding boundaries of our own perspectives.  

Whether dreaming up the fantastical, like a spider’s goal to capture the moon, or the practical, like a young animator’s future stardom, the shorts in Kid Flicks One are sure to enchant and delight all audiences (but especially our youngest!) 65min.

Designed for ages 5 to 10, but fun for all ages. 

Registration encouraged.

Join frame historian Tracy Gill, co-founder of New York’s Gill & Lagodich Fine Period Frames, who will discuss the evolution of frame styles over two centuries of American art. 

Drawing on examples from DIA’s collection, Gill will survey changing tastes from 17th-century painted frames and gilded hand-carved fancies to innovative 19th-century trends and opulent models from the Gilded Age. She will discuss the artist-designed frames on James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s Arrangement in Gray: Portrait of the Painter and the monumental landscapes of Frederic Church, as well as the elegant frames designed by architect Stanford White to house paintings owned by Detroit collector Charles Freer. Finally, Gill will explore the early 20th-century transition to handcraftsmanship, when American Impressionist painters were inspired to commission custom frames from Arts and Crafts artisans, and the progression to deceptively simple surrounds conceived by modernists such as Florine Stettheimer, Arthur Dove, and Georgia O’Keeffe, who pushed the boundaries of their canvases and rejected traditional gilded frames in favor of pared-down profiles finished in white, silver, and hand-painted or textured wood. 

Through this talk, attendees will join Gill in looking not just at the paintings, but the art around the art — the art of the frame. 

Special thanks to the Ida and Conrad H. Smith Fund.

The Vanaver Caravan, in collaboration with Arm-of-the-Sea Theater, present this fanciful multicultural dance, music, and theater spectacle that follows a young girl as she looks for joy in the dark days of winter. She is helped by a kind old Bear, who guides Lucia around the world to see how people everywhere keep the light of hope alive in the winter months, through the dance and music traditions of holidays like Santa Lucia, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Christmas, Diwali, Yule, Advent, and Solstice. 

Into the Light wraps all the magic of Arm-of-the-Sea Theater's giant puppets into the celebratory vision of The Vanaver Caravan's world dance repertoire. The performance raises our spirits and awareness for cultural traditions, using the winter holiday season as common ground. 

For families of all ages. 

This program is supported through the generous support of the Dr. Audley M. Grossman and Paul McPharlin Puppetry Funds.
 

Create a pencil drawing to take home while taking a closer look at the collection. No experience is necessary. All supplies provided. For ages 6 and up (children ages 12 and younger should be accompanied by an adult).

The Recognizing Women Project is a monthly community workshop that uses dance, theater, and music to illustrate our stories and experiences of the women in our lives. Join us every first Friday in November, December, and January to discover our common understandings, while co-creating them into a live culminating performance that illustrate the wisdom, power and passion of the women that have touched our lives.  

Who can participate? Daughters, sons, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, great-grandmothers, great-grandfathers… anyone who knows a woman is invited to participate.

How do you participate? Share your stories, experiences, and perspectives through our monthly workshops. 

Want to be a part of the culminating March 22, 2024 performances? Join the January workshop and our rehearsal.

Space is limited and registration is required.

This annual Michigan Philharmonic Miniature Masterpieces program highlights works for the keyboard, including harpsichord and organ.

The program centers around a dramatic J. S. Bach concerto and two pieces from Shruthi Rajasekar, a contemporary Indian American composer and vocalist who explores music that draws from both Carnatic (South Indian classical) and Western classical traditions.

Along with Bach and Rajesekar, Miniature Masterpieces will feature works by Gioachino Rossini and Wilhelmina von Bayreuth, performed by Michigan Philharmonic soloists Angie Zhang (harpsichord and organ), Dennis Carter II (flute) and Yuri Popowycz (violin).

Rachel Elise Thomas is a lens-adjacent artist, designer, and youth art teacher. With their work, Thomas aims to push the boundaries of traditional photography, collage, and site-specific installation to discuss personal topics pertaining to identity, family, and colorism.

For this workshop, visitors will join Rachel and learn about the technique of transferring images from photographs and magazines onto watercolor paper, then use collage, paint, and other decorations to embellish their artwork.
 

This program is made possible by the PNC Foundation.