As finals creep around the corner, take a deep breath and clear your mind at a 75-minute meditation session led by Hunt Parr, an instructor at the Yoga Alliance. This event is part of Flourish Festival, an event hosted by NYU’s Center for Global Spiritual Life and over 15 university departments, dedicated to supporting and celebrating wellness. A limited number of yoga mats will be available, but participants may also bring their own. The event is free, but advance registration is required to attend.

Experience an “evening of world premieres” with the NYU Percussion Ensemble and a group of student composers. The ensemble has collaborated with composer and Guggenheim Fellow Julia Wolfe for over a decade, crafting nearly 100 original pieces. The ensemble is also under the direction of conductor Jonathan Haas, who has premiered with the American Symphony Orchestra and BBC Symphony Orchestra, and Robert Honstein, whose music has been performed by orchestras including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Slovenian National Theater Opera. The event is free and open to the NYU community.

Interested in the search for life beyond Earth? Join astronomer Jackie Faherty as she explores which stars and planets observatories tend to focus on and what today’s technology can reveal about the search for extraterrestrial life. Faherty will discuss recent findings, including insights from tools like the James Webb Space Telescope and the discovery of over 5,000 exoplanets. Tickets are $20 for general admission.

Celebrate Earth Day by watching The Climate Opera Project, a collection of four, 15-minute operas detailing the impacts of human-influenced natural disasters. Students from the NYU Tisch Opera Lab developed the operas in 2020 to demonstrate how art can raise awareness and inspire positive change. The American Opera Projects, an organization that has spent over 30 years developing opera and music theater projects, produced the show. Tickets are free for NYU community members who present their ID card to the box office the night of the show.

Listen in for a discussion on environmental racism at a panel featuring university professors who will discuss topics related to food systems and race. This is a great opportunity to better understand NYU’s relationships with the farms supplying its community’s food, as well as how minorities are impacted by climate change. This event is free but make sure to register in advance to secure your spot.

Head on over to the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts for the third annual spring performance of “The Moth Mainstage,” a live storytelling event. “The Moth” is a two-act show, with a musical act, where performers craft true stories around a theme, giving voice to everyone’s stories, especially those that aren’t usually heard. Labeled “New York’s hottest and hippest literary ticket” by the Wall Street Journal, you don’t want to miss some of the best storytelling the city has to offer. Tickets start at $41 for the general public.

Learn how to pickle vegetables and fruits to combat food waste with NYU Eats and the Office of Sustainability. Head over to NYU’s Brooklyn campus to learn how to transform perishable fruits and vegetables, which might otherwise go bad, into delicious pickles. The event is free and open to the NYU community.

Join a panel of experts to discuss popularized climate solutions and their role at “False Solutions: Carbon Capture, Plastics Recycling, and Green Colonialism.” The Climate Museum will host CAS professor Dean Chiham, New School professor Ana Baptista and Plastic Pollution Coalition founder Julia Cohen to discuss carbon capture, plastics recycling and green colonialism — and why they aren’t functional solutions to the climate crisis. The panel, moderated by Climate Museum director Miranda Massie, will also offer light refreshments to attendees. The event is free but encourages guests to register in advance.

Try out some delicious plant-based food at a student-run festival in celebration of Earth Month. This fun event, hosted by the Greener by Default Coalition at NYU and the NYU Animal Welfare Collective, aims to spread awareness about how plant-based foods can help sustainability. Make sure to RSVP in advance to secure your spot at this free festival.

Explore the effects of waste on urban landscapes at a film festival highlighting movies focused on Discard Studies. Co-sponsored by NYU’s Office of Sustainability and openEARTHstudio — a collective of Gallatin students and faculty — this event will feature a variety of films focusing on subjects such as disposability and waste labor. Attendees will also get the chance to watch a screening of professor Rosalind Fredericks’ new documentary, “The Waste Commons,” about how city waste is impacting Senegal. After the screening, stick around to tune into a discussion panel. Entry is free and open to the public, but make sure to RSVP in advance.

Learn how arts and crafts can be used to address the effects of climate change by helping create giant, climate-themed puppets with local artists. At this event, hosted by the volunteer organization Earth Celebrations, attendees will also get the chance to design costumes for Earth Celebrations’ Ecological City procession as well as discuss ways to go about solving neighborhood and citywide climate-related issues. This free event is open to the public, but RSVP in advance to secure your spot.

Spend your afternoon diving into a new book at an art book fair hosted by the nonprofit organization Printed Matter. The fair, which is celebrating its 18th anniversary, will feature hundreds of exhibitors from across the country and the globe. Attendees can attend a series of discussions — with a new speaker each hour — about the artistic and political discourse that arises in the publishing industry, hear presentations from publishing companies or stop by the tables for a series of launches and signings. The event will also have food and refreshments, live music and DJs and programming activities such as an artist book print workshop. This event is free to the public with tickets starting at $5.

Experience the iconic Broadway musical “Rent” with a collegiate twist by attending an NYU Tisch performance. Set in the middle of the nationwide AIDS epidemic, the love-filled musical puts a spotlight on injustices against the LGBTQ+ community and the measures taken to overcome the systemic, violent system perpetuating these injustices. If you can’t make it on Sunday, the show will run from April 26 to May 4. Tickets start at $7 for students, so make sure to reserve your seats soon. 

See a dazzling performance of the play, “The Motive and the Cue” by playwright Jack Thorne — the creator of Broadway’s “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.” The play, which is set in 1964, explores the dynamic between the characters Richard Burton and director John Gielgud while they set up for a production of William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” This is an event you don’t want to miss, so make sure to buy your tickets ahead of time. Tickets are $18 for NYU students, $26 for alumni, faculty and staff and $31 for the general public.