Arts and Culture

A new initiative for local artists that has community members pay in advance for nine different original works of art distributed its first round of art to 33 participating patrons last Saturday. The program was formed by Rhizome DC, a…

Marjan Naderi, DC’s youth poet laureate in 2020, had long worried that poetry was dying. After years of expressing herself through poems, winning slam poetry contests, and even publishing her own book, Naderi wondered whether her craft was…

Painted City is a charming 26-minute documentary about Perry Frank’s passion for cataloging and preserving murals throughout the District. At a time when gentrification is leading to the destruction of many of these paintings in DC, Frank…

This year is the first in recent memory that dancers of The Washington Ballet won’t be performing The Nutcracker live. Many professional dancers had their first real stage experience in The Nutcracker. For professional company members and…

It’s been said that Alvin Ailey’s Revelations is the most-watched dance piece on the planet. The 36-minute, one-act choreography has been a centerpiece of that extraordinary company’s repertory for decades. Similarly, The Nutcracker, with…

Since 1985, the Mayor’s Arts Awards have offered a chance to highlight notable DC venues such as the Lincoln Theatre, a sprawling auditorium on the historic U Street Corridor and a frequent host to the annual event. But the 2020 awards,…

The Kennedy Center and Facebook’s new Arts Across America program will feature 200 performers by the end of this year, showcasing art driven by advocacy, education and social justice. Many of the artists hail from DC, including today’s…

With Mayor Muriel Bowser set to begin reopening DC after the city’s weekslong closure amid a public health emergency, there are legitimate concerns about the future of our arts and culture industry, including artists and other personnel.…

Rather than performing Swan Lake at the Kennedy Center this week as originally scheduled, the dancers of The Washington Ballet are among those stuck at home due to the COVID-19 public health emergency. The performances have been…

DC theaters may soon be struggling with the economic impact of the new coronavirus as theatergoers choose to stay at home or are forced to do so.  In San Francisco, municipal officials ordered a 14-day halt to performances and other…

American Ballet Theatre brought a heartbreakingly beautiful valentine to DC last week. The New York-based dance company performed the classic story ballet Giselle onstage at the Kennedy Center for a seven-day run in a production…

Once you know who wrote the play, there's little doubt about whether Dear Jack, Dear Louise has a happy ending. The playwright — Ken Ludwig, one of DC’s most prolific and most produced comedic theater writers — is the younger son of the…

Thanksgiving isn’t the only sign this week that the Christmas season is upon us, with the curtain rising on two incarnations of The Nutcracker ballet at DC theaters. An evergreen holiday tradition that originated in Russia in 1892, the…

Natwar Gandhi, who became famous locally during 13 years as the chief financial officer of the District, has penned an engaging memoir looking back at his boyhood in India and later adventures — setbacks and successes — in the United…

The Washington Ballet launched its 2019-20 season last week with NEXTsteps, an aptly named glimpse of dance’s interdisciplinary and collaboration-centered future. The show at the Sidney Harman Hall featured three evocative dances: Jessica…

Margie Clarke — one of four DC teenagers who formed the R&B girl group The Jewels in 1961 — had her biggest recording success three years later when their song “Opportunity” rose to No. 64 on the Billboard Hot 100. A petite woman who…

Demonstrating a brand of strong-arming that could rival any seen at the national level, Mayor Muriel Bowser and some in her administration have tried for the past several months to muscle members of the DC Commission on the Arts and…

Just a few blocks east of the Anacostia River, an unsuspecting row house in Ward 7’s Fairlawn neighborhood is being transformed. On Saturday, the Nicholson Project, a new artist residency program, will host an exhibition and celebration…