#John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

[greendayauthority]

Mark Twain Prize Award Ceremony, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C., 23 October 2011

[balletthebestphotographs]

Tiler Peck and Román Mejía

Tiler Peck and Román Mejía, “Rubies”, choreo by George Balanchine, music by Igor Stravinsky Игорь Стравинский (Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra), costume by Barbara Karinska (Varvara Jmoudsky). From “Jewels” (“Rubies”, “Emeralds” and “Diamonds”), Opera House, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington DC, USA (June 8, 2024).

Note I: This blog is open to receiving and considering any suggestions, contributions, and/or criticisms that may help correct mistakes or improve its content. Comments are available to any visitor.

Note II: Original quality of photographs might be affected by compression algorithm of the website where they are hosted.

Source and more info at: New York City Ballet Website New York City Ballet on Twitter New York City Ballet on You Tube New York City Ballet on Facebook New York City Ballet on Instagram

Photographer Erin Baiano Website Photographer Erin Baiano on Tumblr Photographer Erin Baiano on Instagram

[youthchronical]

Trump Seeks More Sway in Picking Kennedy Center Honorees

When President Trump was criticized by some of the artists who were recognized at the annual Kennedy Center Honors program during his first term, he responded by boycotting the show, breaking with decades of precedent. Now, as he leads a sweeping takeover of the Kennedy Center in his second term, Mr. Trump is seeking changes that will allow him greater sway in the selection of honorees, according…

[krispyweiss]

Album Review: Chicago - Chicago at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington D.C. (9/16/1971)

For decades, Chicago at Carnegie Hall had been the go-to album for fans of the band’s improvisational, politically charged approach to music making.

Now, there’s another option: Chicago at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington D.C. (9/16/1971). Where the horns were often bleating on Carnegie, they’re crystal-clear on JFK; where the former was occasionally sloppy, the latter is tight.

JFK doesn’t replace Carnegie, it complements it. The long-gestating, archival LP is a gift to those who revere the early days of Chicago and its change-the-world mission and an ear-opener to those who may regard the band as a milquetoast purveyor of pop that didn’t feature one of rock most under-appreciated guitarists, Terry Kath, among his members.

As the band takes the stage at the then-new D.C. venue, it tells tapers they can turn off their machines as the show will be recorded via mobile truck. What the group didn’t say is it would wait 53 years to put the thing out.

It was worth the wait, but the lag is inexplicable.

Though At the John F. Kennedy Center captures the the original septet at a crossroads, it was still a daring live act, playing cuts from its first three studio albums and previewing V with the unfinished “Dialogue” and the debut performance of “Saturday in the Park” with Peter Cetera on vocals.

Wah-wah master Kath is ablaze throughout, adding his soulful rasp to the progressive jazz of “Loneliness is Just a Word;” crying for a cessation of hostilities in Southeast Asia on “It Better End Soon” and giving a six-string clinic on the 3rd Movement, parenthetically titled “Guitar Solo;” and generally torching the stage on such vocal and instrumental showcases as “In the Country,” “I’m a Man” and “25 or 6 to 4.”

Not to be outdone, Robert Lamm improvises a lengthy piano into to “Does Anybody Really Know What Time it Is?;” drummer Danny Seraphine gets the spotlight on “I’m a Man” and “Beginnings;” and Walt Parazaider takes a long flute solo on the 2nd Movement of “IBES.”

“A Song for Richard and His Friends,” a scathing rebuke of Nixon that never received the studio treatment, combines elements of a Grateful Dead “Space” segment with the adventurism of Frank Zappa’s jazz period. “A Hit by Varèse,” meanwhile, finds the band cooking while mocking the pop stars they could become just a few years down the line.

Yes, there were hits at this point - most notably “Make Me Smile” and “Colour My World” as part of the multi-track “Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon.” But Chicago at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is really just a reminder that Chicago was once a kick-ass rock ’n’ roll band that sought to reorder society with its music.

The endeavor failed. The music was - and remains - successful.

Grade card: Chicago - Chicago at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington D.C. (9/16/1971) - A

11/4/24

[niyasruledbyvenus]

Arudha Lagna in the Signs

Arudha Lagna is how others perceive us (especially society/public/media). It is our projected and illusionary personality. Referred to as “the seat of Maya” Maya=illusion/Rahu. Which usually differs from our true personality represented by our Lagna/ Ascendant.

How to calculate Arudha Lagna?

1. Find your Lagna/ascendant the Lord (Aries ascendant-> Mars)

2. Count how many houses from your ascendant Lord to your ascendant. (ex. how many houses mars is from ascendant= 8 houses)

3. Count that same number from Ascendant lord. That is your Arudha Lagna (ex. 8 houses away from mars= Aquarius AL)

Benefics sitting in the Arudha can give a positive public image. Making one appear good and trustworthy, even if they aren’t.

Malefics sitting in the Arudha/or ruling the sign can tarnish one’s reputation, making the public distrustful or critical.

For example- Saturn, Mars, Rahu, Ketu sitting in AL can tarnish one’s reputation

Signs ruled by Malefics such as Scorpio (Mars & Ketu), Aries (Mars), Capricorn & Aquarius ( Saturn) doesn’t have as severe of an effect as a malefic siting in AL. But it does make one appear controversial or questionable to public at some point in time.

AL In Aries- Bold, competitive, intimidating, leader, pioneer, aggressive, action oriented, sexual/ promiscuous

Women tend to be accused of competing with other women or men competing with other men

Ex. Marilyn Monroe, Christina Aguilera, Muhammad Ali, Tyra Banks

AL in Taurus- Stable, grounded, Sensual, refined, gentle, patient, charismatic, trustworthy, noticed for voice, stubborn

Usually seen as harmless or down to earth. Like Libra, Venus ruled, they tend to be known for their sensuality & looks

Ex. Keanu Reeves, Rihanna, Michael Jackson, Bruno Mars

AL in Gemini- intellectual, witty, youthful, curious, versatile, social, communicative, recognition from siblings

Tend to be recognized for their unique voice

Ex. Beyoncé, Madonna, Rita Hayworth, Mariah Carey

AL in Cancer- Sensitive, Gentle, Homebody, Comforting, Nurturing, Proud of country/heritage/family, Protective, intuitive, Caring, Empathetic, Moody, emotional

Home dynamics or family life can be put on the spotlight. Others see them a caring, mother like figure (unless malefic influence)

Ex. Princess Diana, JonBenét, Brandy

AL in Leo- Charismatic, Authoritative, creative, dramatic, Natural Leader, Arrogant, Center of Attention, Performer/arts, fashionable, someone of importance, Extroverted

Spotlight is always on them so they tend to gain fame & attention in whatever they do. Type to feel like all eyes are on you when entering a room.

Ex. Al Capone, Catherine Hepburn, Halle Berry, The Weeknd

AL in Virgo- Analytical, practical, intelligent, resourceful, reserved, health conscious, detail oriented, logical, rational, educated

They come off as controlled and put together. Can’t get them to react easily.

Ex. Prince Harry, Bruce Lee, Jennifer Lawrence

AL in Libra- Charming, diplomatic, balanced, harmonious, sociable, peaceful, intellectual, good at negotiating/comunicating, influential, Justice seeking

Tend to be either known for their beauty, charisma, or justice/law industry.

Ex. Monica Bellucci, Oprah, lady Gaga, Aubrey Hepburn, Barack Obama

AL in Scorpio- Mysteroius, intense, powerful, secretive, magnetic, respected, morally grey, dark, sexual/sexy, controversial, sensual, occultist/witch/astrologer, taboo, hiding secrets, Spiritual dangerous, seductive

Due to malefic Mars/Ketu influence they do tend to be very controversial but despite this they still turn out to be respected

Ex. Angelina Jolie, Sharon Stone, Pamela Anderson, John F Kennedy, Jim Morrison, Bill Gates

AL in Sagittarius- Optimistic, philosophical, adventurous, independent, wise, free-spirited, benevolent, Justice seeking, educated, Humorous, experienced, travels a lot

They are seen as knowledgeable and in-tune with other cultures. They make good comedians, business owners, teachers

Ex. Jeff Bezos, Jacqueline Kennedy, Adam Ant, Demi Moore, Hugh Hefner

AL in Capricorn- Ambitious, disciplined, responsible, structured. authoritative, grounded, serious, mature, dignified, sturn, wiser than age, melancholy, pessimistic, cold

The list is questionable because Saturn influence can, like I said, make one appear questionable depending on other influences. But they make good leaders, business owners.

Ex. Lana del Rey, Adolf Hitler, Charlie Chaplin, Angela Merkel, Brad Pitt

AL in Aquarius- Innovative, unconventional, intellectual, humanitarian, forward-thinking, eccentric, unorthodox, friendly, good with media/technology, rebellious, cares about welfare of society/world, leader, influencer

People usually say their style, ideas & attitude are ahead of their time, due to Rahu.

Ex. Steve Irwin, Cher, Tamera Mowry

AL in Pisces-Spiritual, imaginative, empathetic, dreamy, otherworldly, artistic, siren like, mysterious, gentle, kind, serious, spiritual/devoted, adventurous, open-minded, philosophical, interested in higher learning/knowledge, introverted, emotional

Seen as creative, artistic (music, art, acting etc). Inventing/creating something new. Emotional imbalance/mental illnesses might get public attention

Ex. Denzel Washington, Will Smith, Elon Musk, Picasso, Ariana Grande

Disclaimer- some of the people I listed have two Arudha Lagnas (ie Scorpio Asc or Aquarius Asc) ex Princess Diana Cancer & Aquarius AL

I tried to find both positive & negative representations

Astromartine has a very knowledgeable playlist; going more in depth for each Arudha Lagna & Arudha houses

[theonion]

Failing to receive the reaction he anticipated from audience members, JD Vance was booed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts while playing a French horn solo, sources confirmed Friday. The stage curtains reportedly rose to reveal the vice president, an amateur horn player, standing by himself behind a music stand, a sight that elicited gasps and murmurs from those in attendance. According to sources, the crowd began booing and jeering Vance within the first 15 seconds of his performance of Franz Strauss’s Horn Concerto, Op. 8, causing the vice president to quickly lose his confidence and begin playing cracked and flat notes. 

Full Story

[saywhat-politics]

Vance's wife Usha, who is a board member appointed by Trump, was also in attendance

Vice President J.D. Vance was booed while watching a performance at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after President Donald Trump took over leadership.

According to a video shared by The Guardian global affairs correspondent Andrew Roth on X, Thursday, March 13, Vance, 40, was quickly booed as he prepared to watch the National Symphony Orchestra and Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos perform Stravinsky's Petrushka from a balcony seat. His wife, Usha Vance, was seen accompanying him.

As the vice president takes a seat, a man could be heard yelling, "Boo." Another person is heard saying, "Oh f---."

[remembertheplunge]

Portland Gay Men’s Chorus unites in protest after Kennedy Center cancels Pride performance

Queer choruses across the country are speaking out against the Kennedy Center’s decision to cancel its Pride show featuring the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington.

Feb. 15, 2025

When Mark McCrary first participated in a gay men’s chorus, he cried.

He came out as gay later in life. The chorus offered him a safe space to perform, in a way few places had. 

“For the first time, it was a sense of community,” McCrary said. “I was safe — which lends itself to being a better singer.”

He now works as the executive director for the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus.

FILE - Members of the Portland Gay Men's Chorus sing loud for the cheering crowd at Portland's Pride Parade on July 16, 2023. The group is one of the latest speaking out against the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts' recent decision to cancel a Pride show featuring the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington.

Caden Perry / OPB

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts recently canceled a Pride event that included the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington performing with the National Symphony Orchestra. The cancellation spurred backlash from LGBTQ+ choruses across the country. The center’s board unanimously appointed Trump as the chair of the national cultural center for the United States.

In a statement, National Symphony Orchestra Director Jean Davidson denied that the decision to postpone the performance stemmed from its LGBTQ+ content, and that it was “due to financial and scheduling factors.”

But gay men’s choruses are sounding the alarm, including in Portland. McCrary said news of the cancellation came as a shock.

“The optics of all this just look very bad,” he said. “We’re beginning to see a trend toward silencing the queer community.”

Related: Former Kennedy Center president speaks out in first interview since her firing

McCrary said he talks regularly with other choir executive directors, many of whom have started to worry for the safety of their members. Some performances have been picketed by protesters, and some performers have received death threats. The personal safety of their choruses is something they’ve only had to plan for within the past couple of months, he said.

LGBTQ+ choruses — serving gay, lesbian, and trans people, and more — have been a fixture in queer culture since appearing in the late 1970s. At that time, they were very politically active, organizing against widespread discrimination and for increased treatment of HIV/AIDS, said Braeden Ayres, artistic director of the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus.

“It gave us a literal voice,” Ayres said. “I think it’s more important than ever that we speak out against these injustices.”

Related: As Trump takes over leadership at Kennedy Center, some protest through dance

He said he believes many choruses will become more politically vocal in the coming years, as the visibility of LGBTQ+ people becomes a wider issue.

FILE - Gay Men's Chorus during a parade for Portland Pride in 1988. LGBTQ+ choruses have been a fixture in queer culture since appearing in the late 1970s. 

Courtesy of the Greg Pitts Collection

The concert had been in the work for months, but McCrary said it’s taken on new meaning, given the political climate.

“The sense of solidarity now is so much more pronounced because of the things going on, even in the state of Oregon,” McCrary said. “It seems to be terribly prescient.”

Much of the concert has already been planned, but organizers are discussing ways to visually represent the solidarity at the heart of the performance.

Correction: A previous version of this story gave the wrong date for the concert on March 30. OPB regrets the error.

[mariacallous]

It has come to this: we are now in Ministry of Truth territory. In Washington DC, the Smithsonian Institution, the US’s ensemble of 21 great national museums, last week became the subject of an executive order by President Donald Trump. “Distorted narratives” are to be rooted out. There will be no more of the “corrosive ideology” that has fostered a “sense of national shame”. The institution has, reads the order, “come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology” that portrays “American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive”. The vice-president, JD Vance, is, by virtue of his office, on the museum’s board. He is charged by Trump to “prohibit expenditure” on programmes that “divide Americans based on race”. He is to remove “improper ideology”. The order is titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”. George Orwell lived too soon.

The move is deeply shocking, but predictable. After Trump’s insertion of himself as chair of the John F Kennedy Center and his railing against the supposed wokeness of the national performing arts venue, the federally funded Smithsonian was bound to be next in line. Those who imagined the Kennedy Center was a one-off, attracting the president’s ire for personal reasons, were deluding themselves about the scale of Trump’s ideological ambition. Picked out for opprobrium in the executive order are the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum for celebrating transgender women (the museum, it should be pointed out, has yet to be built); the National Museum of African American History and Culture; and an exhibition titled The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture at the American Art Museum.

I visited the Museum of African American History for the first time a couple of weeks ago. It is a vast book of a museum, heavy with text. It was full, when I visited, of mostly Black families seeking out an encounter with a narrative that has long been a footnote to, or erased completely from, the main national story. You could spend days absorbing the web of stories that the museum offers, beginning in its basements with the transatlantic slave trade, where one of the most moving objects is, unexpectedly and profoundly, a piece of iron ballast that took the place of a human body after a ship’s cargo of enslaved people had been disgorged on the triangular route between Africa, the Americas and Europe. The whole strikes a fascinating balance between an unflinching gaze on systems of oppression, and a sense of Black achievement and cultural richness that has nevertheless effloresced.

Lonnie Bunch, the founding director of the museum, gave a talk at the House of Lords in 2011 about the institution, which was still in the planning, and would open five years later. I can still recall how moving it was to hear about the difficulties of making a museum – a place where a story is told through objects – from communities traditionally poor in material things. The institution had put out a call for loans and donations. Precious, carefully treasured objects – a bonnet embroidered by someone’s enslaved grandmother, for example – were arriving into the new collection.

Fast forward to the present, and Bunch is in charge of the entire Smithsonian Institution. This is a man who believes, as he told Queen’s University Belfast last year, that history can be used to “understand the tensions that have divided us. And those tensions are really where the learning is where the growth is, where the opportunities to transform are.” That compassionate vision of the past, as a means through which the citizens of the present can better understand each other, is completely opposed to the monolithically triumphalist spirit of Trump’s executive order, in which history is reduced to “our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness”. How much easier it is, to sink into this pillowy, comforting notion of glorious progress than to grapple with the kind of knotty, often upsetting and confronting history that the Museum of African American History offers its visitors. But it makes me wonder: can the museum survive this government?

I visited, too, the American Art Museum, whose show The Shape of Power is targeted in the executive order as emblematic of the Smithsonian’s decline into “divisive, race-centered ideology”. The exhibition, which was years in the careful making, points out what is surely obvious, once it has been given a moment’s thought: that race is not an inherent and prepolitical category, but rather a constructed set of ideologies that served (and still serve) a set of economic and political interests. (One way to tell that race is a socially constructed category, in fact, is by looking to the Greeks and the Romans – the people who established, in the minds of many on the US right, “western civilisation”. They were xenophobic in their own way, and enslavement was a fact of their societies. But as is obvious from their literature, whiteness and Blackness were for them simply not operative categories.) The exhibition is an eye- and mind-opening look at how race ideology has translated into and been reinforced, or deconstructed, by sculpture – that peculiarly lifelike and thus “truthful”-seeming artform.

The catalogue quotes Toni Morrison, who once wrote that “I want to draw a map, so to speak, of a critical geography and use that map to open as much space for discovery, intellectual adventure, and close exploration as did the original charting of the New World.” Such intellectual adventuring is not what is wanted by the White House now. Trump’s world is more like Viktor Orbán’s, under whose government the school history curriculum has been rewritten to glorify Hungary, or Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey, where the novelist Elif Shafak, as she recalled in a Guardian Live event last week, was prosecuted for “insulting Turkishness”, her lawyer obliged to defend in court the views of her fictional characters. The Smithsonian and all who work there have an unenviable choice, one that has already been put before other great or formerly great institutions such as Columbia University: to comply with Trump’s dark demands; or to find ways to defy them.

[casuallyodd]

If you care about the arts in the US, you likely know about this already. This is small compared to the other things he's done, but this still matters

...plans to fire several Board members at Washington D.C.'s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. And to the surprise of many in the arts world, on Friday, he said he would name himself chairman.

...

...in the years since the Kennedy Center was first proposed in the late 1950s, it has had an outsized impact on how the American public views culture. Besides being home to the National Symphony and the Washington Opera, not to mention Broadway touring companies, dance troupes, jazz, blues, and pop concerts, the Center is also a national monument — a white marble temple situated on the banks of the Potomac in the nation's capital. That gives it unmatched cachet and international prominence.

... it has always striven to represent everyone — its board bipartisan, evenly split between Democratic and Republican members — and its programming broad, from bluegrass to hip-hop, drawing room comedy to avant-garde happening.

...

He says that he's firing the Board chairman [Carlyle Investment Group co-founder David Rubenstein] and other members who "do not share our vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture." He didn't specify who else he fired, but the membership includes singer Jon Batiste and Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes. What the President did mention as a rationale was a claim that "Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP."

...just four days into the new administration, from two Republican congressmen — Rep. Christopher Smith of New Jersey and Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan — accusing the Center of "subsidizing Chinese Communist Party propaganda," by presenting a five-day run of performances by the National Ballet of China.

[justinsentertainmentcorner]

AP, via The Guardian (03.05.2025): The mega-hit Broadway musical Hamilton is pulling out of plans to perform at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington next year, citing Donald Trump’s shakeup of the art institution’s leadership. “Our show simply cannot, in good conscience, participate and be a part of this new culture that is being imposed on the Kennedy Center,” producer Jeffrey Seller said in a statement on Wednesday. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop-flavored biography about the first US treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, won the best new musical Tony award, the Pulitzer prize for drama, a Grammy and the Edward M Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History. It also earned Miranda a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant. The show played the Kennedy Center in 2018 during Trump’s first administration and again in 2022 when Joe Biden was president. It was scheduled again from 3 March to 26 April next year. Those plans are now off. Tickets had yet to go on sale. “We are not acting against his administration, but against the partisan policies of the Kennedy Center as a result of his recent takeover,” said Seller. “These actions bring a new spirit of partisanship to the national treasure that is the Kennedy Center.” The Kennedy Center has been in upheaval since Trump forced out the center’s leadership and took over as chair of the board of trustees. His decision to do so is part of his broad campaign against “woke” culture.

Due to Tyrant 47’s takeover of the Kennedy Center, the Hamilton musical will cancel its shows that were set to play at the Kennedy.

[greendayauthority]

Mark Twain Prize Award Ceremony, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C., 23 October 2011

[balletthebestphotographs]

Megan Fairchild and Anthony Huxley

Megan Fairchild and Anthony Huxley, “Rubies”, choreo by George Balanchine, music by Igor Stravinsky Игорь Стравинский (Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra), costume by Barbara Karinska (Varvara Jmoudsky). From “Jewels” (“Rubies”, “Emeralds” and “Diamonds”), Opera House, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington DC, USA (June 4, 2024).

Note I: This blog is open to receiving and considering any suggestions, contributions, and/or criticisms that may help correct mistakes or improve its content. Comments are available to any visitor.

Note II: Original quality of photographs might be affected by compression algorithm of the website where they are hosted.

Source and more info at: New York City Ballet Website New York City Ballet on Twitter New York City Ballet on You Tube New York City Ballet on Facebook New York City Ballet on Instagram

Photographer Erin Baiano Website Photographer Erin Baiano on Tumblr Photographer Erin Baiano on Instagram

[youthchronical]

JD Vance Is Booed at a Kennedy Center Concert After Trump’s Takeover

It was supposed to be a moment of celebration: Vice President JD Vance was attending a concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington on Thursday evening for the first time since President Trump’s stunning takeover of the institution. Instead, as Mr. Vance took his seat in the box tier with the second lady, Usha Vance, loud boos broke out in the auditorium, lasting…

[porterdavis]

Oh, barf

By anointing himself chairman of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Napoleon-style, Donald Trump revealed a longing to seize one of America’s most romantic and abiding myths: Camelot. Nothing would be better than to appropriate the elegant and sparkling aura of cultural influence that came to characterize John F. Kennedy’s administration—hopeful, attractive, even sexy. And if the liberal elites refuse to see Trump this way, his actions seem to be saying, then he’ll just have to create his own version, MAGAlot.

Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic