Diane DeFries, former govt director of the American Faculty Dance Affiliation, has been attending performances at The John F. Kennedy Heart for the Performing Arts because it opened in 1971. At ACDA’s nationwide festivals, she noticed generations of scholars look awestruck upon strolling into the imposing Washington, DC, performing arts heart.
However she has no plans to set foot in its red-carpeted halls now. And she or he’s not alone. Since President Trump took over management of the venue in February—and particularly because the latest firing of the Heart’s dance programming workforce, and the set up of the self-described “MAGA former dancer” Stephen Nakagawa as the brand new director of dance programming—the query of whether or not or to not go to the Kennedy Heart has turn into politicized. Vociferous calls to boycott the Heart have unfold throughout social media, resulting in enormous drops in subscription and advance ticket gross sales.
“A lot to my despair, I really feel like I can not go to the Kennedy Heart in good conscience at this level,” DeFries says. “The intention of this administration is to rework our nationwide monument to the performing arts into an establishment with values…which are counter to what the humanities have been traditionally.”
The Kennedy Heart is without doubt one of the largest performing arts facilities within the U.S. Due to its capability, status, and prominence because the nation’s nationwide cultural heart, its programming in dance and past has huge affect. “It’s an necessary stage for America, and an necessary stage for the world,” says Alicia Adams, who was vp of worldwide programming and dance till she was let go in Might.
Earlier this yr, President Trump decried the Heart’s programming as “woke,” and in August, whereas asserting the most recent class of Kennedy Heart Honorees, he leaned in: “We reversed what was occurring. We ended the woke political programming and we’re restoring the Kennedy Heart because the premier venue for performing arts anyplace within the nation, anyplace on the planet.”
Droves of dance and different performing artists, arts managers, and dependable Kennedy Heart viewers members seem to disagree. Many dancers and choreographers within the better Washington, DC, metropolitan area, like DeFries, are weighing whether or not attending occasions there could be a tacit endorsement of President Trump’s insurance policies.
Chris and Ama Regulation, co-directors of the Maryland-based dance theater firm Venture ChArma, grew up within the DC space however solely not too long ago started to really feel just like the Heart was a spot for them. In 2019, Jane Raleigh—then the Kennedy Heart’s dance programming director, who made a concerted effort to broaden the illustration of native dance corporations throughout genres in Heart programming—invited Venture ChArma to current their piece Rooted on the Heart’s Millennium Stage. The Legal guidelines have been later invited to assist curate 2023’s Nationwide Dance Day occasion devoted to hip hop, and subsequently obtained a coveted Native Dance Commissioning Venture award, which got here with a $20,000 fee and a efficiency slot within the Heart’s Terrace Theater.
Venture ChArma is scheduled to carry out Saturday, September 20, at this yr’s Nationwide Dance Day. “However now I don’t learn about shopping for tickets,” Ama Regulation says. “I’ll simply do my damnedest to seek out comps, or await reductions…something that provides the establishment much less of my cash.” On the identical time, the Legal guidelines are eager about the affect of boycotts on dance artists. “I might hate to be that artist who’s performing to an empty crowd, figuring out how exhausting I labored,” Ama Regulation says.
Absent from this Kennedy Heart season is Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, a perennial favourite engagement on the Opera Home. Ailey week on the Kennedy Heart not solely incessantly bought out, however the opening night time firm profit has been a serious fundraiser for Ailey, bringing in over $1.2 million this previous February. This yr the corporate opted to carry out as an alternative at DC’s Warner Theatre. It declined to touch upon that call.
With out robust ticket gross sales, dance on the Kennedy Heart is probably not sustainable. “In 2021 the pandemic crashed every little thing when it comes to ticket gross sales and subscriptions,” Raleigh says. “In subsequent years we have been seeing extra strong subscriptions than a lot of our dance-presenting colleagues nationally. And our single tickets have been promoting within the 70-to-80-percent–capability vary for many of our [dance] engagements, some a lot better. Homes have been full, we have been feeling good about it.” She famous—and Adams confirmed—that the newly employed Trump-endorsed higher managers have been very complimentary on dance programming earlier this yr.
Raleigh plans on attending the 2025–26 season, which she partially booked. “ ‘Come see dance’ was my place once I was contained in the Kennedy Heart, and it stays my place now,” she says. “Help the artists who’re on these phases and my colleagues who stay working on the Kennedy Heart.” Adams, who spent three many years of her profession in programming on the Heart, says that she can also be trying ahead to supporting the dance corporations she booked for the approaching season. “If there’s one thing there that you simply consider in and respect, an organization whose work you will have supported or need to see, then assist them,” she says. “Be in that viewers to cheer them on.”
“To go or to not go,” nevertheless, stays the query. Vincent Thomas, a Baltimore-based dance artist and educator whose firm, VTDance, has been introduced on the Kennedy Heart’s Millennium Stage, final got here to a efficiency on the Heart in August—sooner or later after Raleigh and the remainder of the dance programming workforce have been fired. “I felt for these artists and I felt an obligation, a necessity, to assist them,” he says. However Thomas, like many different previously devoted dance patrons, has but to buy tickets for the 2025–26 dance season.
