DC Artswatch

“Belize 35,” an exhibition marking the 35th anniversary of Belize independence, will run from Feb. 11 through March 13 at the Art Museum of the Americas at the Organization of American States, 201 18th Street NW. The featured artists are sculptor Santiago Cal, with two installations, and photojournalist Karl Villanueva, with color images made Sept. 21, 1981, Belize’s day of independence.

The 2016 Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy will be given by John Maeda, partner at Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and former president of Rhode Island School of Design, on Monday, March 7, at the Kennedy Center. Named for the second chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, the lecture takes place the evening before Arts Advocacy Day. To reserve a free ticket, and for Advocacy Day details, visit americansforthearts.org.

The DC Independent Film Festival will take place March 4 to 13 at the Naval Heritage Center, E Street Cinema, the Carnegie Institution for Science, BloomBars and Miracle Theater Church. The festival will screen 16 documentaries — including “Mind/Game,” about former Washington Mystic Chamique Holdsclaw — and 11 features, along with documentaries, shorts, animated films and high school film competition finalists. For details, visit dciff-indie.org.

Septime Webre, artistic director of the Washington Ballet since 1999, will step down from the position in June. Named for his French great-grandfather, also a seventh son, he took the company to Cuba (which his parents left in 1959) in 2000. Webre has continued to raise the D.C. and national profile of the company and school ever since, through his bold choreography and, among other accomplishments, the launch of programming in Southeast at THEARC and the creation of a “Nutcracker” set in Georgetown.

Compiled by Richard Selden.