Half Virtual Arts Round Up, August 27, 2020
By • August 27, 2020 0 1167
Live and in person: a Haggadah program at the Museum of the Bible, storytelling and cemetery tours at Lincoln’s Cottage and comedy at the Birchmere. Find out more by clicking on the headlines below.
Museum of the Bible: Talk and Tour
On Aug. 27 from 6:30 to 8 p.m., the Museum of the Bible, 400 4th St. SW, will present a program in conjunction with the exhibition “With a Mighty Hand: The Art of and History of the Passover Haggadah,” curated by Elka Deitsch, formerly senior curator of the Bernard Museum of Judaica at New York’s Temple Emanu-El. Sharon Liberman Mintz, curator of Jewish art at the Jewish Theological Seminary Library, will share the colorful history of the Haggadah, the illustrated text read at the ritual Passover meal. Deitsch will then lead a private tour of the Haggadahs on display. Tickets are $10, $5 for students. The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $19.99 for adults and $9.99 for ages 7 to 17 when purchased online.
As part of its streamed Speakeasy Series, legendary Georgetown jazz club Blues Alley will present the Cyrus Chestnut Duo on Aug. 27. Chestnut, a Baltimore-born, gospel-influenced jazz piano star, has worked with such musicians as Terence Blanchard, Betty Carter, Donald Harrison, Jon Hendricks and Wynton Marsalis. Tickets are $15 for the 8 p.m. live-stream and $7.50 for the 10 p.m. re-stream.
Union Station: Ida B. Wells Mosaic
Aug. 28 is the last day to visit the art installation “Our Story: Portraits of Change” on the marble floor of Union Station’s main hall. Commissioned by the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission, the mosaic, by British artist Helen Marshall, uses historic photographs of 5,000 suffragists to create a portrait in tiles of suffragist Ida B. Wells, a vocal critic of the movement’s prioritization of white women’s right to vote over those of Black and indigenous women and other women of color. An interactive version of the work is available online. In February of 1919, 26 activists with the National Woman’s Party who had been jailed for picketing the White House started their cross-country “Prison Special” train tour at Union Station.
Lincoln’s Cottage: Storytelling and Cemetery Tours
This Friday through Monday, President Lincoln’s Cottage, on the grounds of the Armed Forces Retirement Home, will offer storytelling on the south lawn at 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. and cemetery tours at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. daily. Visitors should enter at 140 Rock Creek Church Road NW and check in under the tent outside the Robert H. Smith Visitor Education Center. Masks are required on the grounds (except for children under age 3) and six-foot social distancing is to be maintained whenever possible. Portable seating is welcome and food and beverages may be consumed in the picnic area. Tickets (advance purchase required) are $12.50 for adults, $10 for active-duty military and veterans and $5 for ages 6 to 12.
American Indian Museum: Film Screenings
Native Cinema Showcase 2020, a partnership of the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts, the Santa Fe Indian Market and the National Museum of the American Indian, will screen “More Than A Word,” a documentary focusing on the Washington football team and its use of a derogatory mascot, on Aug. 28 at 7 p.m. and on Aug. 29 at 3 p.m. After the screenings, a conversation between NMAI Director Kevin Gover (Pawnee) and activist Amanda Blackhorse (Diné), a plaintiff in the 2014 lawsuit Blackhorse v. Pro Football, Inc., will stream automatically.
Classical Movements: Vox Virtual Festival
Through Aug. 29, Classical Movements and Olga Vocal Ensemble, founded in 2012 at Utrecht Conservatory in the Netherlands, are presenting Vox Virtual, an online a cappella festival featuring daily live-streamed concerts, interviews and workshops by vocal groups from around the world. The finale concert, featuring all the groups, will be live-streamed on Facebook and YouTube on Aug. 29 at 2 p.m. Admission is free but donations are encouraged.
The Birchmere: In-Person Comedy Show
D.C. comedy star Tony Woods, mentor to Dave Chappelle, will appear at the Birchmere, 3701 Mount Vernon Ave. in Alexandria, Virginia, with Stand Up NY co-owner James Altucher (recently called a “putz” by Jerry Seinfeld for saying that New York is “completely dead”) on Aug. 29 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased through Ticketmaster or at the box office starting at 5 p.m. on the night of the show. Masks must be worn when entering and exiting the building, when not seated and when in the bathroom and the store. Food and beverage items will be available once audience members have been escorted to their seats. The bar area will open at 6 p.m. for those who come to watch the show on the TV monitors.
Panel on Race and Racism in Georgetown
Dumbarton House, Mt. Zion/Female Union Band Historic Memorial Park, Georgetown Heritage and Tudor Place have organized “Reckoning the Legacy of Race and Racism in Georgetown,” a free online panel discussion and Q&A on Sept. 1 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Much of Georgetown, once a very diverse neighborhood, was built by free and enslaved African Americans. The academics, thought leaders and descendants who will participate are: Valerie Babb, Andrew Mellon Professor of Humanities at Emory University and creative director of the documentary “Black Georgetown Remembered”; Ann Chinn, founder and executive director of the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project, a national nonprofit; George Derek Musgrove, associate professor of history and Africana studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Monica Roaché, a public-school administrator serving on D.C.’s Democratic State Committee; and Adam Rothman, professor of history at Georgetown University and principal curator of the Georgetown Slavery Archive.
Art League: Zoom Weaving Course
Fiber artist Marilyn Harrington will teach a six-session Zoom course, “Introduction to Weave Structures,” on Wednesdays from 7 to 9 p.m. starting Sept. 9. Through a series of exercises and readings from Madelyn van der Hoogt’s “The Complete Book of Drafting for Handweavers,” participants will learn how to design fabric using structures such as plain weave, twill and satin. Tuition is $160.
