• September 19, 2013

   

McLean Orchestra Venetian Masquerade Ball
• September 18, 2013

Under the patronage of honorary chairs Ambassador of Italy and Mrs. Claudio Bisogniero, the McLean Orchestra celebrated its 40th anniversary at a Venetian Masquerade Ball at the Italian Embassy on Apr.14. Masked guests enjoyed an evening featuring a silent and live auction, elegant cuisine by Ridgewells and entertainment by tenor Antonio Giuliano and “The Elegant DJ” Ed Witles. The orchestra’s free community concerts are designed to acquaint new audiences of all ages with classical music. [gallery ids="100745,121689,121670,121684,121677" nav="thumbs"]

Jenny Live in D.C. at WPAS
• September 17, 2013

Just being around Jenny Bilfield,
the new president and CEO of the
Washington Performing Arts Society,
you get the sense she’s the kind of
person that can fill and command a
room, whether it’s a board room, a concert hall
stage, or a small downtown D.C. coffee shop
on this occasion.

Although she’s been around less than a
year, Bilfield, the artistic director of Stanford
Live at Stanford University in California since
2006, she already sounds like a Washington
D.C. booster. That, you suspect, comes out
of her deep appreciation and sense of place. A
New Yorker, she acknowledged that her work
and time at Stanford changed and enriched her,
and that’s exactly where she’s coming from
in her approach to her new job—taking over
the reigns of an organization with a long (48
years) history as a premier world arts presenter
and arts educator. She comes across as accessible,
really smart, unpretentious, and probably
knows more about most things you’d care to
talk about in conversation.

“This is such a terrific, unique place,”
she said. “We [composer husband Joel Philip
Friedman, 12-year-old daughter Hallie, a rescue
dog and a few parrots) live right next to the zoo.
We can walk to the zoo.” This is said with all
the verve of a genuine enthusiast, a woman
who can generate enthusiasm for just about
anything. She is seen as, has a reputation for,
and talks a lot about risk taking. In terms of
classical music, for instance, she’s known for
a passionate commitment to encouraging new
work and compositions, in addition to holding
fast to established artists and work which is the
hallmark of most presenters and their seasons.
“If you look at this year’s Stanford Live
season, some of which I’m responsible for, if
you run across some names that you may not
be familiar with, I’m probably responsible,”
she said.

She seems to have gotten a handle on the
unique qualities of Washington pretty quickly.
“You have a rich and diverse performance art
world, so many venues from the big to the
small, it’s full of opportunities to do many
unique things. You have a city that’s rich in
neighborhoods too, and it’s full of gifted artists
that work and perform right here. You can draw
from that. You have unique opportunities for
arts education. You have the embassies and
the whole international framework to draw on.”
Reginald Van Lee, executive vice president
of Booz Allen Hamilton and chairman of
WPAS’s Board of Directors said that “Jenny is
a visionary with a proven track record of success
who is passionate about the arts and their
role in the community. She is the right person
to lead WPAS’s new strategic plan and build
upon our core strengths: rich, educational and
community engagement programs, the nurturing
of young talent, and presenting the finest
artist of our classical, jazz, dance, and world
music performances.”

Upon the announcement of her appointment
in January, Bilfield said that “WPAS is an
essential, deeply valued anchor of the Capital
region’s cultural scene and has earned a sterling
reputation as a premier American arts presenter,
and an engine of high-impact arts education
programs and alliances. I feel the same rush of
energy and optimism that I experienced when I
joined Stanford University in 2006.”

That rush, that energy is on full display,
when she’s touting the new WPAS season,
tellingly built around the theme of “The City
Is Our Stage,” the neighborhoods in the city,
the diversity, the opportunities for expansion
and new partnerships. “We hope to engage
audiences and artists for the long term, and
get people to participate in the arts, not just by
going but by being a part of the whole,” she
said. “Audience here are very committed, very
smart and intelligent, and receptive, I think, to
new forms and ideas.”

At Stanford, she transformed Stanford Live,
from being a university presenter to a producing
organization along the lines and size of
WPAS, and was also instrumental in bringing
the vision for the Bing Concert Hall to fruition.

“The challenges here are not the same,” she
said. “WPAS exists in a unique place and is
a unique organization, with unique opportunities.”
She provided a hint of how she might
approach her new tasks, in a kind of farewell
interview with the San Jose Mercury News.
“Ultimately,” she said then, “specificity and
sense of place are central for me. My litmus test
is that our vision, mission and programs need to
reflect the unique DNA of the organization and
its community. …Washington Performing Arts
Society has had a significant impact upon the
cultural life of Washington D.C., from nurturing
new talent to substantive arts education,
and serving as a destination for outstanding
performers at venues around the city.”

It’s obvious that she’s already gotten the
vibe of the city’s cultural DNA. It would
appear that it matches hers.

Jane Austen Film Festival at Dumbarton House, Sept. 18
• September 16, 2013

Dumbarton House will host the Jane Austen Film Festival on the lawn of its North Garden on Wednesday, Sept. 18. This free showing of “Pride and Prejudice,” starring Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen, puts action to Jane Austen’s most famous novel. It is about a headstrong young woman, Elizabeth Bennet (Knightley), entering womanhood with four sisters, a crazy mother and no men that seem worthy of her time. Elizabeth is thrown when she meets Fitzwilliam Darcy (Macfayden), a rich and seemingly pompous man. She puts all her energy into hating and avoiding him, until she finds his hidden side.

The show will start around sunset or approximately 8 p.m. The lawn will open at 7 p.m, 2715 Q Street entrance only. Tradewinds Specialty Imports, Dean & Deluca, and Café Bonaparte will be selling food and drink. No pets or smoking allowed. Please bring blankets. You can thank Long & Foster and Christie’s International Real Estate for sponsoring this event.

The museum will be closed during the event but is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Visit the Dumbarton House, the Headquarters of the National Society of The Colonial Dames of America, during that time to experience its rich history — DumbartonHouse.org.

Visual Arts Preview
• September 13, 2013

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
October 4, 2013 – July 13, 2014
Dancing the Dream
From the late 19th century to today, dance
has captured this nation’s culture in motion.
Dancing the Dream will showcase generations
of performers, choreographers and impresarios.
The show will include images of performers
from Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers,
to Michael Jackson, Savion Glover, George
Balanchine, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Beyoncé,
Isadora Duncan, Agnes de Mille and Lady
Gaga. Dance has drawn from the boundless
commotion of cultures to represent the rhythm
and beat of American life. This exhibition will
explore the relationship between the art of
dance and the evolution of a modern American
identity.
AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
October 4, 2013 – December 8, 2013
A Measure of the Earth: The Cole-Ware
Collection of American Baskets
The 105 baskets on display in A Measure of
the Earth were made between 1983 and 2011
and demonstrate the endurance of indigenous,
African, and European basket weaving traditions
in the United States, presenting an encyclopedic
view of this medium. The sixty-three
weavers represented have crafted their baskets
almost entirely from un-dyed native materials,
such as grasses, trees, vines, and bark. The
forms, from baskets for eggs, harvest, and
market to those for sewing, laundry, and fishing
creels, reveal the central role basketry has
played in the everyday life of Americans.

AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
October 4, 2013 – December 8, 2013
Infinite Place: The Ceramic Art of
Wayne Higby
Wayne Higby (b. 1943) is one of the most
innovative second generation artists to come
out of the post-World War II American ceramic
studio movement. His vision of the American
landscape appears in work ranging from vessel
forms and sculpture to architectural installations
that have brought him national and international
recognition. Infinite Place is his first
major retrospective exhibition, exploring the
forms, techniques, and firing processes used
throughout Higby’s career, focusing specifically
on his groundbreaking work in raku earthenware
as well as his later production in porcelain,
centered around the Western landscape
and imagery that has long inspired his work.

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
October 6 – March 2, 2014
Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium
from Greek Collections
In 324 Emperor Constantine the Great moved
the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome
some thousand miles to the east, near the site of
the ancient Greek city of Byzantium. Renamed
Constantinople (now Istanbul), the city became
the largest and wealthiest in the Christian world
and remained the dominant power in the eastern
Mediterranean for over 1,000 years. In the
National Gallery’s first exhibition of Byzantine
art, masterpieces from Greek collections will
be on view, among them mosaics, icons, manuscripts,
jewelry, and ceramics, revealing the rich
and multifaceted culture of Byzantium. Divided
into five thematic sections, the exhibition explores
the coexistence of paganism and Christianity,
secular works of art used in the home,
and the intellectual life of Byzantine scholars.

PHILLIPS COLLECTION
October 12, 2013 – January 26, 2014
Van Gogh Repetitions
This exhibition takes a fresh look at the artistic
process of Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), one
of history’s most revered painters. While recognized
for the intensity and speed with which
he often produced paintings during his 10-year
career, what is less well known is the deliberate
and methodical process he brought to recurring
subjects and themes. The exhibit features
around 30 paintings, which display alongside
related drawings and technical photographs to
go beneath the surface of some of the artist’s
most renowned works and examine the ways in
which he created nearly identical compositions.
The exhibition is organized by The Phillips
Collection and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
PHILLIPS COLLECTION
October 17, 2013 – February 9, 2014
Intersections: John F. Simon Jr.
Inspired by the progression of movement in the
natural world, Simon’s four-part installation in
the Phillips house stairwell incorporates drawing,
software, and computer-generated fabrication.
The works, evoking meandering lines,
steep curves, and improvisation, engage with
Wassily Kandinsky’s Succession (1935) in the
Phillips’ permanent collection. This is part of
the Intersections project at the Phillips, a series
of contemporary art project that explores the intriguing
intersections between old and new traditions,
modern and contemporary art practices,
and museum spaces and artistic interventions,
often activating spaces that are not typical exhibition
areas with art produced specifically for
those locations.
FREER – SACKLER GALLERY
October 19, 2013 – January 26, 2014
Yoga: The Art of Transformation
Through masterpieces of Indian sculpture and
painting, Yoga: The Art of Transformation explores
yoga’s goals, its Hindu as well as Buddhist,
Jain, and Sufi manifestations, its means
of transforming body and consciousness, and
its profound philosophical foundations. The
first exhibition to present this leitmotif of Indian
visual culture, it also examines the roles
that yogis and yoginis played in Indian society
over two thousand years. The exhibit includes
more than 120 works dating from the third to
the early twentieth century. Temple sculptures,
devotional icons, illustrated manuscripts, and
court paintings—as well as colonial and early
modern photographs, books, and films—illuminate
yoga’s central tenets and its obscured
histories.

CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART
November 2, 2013 – February 23, 2014
Mia Feuer: An Unkindness
Mia Feuer’s upcoming project at the Corcoran
is a haunting vision of nature consumed, transformed,
and twisted by human need. Inspired
by the artist’s experiences in the oil-producing
landscapes of the Canadian tar sands, the Arctic
Circle, and the Suez Canal, An Unkindness
explores the relationships between human infrastructure
and the natural world. For the past
several years, Feuer has traveled around the
world to places where oil is extracted from the
earth and created work that responds to the social
and environmental effects of that process.
In the exhibition, Feuer merges imagery from
the oil sands with her own experiences growing
up in Canada and her research into ecological
systems worldwide. The result is a series of
immersive installations that are at once topical
and deeply personal, including a synthetic black
skating rink open to the public in the museum’s
Rotunda.
(E)MERGE ART FAIR
October 3 – 6, 2013
Taking place at the Rubell Family’s Capitol
Skyline Hotel, the (e)merge Art Fair returns
for a third year to connect emerging-art professionals
from around the globe with collectors,
curators and cultural decision makers in D.C.,
featuring participating galleries in hotel rooms
on designated floors and a vetted selection of
works by unrepresented artists throughout the
hotel’s public areas and grounds. Featuring an
international roster of 80 exhibitors presenting
works by 150 artists from 30 countries, exhibitors
will show new works in painting, sculpture,
video, performance, installation, and other media.
The public is welcome to view a carefully
curated selection of emerging art, exhibited on
three levels inside the hotel and throughout the
hotel’s grounds and public spaces. There is also
an extensive line-up of special projects and performances,
including live music, video, design
and culinary arts, as well as engaging panel
discussions with curators, gallerists, collectors,
artists and other art world innovators.

End of Summer Wrap-up
• September 12, 2013

**[Freer and Sackler Galleries](http://www.Asia.SI.edu)** “Perspectives: Rina Banerjee” *Through June 8, 2014* The Sackler Gallery will feature the work of Rina Banerjee (b. 1963), an Indian born artist working out of […]

7-7-7 for the Cure
•

The 7-7-7 Fashion Series came to the Italian Embassy in Washington, D.C. on June 29th as a part of the annual Fashion For the Cure event, which raises awareness and funds for DC-area breast cancer initiatives through fashion and art. It featured a fashion show that included lines from nine different designers as well as a rainbow of Lamborghini’s on display in recognition of Lamborghini’s 50th Anniversary. The star of the show was a $400,000 Lamborghini Aventador owned by New York divorce attorney Bryan Salamone, complete with license plate “WINNING”. [gallery ids="101393,154062,154058,154053,154048,154071,154075,154042,154079,154067" nav="thumbs"]

National Geographic’s 125 Anniversary Gala Is a Stunner
•

On June 13, the IQ of Washington, D.C., increased as explorers, scientists and other members and supporters of the National Geographic Society met to celebrate its 125th birthday at the National Building Museum. The great hall was rendered visually stunning with images of animals and nature projected along the second floor and on a stage screen; unique dinner tables added to the wow factor. The list of awardees was likewise stunning: explorer-filmmaker James Cameron, oceanographer Sylvia Earle, scientist Edward O. Wilson, philanthropist Howard Buffett, skydiver Felix Baumgartner and game host Alex Trebek. Cameron got the Explorer of the Year award for his Deep Sea Challenge dive and advised attendees to go vegan as the entree of bison was on its way. Trebek of “Jeopardy!” fame donated $1 million in support of the National Geographic Bee, adding to the society’s big year of fundraising: $35 million thus far.

National Geographic – 125th Anniversary Gala

Interview with Dereck and Beverly Joubert

[gallery ids="101345,152221,152216,152210,152205,152200,152233,152193,152236,152187,152239,152227" nav="thumbs"]

It’s Picnic Time for Seniors
•

At St. John’s Church, June 12, members of the Georgetown Senior Center got a extra treat for their lunchtime meeting: a festive array of picnic items for lunch — and even some yoga action before the lunch. The special event was by the Georgetown office of Long & Foster as part of its community service day. [gallery ids="119089,119102,119096" nav="thumbs"]

Spanish Steps Celebrated at the Residence of the Ambassador of Turkey
•

On June 6, Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey Namik Tan and Mrs. Fugen Tan entertained their neighbors who support the preservation of the Spanish Steps. The steep incline in Kalorama between Decatur Place and 22nd Street is an urban oasis likened to the steps in the Piazza di Spagna in Rome. Ambassador Tan detailed the history of the landmark embassy property, which was home to Cleveland industrialist Edward Everett and was purchased by Turkey’s first president, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, in 1936. Board President David Bender expressed his appreciation for the support, which will enable continuing enhancements to the Spanish Steps. [gallery ids="101338,152068,152045,152064,152050,152061,152055" nav="thumbs"]