Arts & Society

Robert Devaney • May 3, 2012

In tune with D.C.’s cherry blossoms, Bonhams Auctioneers and Appraisers held a preview of some of the art, ranging from Japan and China to Southeast Asia, being shown at Asia Week in New York at its Washington office on M Street in Georgetown March 8. Martin Gammon, who heads up the D.C. and Mid-Atlantic division, welcomed art lovers and a few Sackler Gallery trustees to the first highlights preview and reception at his Bonhams office. [gallery ids="100634,100635" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

Everywhere you read or hear about Basil Twist—the New Yorker, the Post, YouTube (highly recommended) — he’s described as a puppeteer, or third-generation puppeteer, or world-renowned puppeteer.
 
The third-generation thing is stretching things, the world-renowned is dead on, but puppeteer … Well, it’s just not enough. It’s like calling Schubert a songwriter and leaving it at that.
 
Geppetto was a puppeteer. Basil Twist is something else.
 
Just what Twist is and does should become fairly clear to Washingtonians — or maybe not — during the course of the next nearly two months, a time frame which amounts to a Basil Twist festival of four of his works at four different venues.  All of them are different from each other — naturally, as Twist might say, because he is forever exploring the form, trying new ways of creating puppetry, standing the form on its head, leaving shiny welts.
 
Twist, who is only 42, is becoming a one-man buzz, noteworthy, praiseworthy and just plain worthy at a time when puppetry itself is becoming prominent, especially on the nation’s stages, but also in the special-effects laden world of film. 
 
Think of puppets, and you do think of Geppetto and Pinocchio, the puppet who became a boy and similar children’s stories that work well with characters manipulated by sticks and strings.
 
What Twist does is honor the primal past, the classic form, listens to the music in his head and outside of it and marries it to things never done before. He collaborates with someone like Joey Arias, described as “drag chanteuse extraordinaire” to come up with a production the likes of which you’ve never seen before.          
 
The Twist festival amounts to four theatrical events literally beyond category.  At the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Lansburgh Theatre, there’s a stunningly beautiful production of “Petrushka,” which is puppetry about puppets, a classic tale from the world of ballet about three puppets at a Russian carnival, a kind of love triangle about puppets aided and abetted by Stravinsky’s original ballet score in a two-piano version played by pianists Julia and Irina Elkina.   The style of puppetry is gorgeous in the Japanese and Czech manner and runs through March 26.

At the Studio Theatre, Twist resurrects what amounts to a nearly lost art and form of puppetry of “Dogugaeshi,” a production involving sliding doors and original Shamisan compositions performed by master musician Yumiko Tanaka. (April 11 through 22)

Going farther afield and under water brings you to a Swift classic, a production of “Symphonie Fantastique” at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland.  An abstract work set to the music of Hector Berlioz is performed in a 1,000-gallon water tank, “using mirrors, slides, dyes, blacklight, overhead projections, air bubbles, latex fishing lures and other sundry material. (March 29 through 31)

Finally, there’s “Arias with a Twist” at the Woolly Mammoth Theater, April 4 through May 6, in which the aforementioned Joey Arias and Twist collaborate on a magical-mystery tour of music, dancing, singing, with the Garden of Eden, a space lab and just about anything else you can imagine thrown in.
 
Twist in a phone interview said that “I’m fascinated by the use of music, by all the other forms of puppetry that go back practically to the cave man. Puppets have always been with us. They’re primal.

In his program notes for “Petrushka”, Twist states the case and his reason for being simply. “Puppets are magic,” he writes. “The mystery of a bundle of cloth coming to life and inspiring emotion in an audience is what has kept me captivated by this art.

By animating puppets—including puppet forms, inanimate objects and characters—he makes magic.  When he talks about how puppet is animated not only by him but by the audience, he’s talking about the essence of performance art, of theater and dance. “Puppets are often thought of as belonging to children,” Twist said.  “That’s great and partly true, that’s where everything starts, but I’m trying to move things to move constantly forward.” He is to puppetry what Joyce and Beckett where to literature, making abstractions come to life.

But he shares one thing with Geppetto, and maybe with Doctor Frankenstein as well and that’s the urge to bring something that’s inanimate, lifeless to life.
 
“Think about that, it’s so awesome to me to be able to do this,” Twist said. “And we’re talking about shapes, things themselves, not just characters in a story.”
 
“It’s true I grew up with puppets,”  he said. “My mother did puppet shows. As far as that third-generation thing, I had a grandfather who was a big band leader. He had puppets that looked like band leaders of the time. “
 
Arias had his own puppets, but he did not become serious about the form until he attended and graduated from the Ecole Superieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionnette in Charleville-Mezieres in France.
 
It’s fair to say that Twist is a transformative figure in an art form that is beginning to loom large, beyond the boundaries of carnivals and children’s shows.  He created puppets for the Broadway musical “The Addams Family,” and he’s listed in the credits as underwater puppet consultant for the last Harry Potter show.

If, like Duke Ellington, his work seems to be beyond category, you do know exactly where it’s headed. It’s in the direction of making the heart, the head and the soul of puppetry larger.

In Petrushka”, probably the most accessible of the four works in the festival, he uses non-traditional and traditional tools to bring alive a classic tale. It’s startling, gorgeous it swims around in your head afterwards. After the show, beaming like a young kid, he explained some of the tricks of the process, without every once negating the magic and mystery of it all.

Making the puppets, the shapes, the detailed work is probably a herculean, detailed effort.  But behind it is a vision, not so precise, but clear. “More than anything,” he says. “I have to think and feel that it’s good. “

Now there’s a Twist. [gallery ids="100595,100596" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner •

House 1
1688 31st Street, N.W.

This dignified, three-story Victorian, built around 1800, was the home of Sen. Robert Taft (R-Ohio) from 1941 until his death in 1953. Taft is best known as co-sponsor of the federal Taft-Hartley Act of 1947.
The house’s most prominent features are its high ceilings and many tall windows.  In the early 1960’s, the owners added a spacious living room.  Double sets of doors lead from the living room to a walled garden and pool. Off the large entrance hall are a striking library with a wet bar and a fireplace, a kitchen, an elegant powder room, a dining room and finally the living room.

House 2
3007 Q Street, N.W.

This large post-Civil War, semi-detached residence is one of eight “villas” built beginning in 1868 by Henry J. Cooke for his 12 children.  Cooke was the first territorial governor of the District of Columbia and brother of Jay Cooke, a financier and close friend of President Ulysses S. Grant. The exuberant design by Starkweather & Plowman combined aspects of the Italianate villa with elements of Second Empire style. Built on what was then the edge of Georgetown, these houses were shunned at first by the public as being rather too ornate and grandiose for their time during the post-Civil War era.

In 1932, the family of L.P. Shippen purchased the house, and it became the venue for her celebrated dance academy. The current owners have recently undertaken a painstaking two-year renovation, retaining original architectural details, such as the seemingly free-floating spiral staircase.

House 3
1352 28th Street, N.W.

Built around 1810 and first recorded in 1818 (when it was owned by William Lipscomb, a post office clerk, and assessed at $2,000), this red-brick house was originally a two-story building in the Federal style with two dormer windows facing the street. The house has changed hands many times over 200 years.  Its modern aspect, though, is attributable to changes made for a client in 1968 by the renowned architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen.

Jacobsen removed much of the non-original construction and built a new living room and library with several bedrooms upstairs, leaving the dining room and the stair hall as the only “old” rooms. A glass façade was installed leading from the living room onto the small garden forecourt, which was walled in. This façade affords abundant light to the living room as well as a garden view.  

House 4
3106 P Street, N.W.

This substantial residence was built in 1877.  In 1938, it was acquired by Marcella Comès Winslow, a painter, with her husband, Col. William Randolph Winslow.  Marcella wrote “Brushes with the Literary, Letters of a Washington Artist 1943-1959,” a book in which she described life in Georgetown and the literary figures with whom she socialized. Among other positions, Winslow served as Portraitist to the Poetry Chair of the Library of Congress.

Her Georgetown home was an informal literary salon for such authors as Katherine Anne Porter, Robert Penn Warren and Eudora Welty. Porter was a boarder at the home. Winslow knew many famous authors, including T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Ezra Pound and Dylan Thomas, many of whom sat for her portraits. Today’s owners transformed the house by adding the eat-in kitchen in the back and connecting the garden to the house through a series of repeating arch designs that bridge the space seamlessly from interior to exterior.  

House 5
3104 P  Street, N.W.

This is one of four townhouses built in 1877 as a unit now comprising 3100-3106 P Street. Together, they form a fine example of the post-Civil War Victorian housing that drew many middle-class families to Georgetown.  Originally, each house had a completely separate garden, but recently two of the houses were joined by gates allowing free access for neighbors to visit.

The original floor plan was modified in 1998. A ground-floor guest bathroom was added, and the kitchen was enlarged to accommodate a dining space.  Steps link the new kitchen to the garden designed by Clarke Associates of London.  The sculpted wisteria was created by Husband and Clark, another English firm. Back inside, an unpretentious, European-infused aesthetic prevails.  

House 6
3141 P  Street, N.W.

This home is a Second Empire-style brick row house constructed around 1876 as one of a subdivision of three houses (3141-3145 P Street), owned by Joseph L. Simms. Adjacent to the property, east and north, is the historic Bowie-Sevier estate.

Its most recent renovation occurred in 2011 to accommodate all eight members of a blended family in a relaxed, family-friendly environment.  The current owners merged three separate rooms on the first floor into an open floor-plan, renovated the lower level to feature a new family room for teenagers and added a seventh bedroom. The kitchen is particularly remarkable and has a nautical feel.  

House 7
1416 34th Street, N.W.

This Italianate-style house, known as the Wetzel-Graves home, was built in 1876 by John Wetzel, a butter merchant, and sold in 1907 to Charles Graves, who ran his coal business from the home until the 1940s and whose family owned it after his death until the 1960s.  It is a perfect example of Georgetown’s middle-Victorian period architecture.  

Working with local architect Dale Overmyer, the current owners have renovated the house extensively, while taking care to preserve its historic properties.

House 8
1413 35th Street, N.W.

Built in the 1830s as a Federal frame house, this semi-detached house was converted in the 1940s by decorator Margaret Weller into a flat-front English Regency-style house.  An English basement entry was carved out of the front yard to replace the original stoop entry.

In 2005, architect Christian Zapatka renovated the house. Preserving the 1940s street façade, he gutted the interior and reconfigured the garden façade. The new side-oriented staircase leads up to the “piano nobile” (the main floor).  The living room across the back of the house leads directly to a limestone terrace through three sets of tall French doors.  Beyond the terrace is a stepped garden in the Italian style. Towering overhead is a 250-year-old Osage orange tree, one of the largest in the area.

House 9
1505 35th Street, N.W.

This attractive, spacious townhouse with five bedrooms and five-and-a-half baths is relatively new by Georgetown standards, having been built in 1964 on land (possibly the site of a former stable) that was subdivided from the next door property, a brick mansion that dates from 1852.

Working with Chryssa Wolfe of Hanlon Design Build, the owners have put a bright, airy California stamp on the interior of the house. They painted the plain red-brick exterior a soft almond-bisque color, while keeping the shutters grey.  The former solarium became a cozy family room. [gallery ids="100739,121551,121546,121513,121540,121521,121534,121529" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner •

Hope Connections for Cancer Support marked its fifth anniversary at its Celebration of Hope Gala at the World Bank.  Founding board member Bob Fleshner was presented with the Celebration of Hope Award and Louis Weiner, M.D., director of the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, received the Partnership Award. Hope Connections for Cancer Support opened in 2007 in Bethesda as the Wellness Community–Greater Washington, D.C.  It has since had more than 25,000 visits from cancer patients and caregivers who have participated in free support groups, educational workshops, mind/body classes and community programs.  [gallery ids="100741,121554" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner •

As Ambassador and Mrs. Sarukhan hosted supporters of Noche de Pasión 2012 at a special evening for the Washington Ballet’s final program of the season at their residence on Apr. 3, the ambassador cautioned, “Practice your Spanish.” The event co-chaired by Pilar Frank-O’Leary and Isabel de la Cruz Ernst on May 11 will benefit the Hispanic artists and community engagement programs of the Washington Ballet. The ambassador said that giving back to the community was a “no brainer.” [gallery ids="102444,121348,121341,121366,121355,121359" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner •

Mickey’s Backstage at Rivers at the Watergate and theatreWashington celebrated the 28th Helen Hayes Award nominees Apr. 9. Immersed in theatre, theatreWashington board chairman Victor Shargai said his relocation to Washington was “partly to get away from theatre.” Little did he imagine the vibrancy that makes our stages second only to Broadway. The awards will be presented Apr. 23. [gallery ids="100742,121612,121557,121604,121597,121591,121565,121575,121583" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

  When Norman Scribner picks up the baton to conduct the Choral Arts Society of Washington and the National Symphony Orchestra to perform Johannes Brahms’s monumental “Ein Deutches Requiem” on April 22, at 4 p.m. in the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall, it will be a milestone for the maestro, the Washington Choral Arts Society and the city.

Conducting the “Requiem” marks the last time that Scribner, the founder of the Washington Choral Arts Society, will conduct the WCAS as its artistic director, his last concert in a distinguished 47-year career that has left its mark on Washington culture and what you can achieve with the art of music.

Scribner is going out with one of the greatest compositions in Western classical music. 

It’s best to let Scribner explain it: “’Ein Deutches Requiem is one of the most glorious and beloved examples of the combination of text and music in the history of Western civilization,” Scribner said. “Through his lifelong immersion in the Lutheran Bible, Brahms was able to extract texts that express every emotion connected with our passage from this life to the next.”

It seems a fitting ending kind of project for Scribner, who created the Choral Arts Society of Washington and turned it into an enduring cultural institution in Washington, where it became a part of the life of the city every bit as much as the National Symphony Orchestra, the Washington National Opera or the Washington Ballet.

Scribner’s work and career stretches into the city’s universities and into the city’s cultural history. He attended the prestigious Peabody Conservatory and has taught at George Washington University, American University and the College of Church Musicians at Washington National Cathedral.

Over the years, he has taken inspiration from and collaborated with giant figures in contemporary musical history as Leonard Bernstein, Leonard Slatkin, Valery Gorgiev, Mstislav Rostropovich and Christopher Eschenbach, the current maestro of the NSO.

He has led the chorus in 18 recordings, and presented 25 world premiere commissions and has received an honorary doctorate from the Virginia Theological Seminary in 2002 and from the Peabody Distinguished Alumni Award in 2006.

Scribner has scores of musical inspirations—the giants of Western music like Mozart, Brahms, Bach and Beethoven—are in his blood.  But there’s a figure—not a composer of great works, but a mover of hearts and minds through the power of his words and oratory—who has also inspired Scribner’s life and career.

That would be the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. “If you lived or witnessed anything that was going on in this city in the 1960s—the great speech at the Lincoln Memorial, the tragedy of the riots in the wake of his assassinations—then you cannot be help but to have been moved by his presence, by his life and death.”

Scribner was more than merely moved emotionally. He was moved to action through the world of his musical efforts.  Scribner created the annual “Living the Dream, Singing the Dream,” an annual choral tribute to King on his January birthday at the Kennedy Center choral celebration, and collaborated with the Washington Performing Arts Society’s Men, Women and Children of the Gospel Choir under artistic director Stanley J. Thurston.

The annual Martin Luther King, Jr., Tribute Concert has become a Washington institution.

“I wanted to pay tribute to Dr. King’s legacy through music, in other words, music used as an instrument for peace,”  Scribner said.

Scribner doesn’t believe that music, however beautiful and grand, exists in a vacuum. Rather, it is a part of the whole community. He has lived that belief with not only the creation of the tribute concerts but their expansion into a series of community musical and civil rights efforts.

“Music can be a balm, a celebration and a unifier,” he said. “That’s the hope.”

Scribner witnessed the chaos, the fiery violence that erupted here in Washington in the wake of King’s assassination.  Scribner’s response was to honor King with the balm of music and celebration. He orchestrated and integrated a community-based celebration called “Once-In Memoriam: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” the year after King died.

The Choral Arts Society has expanded the scope of the concert to include a concert for students, a student writing competition and the establishment of an annual humanitarian award. This past year, Scribner himself was named the recipient of the Humanitarian Award, joining a select group that includes Dorothy Height, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), Marian Wright Edelman, Harris Wofford, Julian Bond, John Doar, Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Bernice Johnson Reagan.

Scribner’s last concert will be co-presented with the Washington Performing Arts Society. “WPAS is pleased to be co-presenting the last concert to be conducted by Washington’s legendary choral leader Norman Scribner,” said Neal Perl, WPAS president and CEO. “A pillar of Washington’s musical community for the past 47 years, Norman has devoted his life to the performance of glorious choral music. He will be greatly missed.”

Missed, but not forgotten.

Georgetowner • April 18, 2012

Joan Bradley Wages, president and CEO of the National Women?s History Museum, which hopes to locate on the National Mall, celebrated women?s history at the home of D.C. Commission on Arts & Humanities chair Judith Terra, on Apr. 3.? Guests included several ambassadors, reporter Eleanor Clift and Pamela Gordon-Banks, first woman premier of Bermuda and Judith?s daughter-in-law.? Guest speaker Jane Harman, president, CEO and executive director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, promised, ?We will get the museum built . . . just can?t promise when!?

Jade Floyd • April 17, 2012

The District is home to the nation?s highest percentage of urban green space. In fact, major parks like Rock Creek Park, the C & O Canal National Historical Park and the National Mall account for nearly 20 percent of the land in the city. Hundreds of Washingtonians will join together to beautify these spaces on global Earth Day on April 22nd. In the last Beltway of Giving, I highlighted a number of upcoming awareness months that give citizens a reason to unite for a cause ? but why limit these good efforts to just one day or one month? Throughout the year you can take the time to reduce our carbon footprint ? from installing a green roof to recycling wine bottles and corks. The Beltway of Giving is not just about donating your money to a worthy cause, but also your time and becoming a well-educated citizen that can be a steward for a cause.

Inside the classroom has proven to be the perfect setting to cultivate those stewards. The D.C.-based National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF) is working to increase environmental education within our nation?s schools through programs like Classroom Earth (www.classroomearth.org), an online resource designed to help high school teachers include environmental content in their daily lesson plans, and Environmental Education Week taking place April 15 ? 21st. Through these efforts, NEEF has created a network of teachers working to not only increase learning for their students, but also encourage more youth to explore careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). In fact, this year?s National Environmental Education Week?s 2012 theme is Greening STEM: The Environment as Inspiration for 21st Century Learning.

Part of NEEF?s environmental education outreach in the district includes a ***Be Water Wise*** partnership with 13 D.C. public schools that was launched in 2011. ***Be Water Wise*** engages partners from the public, private and nonprofit sectors to raise awareness of local water challenges and improve water conservation and stormwater management in school buildings and grounds. Diane Wood, President of NEEF, says the program has been a resounding success. ?We want children to be more aware of how they are connected to the environment in the classroom and take those practices home,? said Wood. ?Teachers are being rewarded for engaging their kids in the environment. If you offer something educational and fun to young people it hooks them and they want to learn more.?

Jami Dunham, Head of School at Paul Public Charter School in northwest D.C. agrees. ?Currently schools are emphasizing environmental education in the curriculum of life science classes, through after-school clubs and activities, and by developing community service projects that promote going green,? said Dunham. ?At Paul, we have had a GreenSchools! Club for several years, students have planted trees on campus, built garden beds during a community service day and we have hosted an all-school assembly to inform students about their carbon footprint.?

Dunham encourages parents to focus on increasing their children?s awareness by using their everyday routines to explore environmental education issues.? She recommends taking children to local farmers markets to discuss organic fruits and vegetables and create opportunities for their entire family to volunteer at community gardens.? Consider taking the family for an environmental outing at a D.C.-area park this Earth Day or volunteer your time at one of the many local recycling and clean-up events.

**How You Can Get Involved on Earth Day in D.C.**

On Saturday, April 21st from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. join the Anacostia Watershed Society and other local organizations as they work to cleanup the Anacostia River and its tributaries in honor of Earth Day. Last year, more than 2,000 volunteers helped remove more than 42 tons of trash from the river. More details at [potomacriverkeeper.org](http://www.potomacriverkeeper.org/event/2012-earth-day-cleanup-celebration)

On Saturday, April 21st from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. join the Student Conservation Association for an Earth Day clean-up at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. Volunteers will plant 40 trees and remove invasive plant species at the Gardens, as well as assist with trash removal along the Anacostia watershed. Learn more at [members.thesca.org](http://members.thesca.org/site/Calendar?id=105601&view=Detail)

On Sunday, April 22 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. celebrate Earth Day on the National Mall: Mobilize the Earth. Visitors will hear top musical talent and view renewable energy demonstrations and interactive exhibits . Learn more at [earthday.org](http://www.earthday.org/mall)

***Jade Floyd is a managing associate at a D.C.-based international public relations firm and has served on the board of directors for the D.C. Arts and Humanities Education Collaborative for nearly five years. She is a frequent volunteer and host of fundraising events across the District, supporting arts, animal welfare and education programs.***