Washington, D.C. — Like a lot else within the nation’s capital, the John F. Kennedy Heart for the Performing Arts is in a state of uncertainty. For 53 years, this large efficiency complicated has served — with bipartisan grace and, at its finest, conspicuous American aptitude — to honor a single U.S. president. However in February the middle was appropriated by one other president who now additionally rules as chairman of a board of trustees, all of whom are his appointees.
The takeover resulted within the firing of the middle’s long-serving president, Deborah Rutter, one of many nation’s most spectacular arts leaders. Over the past decade, she expanded an already huge establishment’s choices. The middle’s new momentary president, Richard Grenell, a former ambassador to Germany, lacks arts administration expertise.
Within the meantime, the brand new directors warn that the Kennedy Heart is impoverished, that the ability has turn out to be shoddy and that a few of its programming sick serves the American ultimate. Range and drag are out, which has led to the disinviting of, amongst others, the Homosexual Males’s Refrain of Washington, D.C., from acting on the premises. Celebrating Christmas, guarantees Grenell, could be very a lot in, as might be striving for profit-making programming. One suggestion is commercializing the middle to benefit from its actual property worth and prime location on the Potomac.
On a latest afternoon I wandered the Kennedy Heart’s grand hallways resulting in an opera home (residence of Washington Nationwide Opera), live performance corridor (residence to the Nationwide Symphony) and the Eisenhower Theater (suited to drama and dance), all overseen by a super-sized bust of JFK. I visited the galleries and outlets and eating places, the Millennium Stage (the place a free chamber music efficiency was happening) and checked out a latest addition, the Attain, a $250-million complicated of versatile venues, an funding the brand new administration bemoans.
It was a stupendous spring day, and the Kennedy Heart gave the impression to be well-tended however unusually quiet. Aside from a small crowd listening to members of the Nationwide Symphony carry out chamber music, I felt like I had the constructing virtually to myself. A clerk in one of many present outlets was thrilled to lastly have a buyer. I used to be the one one within the galleries. Reveals nonetheless mirrored variety. Rainbow flag Kennedy Heart T-shirts remained on the market.
There have been cancellations in protest of the takeover — notably Rhiannon Giddens, the Broadway production of “Hamilton” and what was to have been the Washington premiere of Gregory Spears’ transferring opera “Fellow Vacationers,” based mostly on the Lavender Scare, the Nineteen Fifties federal persecution of homosexual males and lesbians in authorities. However Mark Morris’ doubtlessly controversial new ballet, “Moon,” was having its world premiere that night as deliberate.
Morris could also be America’s main choreographer, however he additionally generally is a fanciful dangerous boy of dance. Inform him he can’t do one thing and, I’ve been advised, look out. It might be arduous to think about the present Kennedy Heart welcoming Morris’ method of shelling out Christmas cheer. His sensible yuletime hit, “The Arduous Nut,” based mostly on Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker,” has been delighting audiences of all ages for 3 a long time, nevertheless it does occur to incorporate a comedic maid in drag.
When the Kennedy Heart final fall commissioned Morris to make an evening-length centerpiece for its huge “Earth to House: Arts Breaking the Sky” pageant, nothing extra was supposed than to honor JFK’s initiative that led, in 1969, to Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin being the primary Earthlings to stroll on the moon. The pageant is an exuberant instance of the sweeping occasions that Rutter created. It contains live shows, opera, dance, movie, talks, installations, reveals, interstellar musical journeys of 1 oddball kind or one other, appearances by astronauts and space-specialist celebrities, to not point out every day screenings of a brand new movie, “The Moonwalkers,” that includes Tom Hanks.
All of this takes on new that means, particularly if we recall JFK’s 1962 speech at Rice College in Houston. In it he defended the enormity of the Apollo 11 mission’s expense by noting, “There isn’t a strife, no prejudice, no nationwide battle in outer area as but,” and warned that “its alternative for peaceable cooperation might by no means come once more.”
NASA is getting ready for a moon touchdown once more in 2027. The temptation, this time, goes past scientific curiosity to colonization, mining uncommon parts and utilizing the moon as a waystation to Mars. The 2 most zealous area buffs on Earth loom giant in Washington, with Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk in a moon race with their respective rocket enterprises, Blue Origin and House X.
Enter Mark Morris. He had been cagey all alongside about what he had in thoughts, aside from to incorporate the moon touchdown and the Golden File, the disc that astronomer and media persona Carl Sagan made for Voyager 1 and a couple of. Launched in 1977, these two NASA spacecraft have been the primary supposed to go away our photo voltaic system. The recording contains sounds, voices and music of the Earth’s peoples, in hopes that it simply may attain clever life someplace on the market.
Members of the Mark Morris Dance Group carry out the world premiere of “Moon” on April 4, 2025, on the Kennedy Heart Eisenhower Theater in Washington, D.C.
(ximena brunette / xmbphotography)
“Moon,” which is a collection of quick dances that lasts just below an hour, begins with an animated show of five-pointed stars in a semicircle on a display screen that served because the backdrop for the Eisenhower stage. The celebs slyly turn out to be the circumference of the U.S. presidential seal. However relatively than resulting in outrage, a picture of JFK appeared beneath the seal, after which one of many moon. The viewers laughed after which warmly applauded.
Morris’ silvery moon was a spot of thriller and surprise. Musical selections have been agreeably eccentric. Past the Golden File’s greetings in lots of languages to aliens, Morris turned to gloriously schmaltzy swing, bluegrass and nation recordings from the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s. These included Al Bowlly’s “Roll Alongside, Prairie Moon,” Invoice Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” Bonnie Guitar’s “Darkish Moon” and Hildegarde’s “Honey-Colored Moon.” Pianist and organist Colin Fowler, joined by bassist Jordan Frazier, added their contributions from the pit. A number of of György Ligeti’s startlingly unusual solo piano numbers from “Musica Ricercata” confirmed up. Dancers rolled by on wheeled stools like little area individuals to a few of Marcel Dupré’s eerie “24 Organ Innovations.”
With gorgeously impressionist lighting (by Mike Faba), intriguing outer area projections (by Wendall Okay. Harrington), elegant costumes (by Isaac Mizrahi) and little toy spacemen scattered about, the Morris “Moon” turned a luxuriant dreamlike escape from Washingtonian actuality. Most vital of all, his firm had by no means been higher, and the dancers themselves offered the true fantasy. Otherworldly motion in some way matched the completely different music in ways in which appear rational however not needing to make sense. Motion, itself, was journey, round each flip an imaginative new shock.
To stroll right into a newly unsure Kennedy Heart can really feel fraught. However in his program observe, Morris asks us to “observe and revel in Moon and House, with out understanding a factor.” The genius of “Moon,” nonetheless, is to remind us that surprise will be across the least anticipated corners.
Can “Moon” remind NASA to go to the moon to surprise, to not plunder? Most likely not. However it could possibly remind artists that if “Moon” issues, so nonetheless should a Kennedy Heart that nourishes and produces such work.
Following the three Kennedy Heart performances, “Moon” might be seen within the subsequent seasons over components of America, together with Southern California, the place Morris has a big following and favored standing in lots of venues. (The top of the Broad Stage in Santa Monica got here to D.C. for the premiere.) Within the meantime, Morris’ “Pepperland” reaches the Wallis Annenberg Heart for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills subsequent month and the Music Heart Plaza in downtown L.A. is providing every day two-minute afternoon respiration and Morris-choreographed motion “microbreaks,” meant to assist us “pause, replicate and recharge.”
Kennedy Heart, please, earlier than it’s too late, pause, replicate and recharge. America wants you. And also you, should you resolve to know a factor or two, will want us.
