Art + Music + Drinks = Artomatic

What happens when you combine over 1,000 visual artists, 600 performing artists, four stages and four bars? Artomatic! Now celebrating its tenth year, the month-long multimedia arts event draws together visual artists, musicians and performers from across the region and brings their work to the community. Artomatic is free and open to everyone.                                          

Monument Realty and the Capitol Riverfront BID have provided a brand-new 275,000 square foot building to host Artomatic, right next to the Nationals Stadium. The event features nine floors of visual and installation art, theater performances, dance and comedy, three music stages, street performances such as fire dancing and drum troupes, and a film screening theater. Workshops, seminars, special events, body paint shows and a no-holds-barred Art in Fashion Show will all take place before the 2009 Artomatic experience ends.  

 Artomatic kicked off earlier this week and 70,000 are expected to attend this year. Make sure you are one of them. Artomatic is open from noon – 1:00am Friday and Saturdays and Sunday noon – 10:00pm.

Jump Start Your OWN Art

The DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities provides grants, programs and educational activities that encourage diverse artistic expressions and learning opportunities, so that all District of Columbia residents and visitors can experience the rich culture of the city. Their call for grant applications for fiscal year 2010 funding has just been released. The Commission provides grant awards for individuals and nonprofit organizations ranging from $500 to $100,000 through a competitive grant review process. Application deadlines vary on the program. For more information about the grants visit the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities website.

Walk It Out

The Spring Edition of WalkingTown, DC has arrived. Saturday,  May 30 and Sunday,  May 31 Cultural Tourism DC has connected with local individuals and organizations to offer more than 120 walking and bike tours through 18 neighborhoods in the District.

While all tours are free, some require registration in advance. This is a wonderful way to become more familiar with the neighborhood and neighbors where you live or venture out to be introduced to new friends and other parts of Washington. Tours include From Slavery to Freedom in Adams Morgan, Spanish Stroll, Get Back to Your Roots: US Arboretum and Anacostia: The Ridge and the River to name a few. Walk, bike, learn and enjoy DC.

More Than A Small Step

Retired General Charles F. Bolden, Jr.

Forty years after NASA launched the Apollo 11 spacecraft that put a man on the moon President Barack Obama has nominated Charles F. Bolden, Jr., a former space shuttle astronaut and retired Marine general to head the agency. If confirmed Bolden will be the first African American to hold the position as the agency’s permanent administrator. NASA has a strong legacy of the past and exciting future to celebrate.

To help them do so and commemorate mans first walk on the Moon the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum will feature the Apollo 11 crew, as well as Mission Control creator and former Johnson Space Center director Chris Kraft as the speakers for the Museum’s 2009 John H. Glenn lecture in space history on Sunday July 19. While the event is free, tickets are required and will be distributed via an online lottery Tuesday, May 26 through Monday, June 1.

Art Imitates Life

Over the last decade the District has been experiencing a much talked about urban renewal. Areas of the city once dark and thought of as undesirable, even lost,  have been transformed into bright new residential and commercial developments signaling a new era in the history and climate of the city. What’s not talked about nearly as much however are the racial tensions that brew just beneath the surface between the mostly poor African Americans being displaced and their white counterparts, nor the money, power and politics behind the reimagining of Washington.

In their new production of August Wilson’s Radio Golf the Studio Theatre shines a lens on gentrification in the mostly black and blighted Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the 1990’s. A young black politician positioned for a run for mayor of Pittsburgh is involved in a real estate deal that forces him to ask if he will turn his back on the past in order to move forward with his future or if he can lift as he climbs. The last in Wilson’s epic ten play series of dramas chronicling African American life in the 20^th century Radio Golf plays at the Studio Theatre through June 28.