There’s a delightful exhilaration to be found in live, interactive performance, and Look Both Ways: Street Arts Across America is Kennedy Center’s way of providing it.
Beginning Sunday and continuing through May 12, dozens of artists will strut their stuff at locations throughout D.C. Their audiences are composed of whomever passes by, stops and stays to enjoy the free performance. Not since Sunday night’s “Ed Sullivan Show” has such a variety of acts entertained and enthralled. Think of it as vaudeville taking it to the streets.
In this case, the “streets” consist of Eastern Market, Half Street Fairgrounds, Woodrow Wilson Plaza, Farragut Square, Old Post Office Pavilion, Yards Park and — the home of daily free performances — Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage. The cast of characters includes a circus-punk marching band, political puppet theater, jugglers, contortionists, stunt dogs and more.
| IF YOU GO |
| To see a full schedule of daily events for Look Both Ways: Street Arts Across America, and for an online program brochure, visit kennedy-center.org. |
Baltimore’s Michael Rosman is one performer thrilled to be invited to join the festivities.
“I’m one of 15 performers that they have brought in for this event,” Rosman said. “I’ll be doing my comedy juggling and unicycling show. I did something with the Kennedy Center about 19 years ago, but this is my first time doing anything involved with the city, [and] I’m very much looking forward to it.”
Rosman joins a distinctive group of entertainers that includes the Acrobuffos, Bert the Nerd, Bread and Puppet Theater, Happenstance Theater, Midnight Circus, Mouth Monster, Mutts Gone Nuts and Yo-Yo People, to name just a handful. Even a National Children’s Museum juggling workshop will be on hand for those who always wanted to learn the art of keeping it all together and in the air!
Afternoon performances entitled “Look Out! Lunchtime Invasion” take place daily from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at various spots around town. Evening shows run from 6 to 7 p.m. Saturday’s finale, “Street Arts in the Park,” is a six-hour jamboree beginning at noon in Yards Park.
Look Both Ways: Street Arts Across America is part of the Rubenstein Arts Access Program, which enables audiences to engage with the arts in more ways, at more times and in more places than ever.
“I would hope that people realize there are some amazingly talented performers that [work] outside of traditional venues,” Rosman remarked.
