THE REACH OPENING FESTIVAL 2019
16 DAYS
500+ FREE EVENTS
1800+ ARTISTS
Marking the first expansion at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in its 48-year history, the REACH opened to the public with an unprecedented and free 16-day, inclusive, multi-genre, multidisciplinary festival.
The iconic John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC serves as the nation’s performing arts center and a living memorial to one of America’s greatest presidents. In September 2019, its first expansion project since the Center opened in 1971 was unveiled. The REACH comprises a dozen new permanent indoor and outdoor intimate performance spaces, plus a temporary massive outdoor mainstage specially constructed for its opening festival. THE OFFICE joined forces with the Kennedy Center team to imagine, program, and produce the festival, which activated every corner of this newest part of the campus—nine new indoor intimate spaces with jam session and dance parties; a black box performance space with concerts, masterclasses and theater presentations; studios and classrooms with workshops and interactive explorations; a screening room/lecture hall with films and other presentations; and more than 130,000 square feet of new landscaped greenspace for installations and pop up performances, including a state-of-the- art “film wall” for outdoor art projections.
Photo: Anna Meyer
The REACH OPENING FESTIVAL featured over 530 performances showcasing over 1,800 artists from 20 nations and tribes. Twelve hours of daily programming kicked off with an opening day parade curated by visual artist Carrie Mae Weems featuring nearly 400 dancers, marching bands, costumed stilt-walkers, and a Batmobile.
Presentations included 22 art installations, 43 film screenings, 3 documentary filmmaker residencies, 1 supreme court justice, 9,000 participants in Moonshot studio (a hands-on makerspace for families), a Virtual Reality lounge, outdoor evening film events, an all-day celebration of National Dance Day, 600 yogis practicing at dawn, and over 100,000 audience members, nearly half of them new to visiting the Kennedy Center.
Highlights included performances by Kronos Quartet, Roomful of Teeth, Trombone Shorty, Flying Lotus, National Sawdust, the National Symphony Orchestra, Debbie Allen, daily chef events curated by Washington celebrity chef Erik Bruner-Yang, day-long celebrations of hip-hop, comedy, family evenings plus photographer David Michalek’s hyper slow motion dance video portrait series Slow Dancing and film screenings of Aretha Franklin’s Amazing Grace, Washington National Opera’s Show Boat and Beyoncé’s Homecoming on the giant outdoor film wall.
Additional local and national headliners included Arrested Development, De La Soul, The Second City, Thievery Corporation, Debbie Allen, Howard University’s Marching Band, Yalitza Aparicio, Bootsy Collins, Renée Fleming, Judah Friedlander, Robert Glasper, Angélique Kidjo, Alan Menken, Tiler Peck, Mo Willems, and Dan Zanes, many of whom connected with audiences not only through performance but also through residencies and workshops. As part of THE OFFICE’s commitment to sustainability, the REACH OPENING schedule and daily information was made available using a custom phone app for audience members in lieu of thousands of paper schedule flyers.
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
Saturday, September 7: Opening Day
Featuring: National Symphony Orchestra, Kronos Quartet, The Chuck Brown Band, Trombone Shorty, Mason Bates, Carrie Mae Weems, Arrested Development
Sunday, September 8: Spotlight on Jazz
Featuring: Jason Moran & The Bandwagon, Church of Coltrane, Roomful of Teeth, Flying Lotus, Brandee Younger
Monday, September 9: Spotlight on Theater
Featuring: Daniel Bernard Roumain, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Drew Dollaz, Reverend William Barber & Richard Smallwood Vision Choir
Tuesday, September 10: The People We Are: Celebrating First Nations Cultures
Featuring: Yalitza Aparicio, A Tribe Called Red, Amrita Hepi, Raiz Campos
Wednesday, September 11: Spotlight on Classical and Broadway
Featuring: Alan Menken, Norm Lewis, Megan Hilty, Adam Jacobs, Patina Miller, Joseph Kalichstein, Iphigenia Workshop with Esperanza Spalding, Steven Reineke
Thursday, September 12: Spotlight on Voices, Sound Health, and Washington National Opera
Featuring: Daybreaker, Renée Fleming, Angélique Kidjo, Washington National Opera (WNO), Freestyle Love Supreme Academy, Soloman Howard, Harolyn Blackwell
Friday, September 13: Spotlight on Electronica/DJ Culture:
Featuring: Thievery Corporation, The Archives, TT The Artist, DJ Mighty Mark
Saturday, September 14: Hip Hop Block Party
Featuring: Q-Tip, De La Soul, Ill Camille, J.Period , Beverly Bond, Maimouna Youssef, Kokayi
Sunday, September 15: Family Day
Featuring: Mo Willems, Dan and Claudia Zanes, Squonk Opera, Story Pirates, Infinite Monster, Washington Performing Arts’s Children of the Gospel Choir, Ladd Brothers, Sing-Along with "The Muppet Movie"
Monday, September 16–Thursday, September 19: Spotlight on Local Youth & Schools
Featuring: Open house for 250 educators, Children’s Chorus of Washington, Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Sonya Sotomayor
Friday, September 20: Spotlight on Comedy
Featuring: Rachel Dratch, Jon Glaser, Patton Oswalt, Rachel Feinstein, Brandon Wardell
Saturday, September 21: National Dance Day
Featuring: Debbie Allen, Tiler Peck, Fèla! The Concert, Robert Glasper & Bilal
Sunday, September 22: Closing Day
Featuring: Sister Nancy, Howard Marching Band, Peace Corps, Junior Marvin, Washington National Opera
For the full schedule of all 500 events, please visit kennedycenter.sched.com.
Photo: Nicholas Karlin
“I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist.”
[Banner photo: John Shore]