Kennedy Center fires dance team
balletIn ongoing turmoil at the Washington DC performing arts center, director of dance programming Jane Raleigh and two of her staff were fired just before the weekend.
According to the NY Times, they had been ordered by Trump appointee Richard Grenell to propose programming that was more ‘broadly appealing’ and less ‘niche’. He mentioned a TV game show by way of example. Later, the three staff were removed from the building by security staff.
(((-:
My grandmother said the Trumps were peasants. Grandma died in 1954!
Trump don’t like to dance, obviously
Only to his own tunes.
Melania, you’re so charming and so gentle,
When I launch an intercontinental …
He seems to have peculiarly hidebound taste, aka “none.” How strange….
Seriously? This would be akin to performing art in front of the Nazis. Perhaps they can get Jews to do it, after all they’re the new fascist sacred cows
Some question as to whether Jane Raleigh was fired for supporting unionisation of I’m not sure which employees.
Her replacement is a dancer with no curatorial experience.
Oh, well, all is not lost. Trump is going to hold the FIFA World Cup draw at the KenCen.
Crude populism.
That is what you get when millions of fools vote for a scoundrel.
‘Make America small again.’
All meaningful art began as something like ‘niche’.
Trump is cleaning out the woketards…which is 99.9% of the arts community in DC (if not everywhere generally).
But sure I bet these geniuses managed some outstanding LGBTQ themed productions.
Bone, you sound like an thoughtful, fair, and principled individual. Thank you for the decency you so regularly put on display here. You certainly raise the tenor of all discussions on this site.
I’ve been attending the arts around the world since I was a little child. High art and low, in just about every genre — theatre, music (concert and opera and oratorio, classical and some popular or world), dance, variety. I’ve been to amateur and professional, as a participant, an audience and a critic. The only LGBT-ish thing I can think of that I ever saw was a superb production of The Boys in the Band.
I have no idea who the actors were — it was a small professional company — but if it was anything like the original film version, most of the cast was probably straight. It was neither marketed nor presented as an LGBT affair (they didn’t use the letters in those days). In fact it is not an LGGT thing — it is a very good drama about a particular sector of society, like all good plays.
I thought even Americans had grown up enough to face the fact of life that there are gay people in society? (They say 10% of men; I do not know the statistics on women). This MAGA-driven homophobia is getting a little old. Conservatives live in such a pretend culture — if we don’t recognise it, maybe it will go away, but if it doesn’t we will drive it underground. It’s like their attitude to sex education: don’t tell teenagers about safe sex, tell them to abstain, and there will be no teen pregnancies. No matter that they are wrong, and their attitude not only increases teen pregnancy but venereal diseases.
How infantilist the US is.
I agree with most of your viewpoint Ms. Lind, but please don’t forget that Americans are no more a monolith than are the citizens in any given European country. And my nation–sadly–does not hold a monopoly on intolerance. The very vocal social conservatives of our far-right may be ascendant for now. But the vast majority of Americans–I firmly believe–still stand for fairness and justice.
Mr. Trump barely squeaked to victory with just under fifty percent of the vote. Most who voted for him reportedly did so out of the (misguided) belief that his policies would somehow improve the cost of living. So far the situation seems to be going in the opposite direction. Now those of us who bothered to research the issues must live with the aftermath. Sad.
Grenell is openly gay btw
Being gay does not define one’s character or morals. Mr Grenell is deficient in both.
Always good to remove Radical Leftists from power over others.
…and replace that supposed power with the Radical right…
You consider unions to be radically leftist? In this day and age?
Meaningless statement without providing facts.
Times also reported that the two other employees had been placed on unpaid leave last month after they displeased Trump’s Kennedy Center chief Richard Grenell at a meeting, by pointing out to him that he, and the Kennedy Center had no actual authority over the Washington Ballet, which is a separate entity. In the US today you have to tell the dear leader, the ‘alternative facts’ he demands, or your head will roll.
Niche? Last season’s dance included American Ballet Theatre, NYC Ballet, Alvin Ailey, Twyla Tharp, Paul Taylor Dance Company and Philadelphia Ballet’s The Nutcracker.
That’s about as mainstream as dance gets. All long-established companies with vast international audiences. Two of the modern companies have survived the deaths of their founders, they are that good and that successful, and I hope Twyla Tharp’s company also will.
Only the viola players are safe…..
Texas line dancing
I’d love to play The Price Is Right on the stage of the Kennedy Center!
Jeopardy! would be far too elitist and probably leftist, because knowledge is pure leftist wokism.
The Wheel of Fortune too hard, too many letters in the alphabet.
Here’s the latest on this story. Draw your own conclusions.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/arts/dance/kennedy-center-stephen-nakagawa.html
That article is not available to most of us — behind a paywall.
then just do a google search on the name in the address stephen nakagawa.
I find the passionate objections raised by some on this website–‘against so-called Woke ideology “infecting” the arts–confounding at best and downright disingenuous at worst. To many of them, the apparent magic elixir to the plague arrives in the form of the Trump Purge at The Kennedy Center. And in this circumstance, we find the mission and ideology of the organization literally being dictated according to the whim of one man. ‘Not sure how this reflects an improvement to people of the MAGA mindset.
But for those unafraid of truly critical thinking, Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement–of course–appears to strive for quite the opposite result. Storied institutions are ripped asunder, free speech muzzled under thinly veiled threats of legal retribution, military roam the streets of our cities. The list expands. Indeed, MAGA represents the end of the American ideal as we know it. And in its place? Some kind of Brave New World.
Will enough of us stand up to right the course? Time will tell. But bad things happen when otherwise good people choose to sit on their hands.
How consistent of Trump and the Maggots to turn a world-class performing arts center into a provincial venue where small-town talents and sister-acts can perform.