D.C.’s State of the Arts

You might think that after three years I’d be bored with our biannual arts guides. Haven’t we seen and done it all, you might ask? After all this time steeped in the arts in D.C., am I not immune to her charms? The reality is that each and every time I start sifting through events, assigning shows to preview and artists to profile, I fall in love with this city all over again. What our arts scene offers is vast, welcoming, born of countless cultures, a little (or a lot) queer, and it’s constantly spinning out new ideas, new talents, new icons, new legends, and new ways of seeing the world. 

When I interviewed Sleater–Kinney’s Corin Tucker for this guide, I was chuffed but not surprised that D.C. remains one of their favorite cities to play. When editing Hannah Grieco’s piece on Kathleen Hanna’s upcoming D.C. event, I was reminded that Bikini Kill once considered D.C. a second home. It’s no wonder up-and-coming local bands such as Birthday Girl and Argo and the Violet Queens (also featured in this guide) are inspired to make music here. 

And that’s just one faction of our thriving arts scene. This spring will also see the introduction of Lovail Long’s latest go-go musical, Chocolate City Records, and the 50th birthday celebration for Ms. Kim, the “Queen of Go-Go.” Duke Ellington’s music will once again reign courtesy of jazz pianist Ellington Carthan, while a new concert production of Fire Shut Up In My Bones offers a new take on the consequential Black opera.

When I talk about new legends, I can point to Dance Place’s Anastasia Johnson, Filipino collective the WRIZZARDS, and theater-maker Shanara Gabrielle. Honestly I could talk ad nauseam about everyone and everything included in this guide, but I’ll stop myself here. Instead I invite you to dive in and then head out. —Sarah Marloff

Table of Contents

Music

Theater

Books

Film

Dance and Performance

Comedy

Museums and Galleries

Music

Project GLOW’s Secret Garden Offers a Return to Electronic Music’s LGBTQIA Roots

When festival organizers approached D.C. nightclub icon Ed Bailey about imagining a new space at Project GLOW to represent the LGBTQIA community in 2023, he dreamed up the Secret Garden. Having DJed and operated legendary gay nightclubs for decades, from the now-shuttered Town to modern staple Trade, Bailey wanted to pull homegrown talent that harks…

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WRIZZARDS on the Rise

It’s hard to believe that the WRIZZARDS only recently began making music. Their single, “Ms. Barista,” was nominated for the 2024 Wammie Music Awards’ Best World/Global Song just two months after its release, but the suave acoustic hit marked the first time the Filipino multi-genre collective collaborated. (Independently, the collective’s members dabble in indie pop,…

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You’re Invited Into Argo and the Violet Queens’ Immersive Live Shows

Arav Goswami always wanted to be a performer. As a kid, he felt more drawn to his favorite artists’ live shows than their recorded music—he’d watch videos of Queen, David Bowie, and Talking Heads concerts on YouTube all day long. He was enamored with the intricate details these artists put into their imagery: the clothes…

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Standing on the Shoulders of D.C. Giants: Birthday Girl Forge a New Path

Alt-rock band Birthday Girl are young in every sense of the word. The trio are made up of 16-year-old singer-songwriter Mabel Canty, 17-year-old bassist Isabella MacKaye, and 18-year-old drummer Tess Kontarinis, all of whom only started performing live together in the summer of 2023. Although they’re new to the scene, the band are quickly gaining…

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1. Rolling Cocoa Festival, March 9Ghana celebrates its Independence Day on March 6. On that date 67 years ago, it was the first country in Sub-Saharan Africa to become independent from its colonizers. New York-based event production company Duke Concept is hosting its first edition of Rolling Cocoa, […]
2. Chelsea Wolfe, March 10Fifteen years into a critically acclaimed career, goth’s finest Chelsea Wolfe released the excellent She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She in February. The 10-song LP features the signature sound that helped put her into the dark spotlight in the early 2010s. […]
3. Cherry Glazerr, March 12It’s been five years since Cherry Glazerr, the band led by Clementine Creevy, toured songs off to promote their third album, Stuffed & […]
4. Sleater-Kinney, March 12“I love guitar. I love that sound,” Corin Tucker, one half of Sleater–Kinney, tells City Paper over Zoom. […]
5. Laura Jane Grace, March 12Against Me! frontperson Laura Jane Grace has been releasing solo records since 2008, scratching a slightly different itch than her long-running punk band. While Against Me! […]
6. Forever Grey, March 14Climate change is bad. But it’s especially bad if you love darkwave music. Sure, there are much bigger problems than having an above-average temperature in the final weeks of winter, […]
7. Lil Idli, March 14One of the best ways to listen to D.C.-based Lil Idli’s music is while you are lost in your element: On a long walk with headphones locked in, […]
8. Coco & Breezy, March 16I first became aware of Coco & Breezy in October when I saw them blow away an antsy Anthem crowd waiting for Thundercat’s sold-out birthday set. […]
9. Kim Gordon, March 22The sexiest, spookiest bop of 2024, so far, is a four-minute list recited by a 70-year-old getting ready for vacation. Seriously. Kim Gordon, No Wave punk deity and founder of Sonic Youth, […]
10. Backstage with Urban Verbs, March 24In the late 1970s, D.C. band Urban Verbs began practicing at the Atlantic Building at 930 F St. NW, and later played gigs there at the original Atlantis, […]
11. Otoboke Beaver, March 24When Otoboke Beaver last came to D.C. in 2022, they proved Union Stage just wasn’t big enough. The punk-rock group from Kyoto, Japan, sold out the venue and brought a performance that can hardly be matched. […]
12. Amaarae, March 27Born in New York and brought up in Accra, Ghana, and Atlanta, singer Amaarae has been exposed to a wide variety of music, and her recorded output, especially her 2023 album, […]
13. La Ponceña, 70 aniversario,  March 29Han pasado siete décadas desde que levantaron sus instrumentos por la primera vez y crearon la Sonora Ponceña, y hoy en día la legendaria orquesta sigue encendiendo el cuerpo; dado que los pies se activan solos, […]
14. The Mars Arts D.C. Free Concert Series, April 3, May 8, June 5If this is the first you’re hearing about Songbyrd’s free concert series, you’re already late to the party. The series, from the Washington Performing Arts’ initiative Mars Arts D.C., kicked off this week (March 6) with the D.C.-based Moonshine Society, […]
15. Priya Ragu, April 3Priya Ragu bookends her 2023 album, Santhosam, with family. The 18-second opener is a voice message from Ragu’s grandmother, demanding to know why the 38-year-old artist hasn’t gotten married yet. […]
16. Jon Muq, April 8So much of success in the music industry is sheer luck. Being at the right place at the right time or having a social media algorithm work in your favor. […]
17. Young Fathers, April 8It’s tempting to compare Young Fathers to TV on the Radio or Death Grips, but not because their sounds are particularly similar. What they have in common with those groups is the stop-you-in-your-tracks, […]
18. Chxrry22, April 9Lydia Habtemariam, stage name Chxrry22, has gone from singing R&B covers on social media back in 2017 to being named one of Spotify’s Artists to Watch in 2024. […]
19. Caetano Veloso, April 9Fifty-four dollars is a small price to pay to see a man frequently cited as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, a man often mentioned in the same breath as Bob Dylan, […]
20. Orquesta Akokán, April 10Orquesta Akokán play Cuban mambo in a manner drawn from Latin dance bands of the 1940s and ’50s a la Beny More, Perez Prado, […]
21. Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott, April 14If there’s anything Yo–Yo Ma can teach us, it’s the art of stretching yourself beyond the scope of classical repertoire. His prized cello has taken him across genres, […]
22. The Concert Music of Duke Ellington, April 16Jazz pianist Ellington Carthan’s skill has spanned years performing and producing his own work. He’s taken stages across the D.C. area, including at Blues Alley, the Library of Congress, […]
23. CSS, May 3It’s December 2008, and you are about to see CSS play the 9:30 Club. Your buddy is reviewing the show for a blog, now defunct, and you’re his plus-one. […]
24. M3 Rock Festival, May 4 and 5Break out the Aqua Net, people! The higher the hair, the closer to God! If you understand those last two references, it’s time to schedule a colonoscopy and/or mammogram. It’s also time to get ready for the latest iteration of the M3 Rock Festival at Merriweather Post Pavilion, […]
25. Chastity Belt, May 4Chastity Belt, a rock band that formed in Walla Walla, Washington, a decade ago when they were students of Whitman College, follow in the tradition of the Pacific Northwest riot grrrl bands that preceded them. […]
26. Kara Jackson, May 12Kara Jackson is a jack of all trades. The Youth Poet Laureate of Chicago in 2018 and the U.S. National Youth Poet Laureate from 2019 to 2020, Jackson is also the author of the poetry book Bloodstone Cowboy and the artist behind the widely acclaimed 2023 album Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love? […]
27. Nova Twins, May 14Pinning down the sound and vision behind London-based duo Nova Twins isn’t for the simple mind. You might first consider them the musical (and fashion) nods to the UK’s early 1970s glam rock. […]
28. Cheekface, May 15The Atlantis has been open for about a year, and so far the intimate venue has delivered on its promise to bring smaller, up-and-coming acts to its stage. The Los Angeles indie-pop trio Cheekface meet that brief perfectly, […]
29. Sun Ra Arkestra, May 19Knowing how to properly celebrate your birthday can be a tricky proposition. If you’re too intense about planning, people can feel pressured and turned off. But surely keeping it to yourself and microwaving a can of soup can’t be the answer either. […]
30. Yaya Bey, May 25Brooklyn-based musician Hadaiyah Bey, who performs as Yaya Bey, uses the lessons of their father, the iconic Grand Daddy I.U. […]
31. The Queen of Go-Go’s 50th Birthday Celebration, June 1Go-go singer Ms. Kim, the “Queen of Go-Go,” knows how to control an audience’s attention. This Prince George’s County native started with Rare Essence in 1995, […]
32. Patti LaBelle and Gladys Knight, June 8There are divas and then there are Capital D Divas. The kind that have lovingly earned their titles, the kind whose material lays the groundwork for future artists, […]
33. The Raveonettes, June 12From the opening static and buzz-saw feed of their first track “Ghost Riders” from their debut mini-album, Whip It On! (2002), the Raveonettes established themselves as the darkest, […]
34. Future Islands, June 23Want to feel old? Future Islands’ viral appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman was 10 years ago. Don’t worry, fellow older Gen Zers and millennials, […]
35. art sound language, Wednesday through SundayIt might be hard for young’uns to imagine a time when the world was filled with record stores, and chains like Tower Records, HMV, and Sam Goody battled it out to get your hard-earned cash. […]

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Theater

Meet Shanara Gabrielle, the Incoming Producing Artistic Director at Theater Alliance

For Shanara Gabrielle, the newly announced producing artistic director of Theater Alliance, the performing arts serve a civic duty: creating communities of artists and informed citizens, sharing stories about social justice and opportunities for effective change, and opening up dialogues about contemporary topics.  “Along with justice comes joy,” she says about socially engaged theater, “No…

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1. More Spring Theater, March 13 through June 16Per usual, there’s no shortage of great theater to see in D.C. this Spring. Some other shows I’m especially excited for, in order of opening dates, are: At the Wedding, […]
2. Broadway in the Park, June 29There’s nothing quite like a night at the theater. Broadway may be a quick 250 miles away from the Filene Center at Wolf Trap, but that doesn’t mean DMV residents can’t enjoy a night of show tunes within reasonable distance. […]
3. Chocolate City Records, May 10, 11, and 12Lovail Long, the visionary behind the go-go musicals The Giz and Grease With a Side of Mumbo Sauce, was incarcerated in a Georgia prison in 2014 when he and his bunkmate, […]
4. AMM(I)GONE, April 20 through May 12AMM(I)GONE follows a queer man navigating the relationship with his mother and premiers at Woolly Mammoth this spring. An adaptation of the Athenian tragedy Antigone by Sophocles, […]
5. Hair, April 16 through July 7Let the sunshine in! Experience the revolutionary spirit and the psychedelic colors of the 1960s with Hair, the iconic musical electrifying the stage at Signature Theatre as its final mainstage show of the 2023–’24 season. […]
6. Unknown Soldier, March 29 through May 5The titular character—a World War I veteran suffering from shell shock and amnesia—is at the heart of Unknown Soldier coming to Arena Stage this spring. Following its 2015 world premiere at Williamstown Theatre Festival and a 2020 off-Broadway run, […]

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Books

1. Tom Shoop, A Place Called Ilda: Race and Resilience at a Northern Virginia Crossroads, March 11 Tom Shoop, a longtime D.C.-area journalist, recently published a book about the area surrounding the intersection of Little River Turnpike and Guinea Road in Annandale, Virginia—a place even he describes as “a nondescript slice of suburbia” notable only for a “service station, […]
2. Ursula Villarreal-Moura, Like Happiness, March 28As arts editor, I field a lot of requests for reviews, most of which I have to turn down due to the simple issue of capacity. There are only so many hours in a day. […]
3. Becky Lynch, Becky Lynch: The Man: Not Your Average Average Girl, March 28World Wrestling Entertainment superstar Becky Lynch is the Man. (It’s her nickname.) As a fan favorite for years, but always behind bigger names like Charlotte Flair, […]
4. Erik Larson, Lincoln: The Months Before Sumter, May 1Those familiar with Erik Larson’s past books (The Devil in the White City, The Splendid and the Vile, and In the Garden of Beasts) are well-versed in the author’s extensive research. […]
5. Nicole Chung, A Living Remedy, May 2Last year Nicole Chung captivated the audience at the Martin Luther King Memorial Library’s 291-person-capacity auditorium for a book talk about her memoir, A Living Remedy. The book is a beautiful meditation on Chung’s family history and her personal experience of grief as the world collectively grieved at the start of the pandemic. […]
6. Kathleen Hanna, Rebel Girl: My Life As a Feminist Punk, May 15For all of us Gen Xers in the area, May 15 is triple-circled on the calendar. Kathleen Hanna, legendary lead singer of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, […]
7. Miranda July, All Fours, May 16On a recent trip to New York, I caught the Copy Machine Manifestos zine exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, which featured a ton of zines from the personal collection of iconic director, […]
8. Backstage with George Pelecanos and Friends, June 2Silver Spring-raised George Pelecanos may be best known as a producer and Emmy-nominated writer for HBO’s The Wire, but he’s been writing fiction about crime, […]
9. June Thomas, A Place of Our Own: Six Spaces That Shaped Queer Women’s Culture, June 3The recent outpouring of support for queer space As You Are is proof D.C. could use more queer spaces. The forthcoming book by June Thomas, journalist and co-host of Slate’s Working podcast, […]
10. LavenderCon, June 29 through 30A local LGBTQIA book festival will run for two days in June. Hosted by Capitol Hill’s local, independent queer bookstore, Little District Books, the festival will feature author book signings, […]

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Film

1. David Lynch’s Dune, March 9 and 14Explaining the plot of Dune is no easy feat. One could argue that David Lynch failed to do so in his 1984 adaptation of the Frank Herbert novel (which is exactly what Janet Maslin famously claimed when she reviewed the film for the New York Times.) Anyway, […]
2. D.C. Environmental Film Festival, March 21 through 30The 32nd annual D.C. Environmental Film Festival begins in late March and will feature dozens of climate-centered film screenings across the DMV. The 10-day festival includes shorts and feature-length films in museum, […]
3. Kill Dolly Kill, March 30Film events in D.C. can be stuffy. They usually involve documentaries or artsy films. Or they are so exclusive that you don’t know about them until it’s too late. For instance, […]
4. Kinuyo Tanaka Retrospective, April 6, 7, and 13The National Gallery of Art has the best free film programming in D.C. Along with the nearby Library of Congress and Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, a film lover could spend most every weekend enjoying flicks that aren’t streaming anywhere else for free. […]
5. Dawn of the Dead 45th Anniversary Screening, April 12The original Dawn of the Dead is perhaps the best zombie film and critique of consumerism set in a shopping mall ever made. George Romero’s second entry into his zombieverse has been remade (Zack Snyder’s first film!), […]
6. The Grand Bizarre, April 14Even the descriptions of director Jodie Mack’s animations are art. In one piercingly brief synopsis for her 2014 short film, Razzle Dazzle, Mack writes, […]
7. Bare Knees, April 14It’s 1928. Do you know where your hemline is? In this charming silent film study of changing mores, onetime child star Virginia Lee Corbin stars in Bare Knees as Billie, […]
8. His Girl Friday, April 15Step into the glamorous realm of classic Hollywood and the noisy, frenetic world of the newspaper office with His Girl Friday gracing the silver screen at the Angelika Pop-Up. […]
9. Count Gore Presents Forbidden Planet, May 14William Shakespeare’s The Tempest gave the English language such rich timeless lines as “full fathom five thy father lies.” The most ear-catching dialogue in this science-fiction classic loosely adapted from that noble source might be: “some impossible tree sloth!” Yet what Forbidden Planet lacks in iambic pentameter, […]

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Dance and Performance

Diana Movius Uses Dance to Inspire New Climate Activists

Climate change has been a key part of Diana Movius’ life ever since the fourth grade. She distinctly remembers that day in elementary school when a scientist came to talk to her class about deforestation and climate change.  “I was just absolutely devastated. Because before that, I had no idea that climate change was a…

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Anastasia Johnson Takes the Helm as Dance Place’s Next Education Director

In February, Dance Place hosted a “hair show,” billed as a journey about Black hair and its symbolism of Black resilience, art, culture, and pride. City Paper receives at least 100 inquiries about upcoming dance performances a year—and this one, “Color Me (Curly) Hair,” is one of the most original we’ve seen. The event brought…

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1. Songbird, March 9 through 23Opera companies’ strategy of tricking people who like musicals into seeing opera has a long record of success, in Washington and elsewhere. Relatively few would line up to see La Périchole, […]
2. Let The Church Say Amen, March 10Let The Church Say Amen comes to the Atlas Performance Arts Center’s Sprenger Theatre as part of the 2024 INTERSECTIONS Festival, described on the Atlas’ website as art that impacts “society, […]
3. Arushi Mudgal, March 15Arushi Mudgal has become one of the leading ambassadors of Odissi, a classical dance style from Eastern India performed largely by women. Odissi dances often tell a story or send a spiritual message from Hindu books using mime-like movements, […]
4. Fire Shut Up in My Bones, April 26In September 2021, the Metropolitan Opera opened its season—after 18 months of pandemic closure—with the first work by a Black composer in the institution’s 138 years, rewriting the history of American opera as consequential, […]
5. Turandot, May 11 through 25How can you have a world premiere for something that’s nearly 100 years old? How about a new production and a new ending? Originally composed in 1926, Turandot is the final, […]

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Comedy

It’s Time: D.C. Is Finally Getting Its Own Sketch Comedy Festival

In the centuries-old history of sketch comedy, it’s hard to say how often tater tots have been involved in making massive comedic and business decisions. But there is no doubt that the oh-so-delicious, yet highly processed excuse for a potato item was present at the formation of Bad Medicine, a D.C. sketch comedy team that…

Continue ReadingIt’s Time: D.C. Is Finally Getting Its Own Sketch Comedy Festival

1. Abby Govindan, March 14They say third time’s a charm, and if that’s true the charm is definitely gifted to local audiences in this instance. Abby Govindan, a 26-year-old Indian comedian from New York, […]
2. Pinky Patel, March 22For the longest time, I thought I didn’t like comedy. Turns out, I’m just not interested in most White cishet men’s jokes. My teeth clench just waiting to be offended. […]
3. DC Comedy Festival, April 8 through 13Even with D.C.’s established comedy clubs, venues such as DC Improv, Hotbed, and Arlington Drafthouse, don’t sleep on the local up-and-coming stand-ups. […]
4. Dan Soder, April 19 through 21Dan Soder first learned to make people laugh while working 16-hour days at an Alaskan cannery. Amid the meager wages and grueling conditions, Soder found that he had a knack for making the dockworkers crack up throughout their shifts. […]
5. Jordan Rock, April 25 through 28Are some people naturally hilarious or is humor learned? Actor and comedian Jordan Rock, younger brother of comedians Chris Rock and Tony Rock, […]
6. Felipe Esparza, May 24 through 26Addicts on the road to recovery tend to experience a moment of clarity, an aha moment where they realize something about themselves that can be life-altering. Comedian Felipe Esparza had one such moment more than 30 years ago, […]

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Museums and Galleries

1. Recapturing Happiness: The Enduring Spirit of Ishinomaki, open through March 31Want to treat yourself to a dose of optimism? Then visit an exhibition of Keisuke Hirai’s photographs at the Japan Information & Culture Center. The exhibit bills Hirai’s images as communicating “the resilience of the human spirit, […]
2. The Sea of Life, open through April 26The history-making exhibit The Sea of Life opens with an unlikely choice. The flagship painting, “The Lovers,” features two—or three?—figures, abstracted, floating in a bath of sunflowers, punctuated by linear grooves and multicolored shapes of saffron, […]
3. Spring at the Katzen Arts Center, open through March 17, May 10 and 19, and Aug. 13 The American University Museum has outdone itself this spring, mounting no fewer than seven exhibits at once. The Very Idea! Art of Brian Kavanagh features paintings by the late Washington artist, […]
4. Star Power at the National Portrait Gallery, open through January 5 After you live here long enough, it is easy to forget the draw of the National Portrait Gallery. It got a lot of attention when the portraits of Michelle and Barack Obama were revealed, […]
5. Bond in Motion, open through April 2025Bond in Motion, a special exhibit highlighting the vehicles from the James Bond film franchise, opened at the International Spy Museum on March 1. It’s the first special exhibit hosted by the museum since its 2019 move to its L’Enfant Plaza location, […]
6. Striking Objects, March 2024 to 2026“Metal isn’t a cold or hard thing,” artist Ōsumi Yukie said in 2015, during a residency here in D.C. “It is warmed by my own body temperature and becomes soft and comfortable.” This whimsical, […]
7. Sydney Vernon: Interior Lives, through June 6At first glance, Sydney Vernon’s work appears deceivingly straightforward. Take “Tying Loose Ends,” a 2020 mixed-media piece that depicts a Black woman with a blank expression donning a bright pink polo and dark sunglasses. […]
8. Bountiful Baskets, March 16To create her basket sculptures, artist Ronni–leigh Goeman (Onondaga) elaborates on the traditional Iroquois technique of weaving black ash and sweetgrass, which she first fell in love with as a little girl admiring her grandmother’s practiced hand. […]
9. A Bold and Beautiful Vision, March 23 through March 2, 2025After two months, the highly anticipated reopening of the Anacostia Community Museum is upon us, marked by the unveiling of the hallmark exhibit, A Bold and Beautiful Vision: A Century of Black Arts Education in Washington, […]
10. New Worlds: Women to Watch 2024, April 14 through Aug. 11One of  the National Museum of Women in the Arts first major exhibitions since reopening last fall combines two concepts: The museum’s Women to Watch series, typically presented every three years with a focus on emerging women and nonbinary artists, […]
11. Up Close with Paul Cezanne, April 17 through July 14Up Close with Paul Cezanne is a special installation opening at the Phillips Collection this spring, the jewel box of a museum located inside the former Phillips family home and just steps away from the Dupont Circle Metro station. […]
12. Osgemeos: Endless Story, May 18 through July 6, 2025 You’ve likely seen the work of Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo, the Brazilian twin artists better known as Osgemeos (or Os Gemeos). Sure, maybe you haven’t seen their work on buildings, […]