By Ashraf Khalil
Washington (AP) – The organizers and the Kennedy Center canceled a week of events celebrating LGBTQ + rights for the World Pride festival this summer in Washington, DC, in the midst of a change in priorities and leadership eviction in one of the country’s first cultural institutions.
Several artists and producers involved in the calendar of the Center’s pride tapestry, which had been scheduled from June 5 to 8, told the Associated Press that their events had been quietly canceled or moved to other sites. And following cancellations, the Washington Pride Alliance capital dissociated from Kennedy Center.
“We are a resilient community and we have found other avenues to celebrate,” said June Crenshaw, assistant director of the Alliance. “We find another path to celebration … but the fact that we must maneuver in this way is disappointing.”
The Kennedy Center website always lists Tapestry of Pride on its website with a general description and a link to the World Pride site. There are no other details.
The Kennedy Center did not respond to an AP request to comment.
This decision comes from massive changes to Kennedy Center, President Donald Trump dismissing both the president and the president in early February. Trump replaced most of the board of directors with loyalists, who then elected him the new president of Kennedy Center.
The World Pride event, which was held every two years, begins in just under a month – from May 17 to June 8 with performances and celebrations planned in the capital. But Trump administration policies on transgender rights and comments on Kennedy Center drag performance have aroused concerns about the type of reception that participants will receive.
“I know that DC as a community will be very happy to welcome world pride, but I know that the community is a little different from the government,” said Michael Roest, founder and director of the International Pride orchestra, who had his performance on June 5 at the Kennedy Center canceled in the days of Trump’s takeover.
Roest told AP that he was in the last stages of Kennedy Center performance planning after months of email and zoom calls. He was waiting for a final contract when Trump posted leadership changes on social networks on February 7 and his intention to transform the programming of Kennedy Center.
The Kennedy Center immediately became non -reactive, Roest said. On February 12, he said, he received an email from a sentence from a Kennedy Center staff member declaring: “We are no longer able to advance your contract at the moment.”
“They have passed very eager to welcome anything,” he said. “We haven’t heard a word of a person at Kennedy Center, but that won’t stop us.”
Following the cancellation, Roest said that he had managed to move the international representation of the Pride Orchestra to the Strathmore Theater in Bethesda, Maryland.
Crenshaw said that some other events, including an hour of Dragsters tale and a demonstration of the SIDA commemorative parts, would be transferred to the World Pride Welcome Center in the Chinese district.
Monica Alford, a veteran event planner with a long history of work with the Kennedy Center, was to organize an event on June 8 as part of Tapestry of Pride, but said that she had also seen the communication ended suddenly in the days following Trump’s takeover.
Alford organized the very first Drag brunch on the roof of the Kennedy Center in 2024, and said that it considered the institution – and its recent expansion known as Reach – as “My Home Base” and “A safe space for the Queer community”
She said that she was still finalizing the details of her event, which she described as “intended to be family, just as dredging brunch was family and chic and sophisticated”.
She said she was crying for the loss of the partnership she fed with the Kennedy Center.
“We are doing poor service to our community-not just the Queer community but the whole community,” she said.
Roest said he had never received an explanation to explain why the performance had been canceled so late in the planning stages. He said that his orchestra would no longer plan to perform at Kennedy Center, and he thinks that most queer artists would make the same choice.
“There would be a very, very public declaration of inclusiveness on the part of the administration, of this council, for us to consider this,” he said. “Otherwise, it’s a hostile performance space.”
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
