Hi, I'm Anqoinette Crosby.

And welcome to the Lincoln Theater.

This is a cultural center that is significant to the African American history in Washington, D.C.

This social and artistic hub was built in 1922.

It pre-dated and influenced the Harlem Renaissance.

This theater served the area's African American community during segregation.

It's located on "U" street here in D.C. Also, known as "Washington's Black Broadway."

There's more to learn about this historic landmark, but first welcome to Artico art in your community!

♪♪ In its heyday, the Lincoln Theatre included a movie house and a ballroom.

It played host to many big name African American artists like Washington natives Duke Ellington and Pearl Bailey.

Also, stars like Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughn and Louis Armstrong often performed here.

So tell us a little about the great history of this theater?

Well this theater started off as a silent film house, but it turned into a ballroom.

There was a lot of jazz and big band and we've hosted concerts and comedy shows, podcasts.

I mean pretty much anything you can think of has been hosted in this theater.

Ok. Now drop some names... Now we have President Roosevelt, Dave Chapell has been here too.

Yes.

So Prsident Franklin Roosevelt used to actually have multiple birthday parties in this venue when there was a ballroom.

Dave Chapell actually filmed his first full length for HBO here, in the late 90s early 2000s.

And Trevor Noah has filmed specials here.

Nas did a special a video of Illmatic followed by a concert.

It was a duel show about four or five years ago.

It was amazing.

Were coming up on the sentinel in 2022.

So we're looking to put together a schedule of events that not only honors the building and its history, but also to commemorate and highlight the many artists who have made this stage a legacy to perform on.

We'll here's to another hundred years.

I can't wait.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Mickalene Thomas's new art installation may be called "A Moment's Pleasure," but you can spend many wonderful hours going through it.

It's on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art the first of the Myerhoff Becker bi-ennial commissions.

The commission was created to support artists under-represented in public spaces like museums.

Gamynne: By having a piece of work that really engages our audiences right from the beginning, we hope to be sending a signal that we are a welcoming environment, that is open to all.

And that's why Mickalene Thomas as the choice for the inaugural artist was so extraordinarily important in creating a piece that was extremely immersive.

♪♪ Christopher: I think, well, Mikalene Thomas is one of the great artists living and working in this country today, period.

She does a lot of commercial photography, in addition to her work as an artist.

So she's very sort of dexterous in that world, cover of Time, cover of "W," magazine, etc.

So, there's that aspect to her work.

Then she is incredibly well known for rhinestone encrusted portraits typically depicting black women and often in reclining poses and sometimes in frontal portrait poses.

That's another attribute of what she does She's fine art photographer and she is a installation artist.

So, we are standing in the midst of one of her installations which has completely transformed our east lobby.

The idea when we made the overture to Mickalene was when John Russel Pope designed this museum he said he wanted it to be Baltimore's porch.

And so we wanted to restore some of that character to the museum to make it really clear that this is a gathering space for all.

Irrespective of race.

Irrespective of economics.

Irrespective of familiarity with the art world.

And to recreate this space as a warm welcome to all.

And so what Mickalene has created was Baltimore's living room.

So, we are very proud, very happy.

So I would say, from my perspective, what excites me most, is actually her work on the terrace.

So in addition to the totalizing transformation up and down of the lobby, she also built an additional gallery space on the terrace overlooking Windman Park.

And within that space she has again, created Mickalene fashion, this sort of 70s living room.

But it is also home to an expedition of work by 16 Baltimore based artists.

And I think that that has been the most extraordinary contribution she could make to the creative ecology in this city.

A lot of museums have the title of the city that they're in and their name.

This is a museum that truly is Baltimore's museum.

And that is something I find really, really unique.

I love the way that the institution works both for, with, and on behalf of the people of Baltimore.

So we are very focused on making the art that is in our galleries relevant to people's lived experience, to flattening hierarchies, around information and whose voice counts and whose voice matters.

And to really creating an environment where challenging conversations can be had in a safe and supportive environment.

It was enormously important to Mickalene that programming really activated the space of the installation.

So one for the first things that we did was look at some of our existing programming and see how it might work and be adapted to working in this very different kind of space.

And so we have a program called "Open Hours," we essentially opened the museum space to folks in our community.

To find out more about the Open Hours program as well as other programs related to the Mickalene Thomas installation, please visit us on our website at art.bma.org/events One of the reasons that "A Moment of Pleasure, is arriving to the MBA at such an important and exciting time is that in 2020 we're launching our 2020 vision initiative.

In commemoration of and reflection upon the ratification of women's suffrage.

But really using it as a jumping off point for real consideration of works by women and female identifying artists.

So as part of that we have a number of programs coming up that really focus on these ideas.

So on April 30th we have Anna Deveare Smith.

And on May 13th we have Tarana Burke.

Who is the originator of the metoo hashtag.

What's unique about the BMA?

Well, we have an absolutley extraordinay collection.

That's one thing.

And what we've decided in the last three years and I think what we have demonstrated is that there is a generation of Black American artists who are the greatest artist living and working today.

And we have made their creativity the leading edge of this museum.

All of our vendor decisions are filtered through that priority.?

♪♪ D.C.

Whammy winner Eli Lev says he's trying to make the world a smaller place one song at a time.

Alright this tune is very close to my heart.

It's called, "Anywhere We Can Go."

It was the name of my tour that I just went on cross country.

And it's got all the places I've lived and visited in my life in it.

So you might recognize some names.

♪♪ I grew up just outside of D.C. in Silver Spring Maryland.

So yeah, I kind of went around the world a few times since then, but just came back to the area a few years ago.

♪♪ I've been writing silly songs my entire life.

I'd share with my friends sometimes, maybe I play like some cover shows, I was in a high school band as well.

But nothing ever serious until about maybe three or four years ago when I played my first show in a cafe called Trist in Adams Morgan, right here in D.C., I was way in the back in the shadows maybe five people came.

But my friends asked me when is your next show and it all started from there.

I write music because it needs to come out from my heart and from my soul.

I don't write for accolades or anything but when that comes, it's amazing.

It means that people are listening, it means they people enjoy it.

I was against some pretty incredible artists.

It's just amazing that the album as a whole was picked as best country americana album.

♪♪ I think the genre that I identify with the most is folk music.

And the reason why is because folk music is a long tradition of music from the people, by the people, of the people.

And kind of that getting together in a living room, or a front porch sharing the songs and that each song has a life of its own.

One person's version of the song might be different from another person's and different words come in and out.

So I love the idea of reinterpretation.

I reinterpret my own songs in every performance; so I like folk better than anything else.

♪♪ The Navajo culture has been a huge inspiration to my music.

When I was a teacher there for three years, the Four Directions was a really big ideal in their cosmology and how the Earth works and our place in the world, so I wanted to bring that into my music.

My first album was All Roads East, my second album was Way Out West and Deep South came out end of last year and my next album and final album in the Four Directions series is True North.

So really excited about that.

And each direction has it's own kind of characteristic just like each of my albums have their own kind of flavor to them.

I love performing with other musicians.

The official name of my group right now is called the Eli Lev Collective.

And it truly is a collective of musicians, but these days I usually play solo, duo or trio, but I do have about four or five full band shows each year in D.C. My next performance is going to be at the Lincoln Theater.

I'll be performing at the Whammy's award show this year.

I was asked by them to do a six-minute set so I'm going to play one of my Whammy winning songs off Way Out West.

Now that I started music and now that I've allowed it to take me over, you could say, just trusting in the creative process, and like being this is my thing, this what I'm going to do for my life.

I'm most excited about is just following along and in the adventure, cause I'm in it for life now.

♪♪ The members of "Arial Candy," make hanging upside down look kinda fun, but not necessarily easy.

♪♪ What we do here is we use aerial apparatus to explore creative movements through aerial dance.

We have silks, we have slings, we have a cube, and we have aerial hoop, also known as the lyra.

And we ring them from the ceiling and we teach students how to come up in there and dance.

You can incorporate any form of dance into aerial dance.

I have students that come from ballroom dancing, that do salsa dancing, and I encourage them to incorporate anything that they have learned from those forms of dance into their aerial apparatus.

So for strength and flexibility it's something you can start off you could have no strength, you could have no flexibility and we will help you get there.

If they have a lot of flexibility then we try to incorporate their flexibility into their dance routine.

And if they have a lot of strength we try to help them build their strength to their dance routine and we try to help them build their flexibility and strength at the same time.

So for it to be flowy and dancy.

We kind of just will teach more simpler moves.

They teach a lot of spins that any beginner can do that are very beautiful very contemporary type of dance movement that can be incorporated into the apparatus.

I am a retired dancer.

So 5 years ago I had a really bad car accident and I had a head injury that left me with memory problems and amnesia.

So for a few years after that I was sedentary and about last year I started getting involved in just regular walking and going to the gym.

And Candy and I, the director of Ariel Candy, we had worked together on last my show.

So I reached out to her because I wanted more than just regular fitness classes.

♪♪ And it is almost like you are swimming, because you feel weightless once you get used to being in your apparatus.

So the movement is very fluid.

And it creates an effect that you can't necessarily get from regular dancing on the floor if that makes any sense.

And you have level changes.

♪♪ A drop is when you start at a certain level on your apparatus maybe you climb to the top of your apparatus and you're going to roll or drop yourself down to another level just being able to go upside down is something that a lot of students find very exhilarating, especially when they are first coming to an aerial class.

It can be very exciting, something very new.

A new form of fitness.

I just encourage anyone who sees the classes and feels like it's something they want to try to just try it.

Heather: You do not have to have a background as a performer or gymnast to you do not have to be an athlete.

All of the staff and community of students are really encouraging.

So that was another thing that helped me so much with my confidence.

And creating a physical skill set was being around people that made me feel safe and encouraged.

♪♪ For more than 20 years, Kennard Copeland has sharing his passion for working with clay both as an artist and a teacher.

I got started in clay in Guyana, South America.

As a young boy the area that I grew up with, I was basically clay all around it's a clay and sand we make different objects out of the we even did mud baths with the clay, so we take the clay and rub it all over our skin, and so on.

It felt very good.

When I saw a teacher of mine, actually using the clay and the way that it was on the wheel, the way I saw the clay coming up on the wheel, that was like magical to me and I when I found out that you could do so much with the clay, it blew my mind.

I was around the art school and I worked with a number of the other instructors and I would go there and I would learn how to do the clay and learn how to do it better.

It grew from there.

It grew into a small cottage industry and it grew to a point where I established a business in Guyana.

A lot of the tourist items that we were getting were coming from Taiwan and from China.

So it was good to see something locally made and something Caribbean, something Guyanese that was authentic to the region.

From there, I was sponsored by the Caribbean Development Bank, which played a huge role in my development.

That comes now with a responsibility for me to be able to produce work that reflects all the things that I've learned.

As I grew and developed as an artist, I began to see that I was more attracted to things that reflectt my culture, which is more like African and that's where I draw a lot of my styles and techniques from.

We talk about the stories of the Baku which is more of a spiritual African mythology, African folklore.

The combination of that helped me to create my style in terms of what I do.

♪♪ I'm trying to document our life and how we evolve as a people.

I put a lot of women in showing the black women in terms of her body type and hair styles using her natural hair.

Because I think that it's important for not just the world, but our people to have a look at ourselves again because half of the time if you live between different people you begin to forget who you are.

And I want to remind the black women that she is beautiful.

For me, I'm now leading towards more sculptural pieces.

There's a piece by Minister Louis Farakain and when you look at that piece, you can actually see it captures not just the image of him but it actually captures the spirit of him.

Pastor Reverend Willie Wilson from Union Temple Baptist Church.

The piece I did for him is portraying him as a warrior.

An Ashanti warrior on a horse.

For me, I just keep learning more and more and I would like to continue to learn as long as I'm here, you know.

To use different mediums.

To use different techniques.

This is not just about clay, but this is about life.

You can actually create your life in the same way you create a sculpture.

You can determine what you want the outcome to be.

Check out this menu.

Some straight-ahead jazz, down-home blues with a side of tasty soul food.

Where can you find this delicious combo?

Well, how about blues and jazz nights at the West-Minister Presbyterian Church in south-west.

Brian: For more than twenty years, they've been serving up great music that feeds the soul...

Without draining the purse.

Our congregation was trying to expand and really have the conversation about racial ethnic realities and jazz is something that is wonderful way to bring people together, Washington, D.C. has a rich history in jazz here.

When Jelly Roll Morton played, back with Duke Ellington coming up through Shirley Horn, Peter Best.

Peter Best played with Ella Fitzgerald then we had Charlie Hampton we had just all you know great player after great player.

Buck Hill was here the very first night when we started in 1999.

Buck Hill was one of the truly great jazz players to come out of D.C.

It has been a great run of really great musicians in this town.

And they played all over the world.

Then you have Howard University, which has put out great players, along with UDC.

You got guys that produced Whitney Houston worked with Madonna and all that kind of stuff.

We felt that it was important to have a venue that was totally restricted to D.C. based that includes Maryland Virginia, and in our context, that stretches as far as Baltimore because the jazz scene in Baltimore and the jazz scene in D.C. have always had a really close connection.

I think it lasted because we have a community.

It's not based on individuals.

Community, these people know the music.

And when once you hear it, you say wow, you start respecting what people can do.

♪♪ From the very beginning we have always been committed to diversity and to just welcoming people of average means.

So we started asking people for $5 admission 21 years ago and it was still at that place today and it's been a great thing for us... We've done a fish fry from day one.

The whole first year we did it up here in this room and we, we had some service tables here and we just encourage people to just to come and eat and listen to the music.

D.C. is a true word of mouth town.

People talk to each other.

People know each other here.

And those are the relationships that really sustain this city on a neighborhood level.

And that's, that's the way it is and has sustained us as a program all these years as well, people just share it.

You know for us we're really committed to as we say preserving of presenting, promoting and documenting the history heritage culture of jazz.

♪♪ You know it's a unique thing.

I think the chemistry of all these different things coming together.

It's, it's affordable it's comfortable, it's incredibly lively.

Our space here is really conducive to this music and to this whole experience but it's overall the people really it's the people at the end this is a real D.C. thing.

Wow.

How time flies.

Thanks so much for joining us for today's show.

I'm Anqoinette Crosby and until next time "always remember to follow your art."

♪♪ This program was produced by WHUT Howard University Television.

And made possible by contributions from viewers like you.

Thank you.

♪♪