♪ Hi, everybody.

I'm Felicia Curry, and welcome to "WETA Arts," the place to discover what's going on in the creative and performing arts in and around D.C.

In this episode, the Washington Ballet creates community.

My whole life commitment is to make people feel comfortable in whatever the community they are part of.

Hold, hold...

I tour the National Museum of the United States Army with museum director Tammy Call... We are telling the comprehensive history of the Army through personal soldier stories.

Curry, voice-over: and the Smithsonian Folkways record label releases an album of electronic music.

I see noise music as the folk music of this century.

It's all ahead on "WETA Arts."

♪ While the Washington School of Ballet is known for training professional dancers, it also offers dance classes to all adults.

The director of the adult ballet program is world-renowned dancer and choreographer Miya Hisaka.

Hisaka is passionate about sharing her artistry and dispelling the idea that ballet is just for pros.

We met Hisaka at the school's dance studios in Cathedral Heights.

People don't realize this of Washington, D.C., but it is one of the few cities in the country besides New York City where adults love training in ballet.

Washington, D.C., has a large population of adult dancers because of so many organizations that were built during the seventies and eighties that really brought together adults to dance-- Douglas Yeuell, who directed the Joy of Motion Dance Center; Carla Perlo of the Dance Place; the Kirov Ballet; Maryland Youth Ballet; Washington Ballet.

Those institutions really educated an entire general population that, "Hey, I'm a doctor, a lawyer," or, "I'm this shape or this size.

I'm not a skinny ballerina," but all these people love dance, and so I think my colleagues really laid out a lot of groundwork for this environment to be here today.

Coming in every day to the studio at 7:30 at night sometimes, they are coming after 8 hours of work.

They're working really, really hard.

And two, to the front, and... Krizsa, voice-over: Most people just want to go home, lay down, and just rest.

They coming in, and they are taking class.

That's because of passion.

That's because of some drive and for the community.

Nice, everyone, very, very good.

Let's do the next one.

I think what keeps me coming back to ballet is moving to music.

[Piano playing waltz] Especially love the big movements covering space, feeling like you're flying, and it's a great way to get exercise without being bored or feeling like I'm having to force myself.

Hisaka: And go and step, step, step.

Again.

Every time you come to class, you're learning something new.

It's always a fight to achieve perfection, which you never can reach, but the attempt is wonderful.

I've become stronger.

My posture's much better, my balance, obviously.

I notice flexibility has increased dramatically, and I never ever thought that I would be able to do the splits ever.

We have amazing instructors, pianists, management, and then having the ability to go and then watch the shows and talk about them with everyone, it really is a great community which supports that.

So what do you do if you're going across the floor and the person doesn't go?

Hisaka, voice-over: When I became head of the adult program at the Washington School of Ballet, I added in Fundamentals I and Fundamentals II.

I had a specific agenda.

I wanted to expand the program so it was more inclusive.

These fundamental-level classes are so good introduction to ballet for anybody.

Hisaka: And high arms.

Krizsa, voice-over: I think those classes started to feed into higher-level classes as they step up to the next level, and then from there, they go to the next level, so it's feeding the entire community from the bottom up.

[Piano playing waltz] Woman, voice-over: Miya's class allows for more people who are like me who weren't even exposed to dance when they were younger.

[Piano continues] Krizsa: Up, up.

We're gonna go 1, flex, 2, point, 3, and 4.

Stroud, voice-over: I went into that ballet class, and Miya was teaching, and I thought, "She is a really neat human being, "and she made this class really doable.

I can do this, I think."

Hisaka, voice-over: My whole life commitment for 40 years in this profession is to promote diversity and to make people feel comfortable in whatever the community they are part of.

I started ballet late.

I started when I was 12 years old, but it wasn't really until I was 16, when I saw Alvin Ailey perform in Cleveland and I did a workshop with them and said, "This is my niche.

This is where I belong," and why I felt that is because my parents are survivors of the World War II Japanese internment camps, and so my father after the war never wanted us to have anything associated with being Asian, so my sister and I were always the first Asians in predominantly white communities, and we went through a lot, and so when I saw Alvin Ailey and I saw those amazing African-American, Asian, multiculture dancers on stage telling their stories about their challenges and discrimination and their history, I said, "That's it."

I studied with the greatest mentors in the world-- Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Erick Hawkins.

[Piano playing] ♪ I first came to D.C. in 1982.

I was recruited to work on a dance publication book by the National Endowment for the Arts.

I quit NEA, and I started D.C.

Contemporary Dance Theatre in 1984, which was the first multicultural company in D.C.

I started teaching at the Washington Ballet in 1984.

Back then, it was Choo San Goh, Janet Shibata.

I felt very comfortable.

It was a very Asian environment, but now when I look back at it, I feel like, "How lucky was I?"

Keep it.

Keep it.

OK. Brush, 3.

Krizsa, voice-over: It is in the DNA of the Washington School of Ballet, is to be inviting.

I want everybody to feel super confident.

You go ahead.

Go chasse.

Krizsa, voice-over: Since she took over, I don't know what she did.

She figured out something that's really created some excitement for the adult program and created more nurturing new communities.

Fifth position, the changements.

Hisaka, voice-over: Even though it's European-based, I think that all cultures can really get so much from the training.

Krizsa, voice-over: Everybody from all different walks of life coming in here, and I feel like I'm gaining energy from them that I can take to the company, as well, because they all have such a good attitude towards this art form.

[Piano playing] ♪ 1 and 2.

3 and 4.

I'm still learning how to do pirouettes.

I will never do a good pirouette.

Keenan, voice-over: Before last week, I would have said, "My goal is to hang on to what I've got," but I just had a couple of fabulous classes where I felt like, yes, I am advancing.

I am coming back toward the level I was at when I suspended things in my 30s.

von Suskil, voice-over: When I say I go 4 days a week, that's when people are like, "Wow.

You're really dedicated to this," but I also know how far I've come, and I want to maintain that momentum, and it's noticeable when you see that you are doing something that you didn't do before.

There's a friend of mine who takes class with me who said something to me once that has really stayed with me, which is, "You didn't have the training when you were young, but you're doing it now."

Phshoo!

Give her a hand.

Not bad.

I'm getting emotional, like, thinking about that.

To be a dancer is one of God's greatest gifts, right, and to feel as a dancer, whether you're 70 years old or not a Skinny Minnie kind of typical ballerina, I think that's what life is about.

[Piano playing] I really hope that in the time that I'm here that I can make dance accessible to everybody and as to many people who want to have dance in their life for the rest of their life.

If you want to give ballet a try, go to washingtonballet.org/classes and to see some of the dancers from the Washington School of Ballet perform, get tickets to that holiday favorite "The Nutcracker," playing at the Warner Theater from December 2 through December 30.

Man: 3, 2, 1.

Curry, voice-over: In 2020, the Washington area welcomed a new museum that had been in the works for over 20 years.

Located at Fort Belvoir, the National Museum of the United States Army is dedicated to showcasing an organization that predates the founding of our nation.

I met with Tammy Call, the museum's director, to learn more about the institution's history, mission, and vision.

We're here at Fort Belvoir.

Why was this the location that was decided on for this massive project?

The Army conducted several site studies to find just that perfect location.

We are just south of D.C. We are just right off of I-95, so we're very easy to get to.

We do formally sit on Fort Belvoir-- that's our address-- but we are fully publicly accessible just directly off of Fairfax County Parkway.

♪ Tell me a little bit about how this museum came to be.

I know it's been in the works since about 2000.

The museum facility was constructed using private donor dollars that was managed by the Army Historical Foundation.

The project itself had about 35 different stakeholder groups involved as we went into construction.

Can you tell us a little bit about the exterior?

It's stunning.

The stainless steel represents the strength of the Army, and it's also reflective in nature, and so as our daily environmental conditions change, so too does the exterior of the museum, and this is really a nod to the fact that the Army is a ground force, and so every day when clouds roll in or the sun breaks free, it's reflecting what our soldiers see and what they experience on a daily basis.

♪ Through the individual soldier stories, you can see with the pylons, they begin outside.

They march through the lobby and into formation.

♪ What's on the ceiling here?

For every campaign that the Army has fought in, there's a campaign streamer, starting with the Revolutionary War and then all of the major battles of that war.

[Fife and drums playing] ♪ Tell me about some of your favorite places here in the museum.

I get asked often what's my favorite artifact.

We have 3 service jackets from 3 brothers-- the Myers brothers.

They each served in a different division in World War I, and it's just an incredible story because, one, they all came home, and then a daughter of one of the brothers, she actually visited the museum just as we opened.

She didn't know that we had their coats on display.

We've got those stories just scattered everywhere in this museum.

It's not just a museum of artifacts.

It really is a museum of stories.

We are telling the comprehensive history of the Army through personal soldier stories.

You're going to see the items that they used-- their helmets, their weapons, a pocket Bible, and then there's some of those very iconic, big, large, macro artifacts.

♪ This is an actual landing craft.

In fact, it's one of 6 that's still in existence.

It carried World War II soldiers to the beaches of Normandy.

[Explosions] ♪ We brought the scene to life using our cast figures, which were cast using currently serving soldiers.

When you look at their faces, I mean, the detail, even in their eyes and the way they're holding their arms and their hands, it's so super specific.

These cast figures are a way to draw the visitor in, helping our American citizens understand not only the Army as an organization, but our American soldiers.

[Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" playing] We are at a display in the Vietnam Gallery within the Cold War Gallery.

We're at a map of Vietnam, and you can see where all of the Army corps were located at in Vietnam, and this map specifically allows our Vietnam veterans to talk about where they landed, right?

Did they fly into Vietnam?

Did they come by ship?

Stephen Stills: ♪ There's something happening here ♪ ♪ But what it is ain't exactly clear... ♪ Call: Vietnam veterans who may not know each other start to swap stories, and they start talking about their own experiences, and I hear things like, "Dad, you never told us that," or, "Mom, I didn't know that you were there as a nurse."

This map allows the veterans to start talking to their family and new friends about their own experience in Vietnam.

Tell us a little bit about what some veterans who have visited here have said to you about their experience here.

Our veterans are just thrilled after they've gone through the museum.

They feel like they've come home, and that was one of our missions, for our veterans to come and visit and see themselves reflected here, see their time of service here, and be able to really walk away with such a sense of contribution.

Why was it important that the museum have a piece that's interactive?

There are so many different roles available within the Army, and we want people to understand that.

We have simulators.

You can be a doctor.

You can be an engineer, a pilot, you know, just so many roles that are available to our citizens and if they choose to serve their country.

Oh, so this is the hands-on learning part.

Call: Get it--yeah.

Um, OK. Now that.

Where is it?

Oh, right there.

This drives across.

[Laughs] Yes!

Ha ha ha!

Good job.

Good job.

You could be an engineer.

That is a good feeling.

All right.

Ha ha!

And you have a personal story with the Army itself.

I grew up in the Army, and then I'm a veteran.

Coming to lead the project through construction, through opening, and now for daily operations, it is the greatest honor of not only my career, but my life.

I'm very humbled by it, and I'm so proud of the staff that are here, of our volunteers, and of the visitors and what we hear from them.

♪ What do you hope people take away from a visit here at the museum?

I hope that they take away with them the spirit of the American soldier.

It's America's army.

It's our citizens' army, and so I hope they walk away from here taking great pride in how it's defended this nation for coming up on 250 years.

Tammy, thank you so much for joining us on "WETA Arts."

It's been a pleasure to meet you, to spend this time with you, and to spend time here in this incredible museum.

Thank you.

It's been lovely sharing the museum with you.

The National Museum of the United States Army is at Fort Belvoir near the I-95 exit toward Newington and right off Fairfax County Parkway.

There are family activities on weekends, monthly veterans clinics, and online presentations about Army history.

For more information about upcoming programs, go to thenmusa.org/events.

When you think of the Smithsonian, you might not think Grammy Award-winning record label, but it turns out that Washington, D.C., is home to a highly acclaimed music publisher called Smithsonian Folkways, and for their 75th anniversary, they went somewhere you might not expect.

They commissioned Baltimore-based experimental electronic music duo Matmos to make an LP using the record label's back catalog.

We met Matmos outside the Hirshhorn Museum as they prepared for a concert.

We, Matmos, a band of electronic musicians, will be chopping up some of our favorite records from the Folkways label for the next 3 hours, and then kind of spreading the sound out into 8 channels.

This is a very different kind of performance because this is 3 hours long, and my goal is to calm people down and get them to just listen to something very simple and enjoy the space.

I'm worried about the technical stuff being set up on time.

Man on audio: ...lives of John and Mary often... Curry: With a name taken from the 1968 cult classic film "Barbarella," Matmos is known for creating works from unconventional samples.

[Percussive loop playing] ♪ Daniel, voice-over: We made an entire record only out of our washing machine.

Schmidt, voice-over: Only out of medical procedures.

♪ Lately, we've been doing a thing with a Ball jar.

Daniel, voice-over: For us, it's about a curiosity in sounds themselves.

[Squeak squeak] [Sample playing] Schmidt, voice-over: You can slice, pitch-shift, stretch practically any sound.

[Clicking] Daniel: And now bring in the frogs.

Daniel, voice-over: What we tend not to do, though, is to sample old records, which is why it was quite unusual for us in terms of our practice to be asked by Smithsonian Folkways to make an entire album out of their past.

Lead Belly: ♪ Let the Midnight Special... ♪ Curry: The cornerstone of the Smithsonian Folkways collection is the Folkways record label, which the Smithsonian acquired in 1987.

Folkways was started-- it was a man named Moses Asch in New York City.

He'd been a radio engineer, and he lived in an incredibly Jewish neighborhood.

People were requesting records of Jewish music, cantorial stuff and things in Yiddish, and they couldn't get them, so just as a service for the neighborhood, he actually started making these Jewish records... Abraham Brun: [Singing in Hebrew] ♪ Place: and then he put out a French poetry record.

Paul A. Mankin: [Speaking French] Place: Then he discovered Lead Belly, this great folk singer.

♪ Irene, goodnight... ♪ Place, voice-over: Next thing you know, he has a company called Asch Records.

He's putting out music from all over the place.

That label went out of business.

[Record scratch] You got another one called Disc label, which went out of business... [Record scratch] and the third time was the charm, 1948, started what he called Folkways Records & Service Corporation, creating things for schools and libraries.

Narrator: ...called a stylus is adjusted... Curry: Smithsonian Folkways is best known for the traditional music in the catalog.

Woman: We have people who love Woody Guthrie... Guthrie: ♪ This land is your land... ♪ Woman: Pete Seeger... Seeger: ♪ If I had a hammer ♪ ♪ I'd hammer in the morning... ♪ We have people who are really interested in our Indonesia series and want to know more about musics from all parts of the world.

Suhaeni: ♪ Na ma'elongi i monge' ya tori'... ♪ We have a really well-loved children's music catalog that's anchored by Ella Jenkins.

Jenkins: ♪ Miss Mary Mack ♪ Children: ♪ Mack, Mack ♪ Jenkins: ♪ All dressed in black ♪ Children: ♪ Black, black... ♪ Place, voice-over: Moe Asch had all these niches.

He dabbled in all sorts of other things, like documenting sounds, and any sound counts.

"Sounds and the Ultra-Sounds of the Bottle-Nosed Dolphin"... [Whistles and clicks] the legendary "Speech After Removal of the Larynx."

Man: [Distorted] This new method of speech... Place: Here you have "Sounds of the Office," sounds of typewriters and rotary-dial phones and all sorts of stuff.

Thing about Moe Asch you have to understand, Moe Asch and Folkways, is, his audience was, like, universities and schools.

He might go to a science convention, and a professor'd come up and say, "I need 30 copies of this thing for my class," and he'd make, like, 100 copies.

Daniel, voice-over: We knew pretty early on that we weren't interested in kind of unsanctioned remix of somebody else's music, that it would be more fun for us to go to the corners of the catalog that are quite obscure.

Schmidt: "The Sound of North American Frogs."

[Frogs croaking and chirping] Daniel: The Sounds of the Ionosphere"... [Static and thrumming] "The Voice of the Storm"... [Thunder] you know, these odd records that kind of teeter between popular science education and relaxation and sort of tourism of the ears.

Charles M. Bogert: Tree frog voices are very different in quality from those of the pig frog, which has internal vocal sacs.

[Pig frog croaks] I really love this pig frog.

This is a mating call of a pig frog... [Pig frog bellows] so much personality, you know, so much character in just this one little animal, so it deserves to be the kind of lead singer of the virtual band.

The call of the wild... ...pig-nosed frog.

"Mwah.

I love you."

Ha ha ha!

[Percussive loop and frog croaks playing] ♪ Daniel, voice-over: I think in some ways, it was the "Anthology of American Folk Music" that had connected us to the idea that there was something raw and direct in that traditional music that we might have access to.

I see noise music as the folk music of this century.

♪ Part of our mission is to make sure that we are filling the mosaic of all the different sounds of the world.

The Matmos album is a natural fit for our catalog.

Man on audio: [Echoing] Hello.

Hello!

Loughran, voice-over: The upcoming concert's going to be really interesting live demonstration of what the creation of this sound is like.

Daniel: Hello, Washington, D.C.

I'm Drew Daniel, and I'm half of Matmos.

We're very grateful to Folkways Records and the Hirshhorn for making this possible.

We encourage you to walk around the space.

Schmidt: The place you're supposed to listen is actually inside the big circle.

This isn't just running stereo into 8 speakers.

There's different program material in all 8 speakers, hence octophonic.

As far as I'm concerned, you can drag your chairs out there.

I suspect that's OK. Just don't leave with the chairs, right?

Thanks for coming and enjoy the sounds of Folkways.

[Frogs chirping and croaking] ♪ Schmidt, voice-over: It may seem excessive to use 8 speakers when we only have two ears, but, in fact, our hearing is a lot more complicated than that, and I have found that the more speakers you add to a situation, the deeper the sound is.

[Sounds, voices, and percussive loop playing] ♪ Man on audio: Vibrating violently... ♪ ...the sound.

We hadn't intended to stay the whole afternoon, but the sound was compelling.

[Metallic tapping] [Engine thrumming] [Cacophony] Woman: The sounds that you hear are different wherever you're placed.

[Insects and birds chirping] ♪ Woman: I have not heard them before this event occurred, and now I'm gonna add them to my Spotify playlist.

Daniel, voice-over: I hope it makes them more curious about noise and sound.

I hope it makes them start hunting for weird old records and start making weird new records.

♪ Loughran, voice-over: This archive of sound tells us who we are at a certain moment in time, gives us a lot of opportunity to think creatively about what it is that the catalog should include in the future.

[Static] Daniel: Thank you very much.

[Cheering and applause] Ha ha ha!

Curry: If you want to listen to more of Matmos' album, it's available at folkways.si.edu.

That's where you'll find all of the Smithsonian Folkways catalog, with music and sounds from around the world and right next door, as well as playlists, podcasts, lesson plans, and more.

Here's a thought from Emmy Award-winning actor and comedian Amy Poehler.

"Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you.

Spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life."

Thank you for watching this episode of "WETA Arts."

Be well, be creative, and enjoy the art all around you.

I'm Felicia Curry.

Oh, my gosh.

Ha ha ha!

Oh... Oh, no.

Hisaka: Here we go.

Passe.

Go.

Yes and stay.

Let go.

Good, knee to the side.

Balance.

Stay.

Come on, you guys.

Fight, fight, fight.

[Electronic buzz] Ha ha ha!

Mud dauber wasp...

There it is.

right here on WETA.

Ha ha ha!

Announcer: For more about the artists and institutions featured in this episode, go to weta.org/arts.