We all know the guy on our row at a performance who falls asleep and starts snoring- head bobbing up and down mid-concert. No one likes to sleep through a performance. We prefer to be awake! Such is art. Let’s awaken our neighbors from their slumber.
To make art is to awaken the soul. Art and musical expression can reach inwards and allow us to see ourselves, the reality around us, and imagine futures enriched with new ideas, vibrant sounds, movement, and color. Art reflects our struggles and celebrates our triumphs.
Art has always been woke.
Whether it was a closeted gay Tchaikovsky composing music to our most cherished traditional ballets and soul-tormented symphonies, or Stravinsky who dared to present a raucous ballet “Rite of Spring”(National Symphony Orchestra performs in January), which devolved into a riot on its premiere but now holds its own in the orchestral canon.
Take Sergei Diaghilev, also a gay man, who revived ballet from its 19th-century slumber with his Ballets Russes, a company full of Russian refugees. And look at mainstays of modern dance, such as Alvin Ailey (Warren Theater, Jan/Feb 2026), who brings the African American voice and movement to our stages. (Notably absent from this year’s Kennedy Center dance season as a result of leadership changes at the Kennedy Center)
Or Mozart operas (Marriage of Figaro is at Washington National Opera in November) that lampooned the aristocracy in the emperor’s court, while on the emperor’s stage. And Shostakovich (NSO plays Shostakovich’s symphony in Feb 2026), whose opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk was banned by Stalin for failing to meet the regime’s standards for artistic and nationalistic expression. (Sound familiar?)
Artists have always stretched our imaginations and expanded the boundaries of art and music forms, revealing a vast canon of music, dance, and theater that mirrors the breadth of our human experience over the past 40,000 years. Art has always strived for diversity and inclusivity. Sometimes less than others.
Artists awaken us to injustice and call for equality; they revel in the complexities of war and politics, offering a new lens through which we can examine our lives on this planet.
To call out art as WOKE is both stating the obvious and ignoring how wonderful it feels to be alive and awoken to our life experience and world’s grandeur as expressed through art, dance, theater, and music performances.
We, as advocates, supporters of the arts, and audience members, come to the Kennedy Center for entertainment, reflection, and to be challenged with new ideas and ways of experiencing life.
Sometimes performances make us laugh, cry, or squirm in our seats as we navigate discomfort, being exposed to dissonant sounds and new ideas. That’s the arts’ role in individuals and in a nation.
All audience members take their seats with their own life experiences, biases, political opinions, and views on art. Art flourishes when politicians step aside and let expression blossom. Art can unite and aid people with divergent views to engage in dialogue, experience empathy, and find pure delight.
The recent direction of leadership at the Kennedy Center threatens the free expression of artistic ideas and performance. When political leadership starts to label art as woke or, in Shostakovich’s and Hitler’s time, degenerate, we walk into dangerous territory.
What can we do? As we start to build a movement of arts advocates, supporters, musicians, dancers, technicians, arts administrators, and audience members, I hope we engage in a vigorous dialogue fueled by creative energy, respectful disagreement, and a united drive to build sustainable support for the arts at our nation’s premier performing arts center.
These are the values and institutions that we must defend!
Some of us may decide to show our support by packing the house PURPLE. Others may use that platform, being audience members in seats, to stage direct action and voice their opinions. Some may feel compelled to voice their protests in other ways, such as boycotts, protests, civil disobedience, or flash mobs.
Our work is not only about artistic expression, but also includes support for all employees and their unions who show up to work every day, ensuring you have an enjoyable performance and are safe and not hangry.
I see this group and our movement as a big tent. One where we can all approach the arts and our dissent against the Kennedy Center in our own way.
Leave the wokeness finger pointing to the man sitting in your row who starts to snore in Act Two of the opera.
Welcome to Pack the House PURPLE in support of Kennedy Center musicians, artists, and employees, and in protest against Kennedy Center leadership.
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