DANCING ON MY OWN

Kennedy Center Hit by New Cancellation After Going Full MAGA

America’s oldest dance troupe adds its name to the list of performers skipping the historic Washington venue.

The Martha Graham Dance Company has canceled its next planned appearance at the Kennedy Center.

The troupe, America’s oldest, was set to perform at the venue in April as part of its centennial nationwide tour.

“The Martha Graham Dance Company regrets that we are unable to perform at the Kennedy Center in April,” it said in a statement on Friday. “We hope to perform at the center in the future.”

The company did not offer a reason for the cancellation, but it joins a growing list of performers who have cancelled their Kennedy Center dates after Donald Trump added his name to the building.

On Dec. 19, Trump bypassed Congress and had a construction team add his name to the Kennedy Center. Trump’s hand-picked Kennedy Center board waved through the decision, though an official renaming requires an act of Congress.

Critics have pointed out that the building’s new unofficial title, “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” implies that the building is a memorial to the still-living 79-year-old president.

Since the controversial and unofficial name change, acts including Grammy-winning bluegrass performer Béla Fleck, Mexican-born songwriter Sonia De Los Santos, and the Washington National Opera have canceled planned performances at the Kennedy Center.

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The Martha Graham Dance Company, which was founded in 1926, has ties to the Trump family. First lady Melania Trump was made an honorary chairwoman of the troupe in 2005.

The Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Since artists began dropping out of the Kennedy Center roster, the center’s president, Richard Grenell, has made numerous comments on the situation. On Jan. 10, after Washington National Opera dropped its agreement with the Kennedy Center, he trashed the company as a financial disaster for the center.

After Bela Fleck dropped out of performing, Grenell accused the bluegrass legend of catering to the “woke mob.”

Grenell also took swings at the Daily Beast in January, writing that under CEO Ben Sherwood’s leadership, the Beast, “has grown more radical and mean.”

Since the start of the second Trump administration, the Kennedy Center has been on a mission to root out “wokeness” from its dance line-up.

In August, it appointed dancer Stephen Nakagawa as its new director of dance and programming. Nakagawa got the job after writing a letter to Grenell in which he expressed concern about “woke culture” in troupes such as the Washington Ballet. He also expressed a desire to “end the dominance of leftist ideologies in the arts and return to classical ballet’s purity and timeless beauty.”

The Kennedy Center has historically hosted major touring troupes such as the American Ballet Theater and the New York City Ballet. It has also staged modern productions developed by contemporary ballet choreographers, such as Jamison Curcio and Jamison Curcio. The Center hosted the pair’s I have a secret to tell you…, which the Kennedy Center’s website describes as “an invitation to discover, reframe, and practice being in community with Black women and femmes,” on Aug. 22.

Grenell’s vision for Kennedy Center dance has been different. The New York Times reported in August that Grenell pressed now-fired dance programmers to have the Kennedy Center put out programming resembling the Fox competition show So You Think You Can Dance? before he hired Nakagawa.

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Adam DownerBreaking News Reporter

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