More performers are canceling shows at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the wake of Donald Trump putting his name on the Washington, D.C., memorial.
The Cookers, a six-piece jazz group, will no longer perform two shows at the venue on New Year’s Eve, joining a growing list of artists who want nothing to do with the MAGA-fied setting.
“Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice,” the Cookers wrote on their website. Though no reason for the schedule change was explicitly given, drummer Billy Hart told The New York Times that the president’s decision to involve himself in the historic arts center was “evidently” a factor.
Just last week, Trump, who had filled the center’s board with allies and installed himself as chairman, had his name installed on the building’s exterior, over the objections of several Kennedy family members.
Meanwhile, Doug Varone and Dancers, a New York dance company, also announced Monday that it was canceling two performances it had planned for April.
“It is financially devastating but morally exhilarating,” Varone told the Times, adding that his company would lose $40,000.
When reached for comment, The Kennedy Center referred the Daily Beast to president Richard Grenell’s suggestion Monday night on X that artists who canceled their shows were deranged.
“Boycotting the Arts to show you support the Arts is a form of derangement syndrome,” wrote Grenell, who for months has been complaining that artists’ decisions to pull out amounted to “intolerance” of Republicans. The Kennedy Center is even suing jazz musician Chuck Redd for $1 million for cancelling a Christmas Eve show.
With artists removing themselves from the lineup left and right, ticket sales at the venue appear to be taking a hit. Former Kennedy Center dance director Jane Raleigh told The Athletic that sales had fallen and that subscription rates were “down about 50% over where they should have been.”
Varone explained to the Times that his dance group‘s planned performance was in part to pay homage to Raleigh and fellow dance administrator Alicia Adams, who is also no longer at the Kennedy Center.
“We can no longer permit ourselves nor ask our audiences to step inside this once great institution,” he said.
Others have echoed that sentiment.
Folk singer Kristy Lee, who recently canceled a January performance, said in a social media post that while the decision to do so was financially tough, “losing my integrity would cost me more than any paycheck.”
One performer told NOTUS, “Kennedy Center is supposed to be a memorial, focusing on being nonpartisan. A place where people, it doesn’t matter what party they believe in, should be performing and experiencing the arts together regardless of what their party is. And it has not become that.”
