Kennedy Center Plans Season

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington announced on Tuesday the 2008-9 season of theater, dance, music, and children’s productions. The season will include “Arabesque: Arts of the Arab World,” a three-week festival that will bring Arab art and culture to Washington with dance, theater and music presentations from 22 Arab nations. It will run from Feb. 25 through March 15, 2009. “We really focused a lot on bringing unknown international art to Washington,” Michael M. Kaiser, president of the center, said of the show, which has taken years to plan. “We thought it was about time we looked at Arab cultures,” he added. The center’s newly renovated Eisenhower Theater will reopen in October with “Broadway: Three Generations,” followed in November by “Frost/Nixon,” with Stacey Keach playing Richard M. Nixon; in April a new production of “Ragtime” starts. The contemporary-dance series will include performances from the Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, José Limon, Mark Morris, Alvin Ailey, Paul Taylor and Shen Wei companies. The ballet season will begin in October with performances by the Suzanne Farrell Ballet and include the American Ballet Theater, the Bolshoi Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet, the San Francisco Ballet and the Kirov Ballet.

Source: New York Times