Nights of arts advocacy

It seems the nights I'm not at performances I'm at DC arts networking and advocacy events. Last two nights in a row. What's interesting is that it seems that the idea of arts advocacy is very much in its infancy here. A similar event in Toronto would be packed or at least decently attended, in DC the fellows are often half the room.

Last night the event was to raise awareness of the arts budget cuts at the DC city council level. DC city politics are strange because ultimately Congress can overturn any decision that they make. I wonder why anyone bothers under these conditions. Seriously. There is very little support for an active arts movement here, I'm sure partly because the population is so transient and so much of the art comes from out of town - I don't know how large the live-in arts community here really is. Anyway, the event was at an art gallery - small, independent type so that was cool and a sharp contrast to the Smithsonian level galleries I've been frequenting since landing here. It was attended mostly by visual artists which makes sense, but there was a tiny turn out. The most fun of the night was going for dinner at a soul food restaurant across the street. It was just a very relaxing time.

Tonight's event was at a jazz club two blocks from my new apartment (fabulous! - I'm actually in a total jazz hood here I think there are half a dozen jazz clubs within 3 blocks of me). I'm not even sure what the point of the night was (the event itself was terribly organized - 40 minutes of speeches and a room laid out in such a way that it was impossible to "mingle" and yet the organizers kept trying to get people to stand up and mingle - not possible when the room is packed with tables and the servers can't even get by). However, I met the woman who does the jazz programming for the Smithsonian. Who knew they did jazz programming? Well I sort of did as there is a summer concert series in one of the sculpture gardens, but apparently there is a whole Smithsonian Jazz Ensemble. The woman was very cool (as you'd imagine) and for the first time I took someone's card who I'd be interested in talking more to. The Smithsonian used to do a whole range of performing arts and in fact, the KC model was based on what the Smithsonian did. After the KC opened, the Smithsonian stopped doing most of its live programming but the jazz somehow survived.

Anyway, it feels like it's been a long week, which I guess with the whole moving and Honors it really has. One more day and then I'll get to my groceries...