Tag Archives: festival

The Features
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2012 Capital Fringe Festival

Photo courtesy of a digital cure
Fringefest
courtesy of a digital cure

For anyone interested in an adventure, the Capital Fringe Festival is back with over 130 productions in 15 venues across downtown DC, ranging from highly experimental performance art to staged clown shows for the kids. The frenzy opens this Thursday and runs July 12-29, 2012.

Love it or hate it (and you’ll probably do some of both), the Capital Fringe Festival is where DC’s indie companies and performers come to experiment and test their skills. An incubator for young shows, the festival encourages innovation and self-production. It also encourages the rest of us to go out on a limb and experience theater of all varieties – the good, the bad, and the bizarre. Some performances will leave us thinking, while others will leave us thinking “what the #^$% was that?”

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Special Events
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FotoWeek DC Returns This Week

FotoWeek DC--See you next year!
FotoWeek DC by Hoffmann

FotoWeek DC will return to the District this week for a series of exhibits celebrating the art of photography. The festival features over 150 photography-related workshops, lectures and exhibitions, as well as portfolio reviews by a specialized panel at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. It all starts with a launch party scheduled for this Friday, and a schedule of events can be found below. The festivities run from November 5th – 12th. Continue reading →

Downtown, Entertainment, Special Events, We Love Arts
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Celebrate Hawai’i at NMAI

Photo courtesy of
‘530919_Shoshone_Indians_Ft_Washakie_Wyoming_Indian_Reservation_and_
The_National_Museum_of_the_American_Indian’
courtesy of ‘whonew’

Kicking off last night at the National Museum of the American Indian is a special exhibit about our 50th state, Hawai’i. The exhibition, “This IS Hawai’i” is a collaboration between NMAI and Transformer, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit visual arts organization. Together, they present a multisite exhibition featuring new and experimental works of art that explore what it means to be Hawaiian in the 21st century. The artwork includes sculpture, action figures, drawings, an interactive website and a fictional work titled “Post-Historic Museum of the Possible Aboriginal Hawaiian.” The work of Maika’i Tubbs will be presented at Transformer, opening day Saturday, May 21, and the work of Solomon Enos and Carl F. K. Pao will be presented at the NMAI’s Sealaska Gallery, with artist Puni Kukahiko’s outdoor sculptures presented at both sites. The exhibition is presented in tandem with the museum’s annual Hawai’i Festival, which is this weekend.

There are other events planned around this exhibit through Memorial Day weekend, including the museum’s popular Dinner and a Movie, live performances, a fellowship dance, and interactive discussions. All of the events are free at the museum.

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Adventures, Entertainment, Music, We Love Music
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We Love Music: MoogFest 2010 (Night One)

IMG_4941
all photos by the author except where noted.

Also check out my MoogFest 2010 (Night Two) coverage.
Also check out my MoogFest 2010 (Night Three) coverage.

Last weekend, in scenic Asheville North Carolina, AC Entertainment and Moog Music teamed up to present a revamped and relocated version of the annual MoogFest; a festival celebrating inventor Robert Moog’s massive influence on the world of music. The festival spanned Halloween weekend offering three spectacular nights of music and two days of informative panel discussions and Moog instrument demonstrations. The music schedule offered a perfect blend of sonic innovators, high-energy dance DJs, and envelope pushing Pop acts that showcased the wide-ranging world of electronic music.

The festival took over five music venues in downtown Asheville ranging from a makeshift nightclub in a gallery space, to a dive bar, to the Orange Peel (Asheville’s 9:30 Club equivalent), to the classy Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, all the way up to the cavernous Asheville Civic Center. At times MoogFest felt like two festivals in one; the first, a large-scale non-stop dance party for the party hearty; the second, an equally entertaining but more cerebral music geek nirvana of Moog instrument-fueled performances. The beauty of MoogFest 2010 was watching and listening to these two different worlds of performers and audiences cross-pollinate all weekend long.

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The Daily Feed, We Green DC
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Wed. Screening: How Everyday Folks Bring Change

Environmental Film Fest logo

If you’ve ever thought of starting your own sustainably sourced salad shop or of plucking all the trash from the city streets, check out tomorrow night’s screening of Climate of Change, a film that shows how ordinarily people are making a difference for the planet, around the planet.

It shows how self-described “hillbillies” in Appalachia battle strip mining and mountaintop removal, a London woman starts an environmental communications firm, a 13-year-old in India rallies against plastics, and more.

The screening starts at 6:30 p.m. at Georgetown’s Letelier Theater, and a wine reception catered by Sweetgreen follows. Tickets are $20 and RSVPs are required to this Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital event.

The Daily Feed, We Green DC
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Tiptoe Through the Tulips

Photo courtesy of
‘DSC_2744’
courtesy of ‘Ghost_Bear’

Starting today, you can tiptoe through the tulips and pick some too at America’s First Organic Tulip Festival, held an hour or so down the road in Madison, Virginia. (Charlottesville, Shenandoah National Park, and wineries are in that part of the world, too.)

Wander their 10,000 square foot garden and pick as many of their 40,000 tulips as you’d like, for $1 a stem. You can also spread out a picnic in the organic show garden, among more than 50 different types of flowers, including daffodils, alliums, grape hyacinths and irises.

What does organic mean? That they were raised pesticide-free, for a healthy plant and a healthy planet.

The Daily Feed, We Green DC
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Environmental Film Fest on the Way

Dirt! The Movie - © Gene Rosow

Dirt! The Movie - © Gene Rosow

Break out the organic popcorn — the Environmental Film Festival is coming. From March 16-28, you can see up to 155 films from 31 countries. This year’s theme is the connection between food and the environment.

Going Green DC has a good wrapup of the festival’s global and local highlights. A Road Not Taken, which talks about the solar panels that once graced the White House roof, is another of the 13 local films.

So are Not a Distant Beast and “River of Hope”: Welcome to our City, Mr. President, which share the story of locals’ relationship with the Anacostia River.

Nora! features the founder of Restaurant Nora, the nation’s first certified organic restaurant. In Coal Country, Appalachian miners and activists tell the story of mountaintop removal coal mining, which helps to power the DC area.

This year, the festival received funds to offer additional free screenings to young and underserved audiences at libraries, museums, and theatres throughout the DC area. A launch party takes place March 10 at the Warner Theatre.

Essential DC, Life in the Capital, The District, We Love Arts
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FotoWeek DC 2009: What to See


FotoWeek Projections by coolmarie

Before last year there was a huge void in DC’s photography world.  Despite being the home of National Geographic, the Newseum, the Washington Post, and many award winning photographers, we were missing an event to bring everyone together, to celebrate photography.  Sure, some of the galleries in town would have a photography exhibit or two, Magnum and Pulitzer Prize winning photographers would occasionally talk about their work, and local photographers would dork out hold meetups and go on photowalks throughout the year.  What we needed though was something big and annual like other major cities have.  Something pros, amateurs, and students could all participate in.  Basically we needed a big photography party.  Hell, if our neighbors in little ol’ Charlottesville could put together an international photography festival, why couldn’t DC?  In came FotoWeek DC.

But what exactly is FotoWeek you ask?  That is a very good question.  In fact if you asked ten different people you would probably get ten different answers.  Is it a contest?  Yes.  Is it a city wide festival celebrating photography?  Yes.  Does it celebrate only photography?  No, in fact two of this year’s contest categories were called “Storytelling” and “Experimental” that included works in multimedia, video, sound and graphics.  Why does FotoWeek spell the word “photo” with an F?  Your guess is as good as mine, my friend.  Why is FotoWeek held in November rather than in a pleasant time of year, say in June?  Because you must suffer for photography.

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The Daily Feed
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It’s a Blackberry Bonanza!

Photo courtesy of
‘Blackberries on the Towpath’
courtesy of ‘Girl Interrupted Eating’
It’s not often that we authors call the same story at once. But the Suggest a Story form that came in for this weekend’s Blackberry Bonanza and Wellness Fest at Great Country Farms of Bluemont, Va., created quite a stir.

And why not? They’ll have no less than pick-your-own organic blackberries (“Berries are one of the top foods to go organic because they tend to retain high quantities of chemicals applied to them,” said owner Kate Zurschmeide), blackberry wine, blackberry ice cream and slushies, freshly baked peach berry pies, BBQ and salads and burgers. Plus yoga demonstrations, handmade berry bowls and make-your-own tie-dye souvenir shirts.

There will be a “fear factor” style bug trapping contest so that we can beat the beetles to the berries in true organic style. And a 2,800 square foot jumping pillow, rope swings and a Tractor Tire Mountain for which no upper age limit is specified. I’m just saying.

The festival costs $10, runs 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. on July 25 and 26, and sounds (all together now) berry, berry cool!

The Features, Weekend Flashback
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Weekend Flashback: 4/3 – 4/5/09

Photo courtesy of base10
Macro Blossoms II/Washington DC, courtesy of base10

Did you get out to see the blossoms, like seemingly everyone else around here and along the East Coast? A gorgeous weekend – even with high wind bursts on Saturday – couldn’t damper the Cherry Blossom Festival and many blooms remained attached to their branches. Which meant they were still in place for area and tourist photographers to capture.

If you’re still hankering for more, check out the WeLoveDC flickr pool, as many of our “regular” contributors’ photos can be seen there. Just watch out – you might get so engrossed you may lose track of time like I did…

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Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Chocolate Lovers Festival


Moonstruck chocolates
Originally uploaded by eszter

The Fairfax, VA Chocolate Lovers Festival is this weekend, Feb. 7-8 in the Old Town part of the City of Fairfax in our fine Commonwealth of Virginia. It has been going on since 1992, is held the first full weekend in February and looks to be quite a big affair. From the festival’s web site:

Among the events planned each year are the Taste of Chocolate, featuring chocolate vendors selling their wares; the Chocolate Challenge, an arts extravaganza where the medium is chocolate; the Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast featuring chocolate chip pancakes; historic re-enactments; children’s activities; a craft show at Fire Station 3 sponsored by the Auxiliary to the Fairfax Volunteer Fire Department; open houses at historic buildings; and much more.

So who’s going? I know it’s all the way across the river for those of you in MD and DC, but it’s a celebration of nature’s most excellent resource. How can you not go?

Alexandria, Fun & Games, Special Events, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: The Art of Autumn

Photo courtesy of smleon
32_309 Fish.jpg, courtesy of smleon

Fall is right around the corner…and so is the sixth annual Alexandria Festival of the Arts.

The festival runs this year on Saturday, September 13 and Sunday, September 14. As usual, the festival will occupy the section of King Street between the Potomac and Washington Street, so casual drivers of the area should consider alternate routes through downtown. Continue reading →