Dear Arts Patrons, Aficionados and Supporters,
We are now in our third month of the pandemic and we know everyone is stressed and tired of staying home. But there is a lot being offered by our arts organizations online to escape this reality – see calendar below. We send out our heartfelt thanks to our first responders, health care workers and families who have been impacted by this horrible virus. Stay safe and we can’t wait to see everyone at the next gallery opening, theater production, dance, or musical event.
Calendar of Arlington Arts Organization Online Productions/Events
4/1-4/30 – “Written in Arlington,” Arlington Poets, Read the poems here.
5/7 – “The Filthy Habit”, Urban Arias, Watch here. (6:00 pm)
5/21 – “After Life/Josephine”, Urban Arias, Watch here. (6:00 pm)
6/4 – “Independence Eve”, Urban Arias, Watch here. (6:00 pm)
6/18 – “Blue Viola”, Urban Arias, Watch here. (6:00 pm)
5/7 – “Why Is Eartha Kitt Trying to Kill Me?”, Urban Arias, Watch here. (6:00 pm)
Continuously streaming
Visual Arts:
The Arlington Arts Center has classes, workshops and activities to do at home online.
Online Gallery of Art, Arlington Artists Alliance, View
Dance:
BalletNova has several dance classes available online, Watch here.
Bowen McCauley Dance Co., Live Virtual Classes for Parkinson’s Disease, Watch here.
Dance Classes, Jane Franklin Dance, Find schedule here.
Children’s Theater:
Encore Stage & Studio is offering classes and camps online. Details.
Educational Theatre Company offering online classes. Details.
Opera:
Opera Nova streaming “Celebrating African-American Opera Singers: Past and Present” Concert”. Listen.
“Glory Denied,” Urban Arias, Watch here.
Performing Arts/Theater:
Synetic Streaming Various Productions and Events, Buy tickets
Tuesdays at 8:00 pm – Signature Strong Live, Signature Theatre, Watch here.
Weekly ZOOM “Support Groups” Calls:
We continued our ZOOM “support group” calls (although we have transitioned to biweekly). Most recently we had Kathleen McSweeney, IT Manager for the Smithsonian, brief the organizations on technology options for keeping in contact with patrons, donors, staff and for online productions. Her presentation can be found here.
Last week, Arlington County Board member Katie Cristol was our featured guest. The arts organization representatives updated Katie on how they have been dealing with the shutdown, as well as impacts of the pandemic on their operations and staff. She also briefed the call participants on the County’s Small Business GRANT program.
We also continue to update our “COVID-19 Resources” page on our website that organizes website links to guidance, articles and other materials into five focus areas. If you have additional links or information that should be posted, please let us know.
Finally, we continue to update our calendar of online Arlington arts organization productions and events included at the beginning of this Update. This list has grown exponentially since last month and we remain thankful to all the many artists and arts organizations who are keeping us sane and entertained during this shutdown.
Corporate Sponsor of the Month:
Our corporate sponsor of the month is the Fred Schnider Investment Firm and the Fred Schnider Gallery of Art. The Fred Schnider Investment Firm is a real estate and development firm specializing in urban and suburban mixed-use and residential properties. Since 1940, the company has been building beautiful and thriving communities in the Washington, DC area and have always been committed to creating places that attract new opportunity and limitless possibility. The Fred Schnider Gallery of Art, located in Ballston’s Liberty Center (4075 Wilson Blvd.), showcases the work of local artists to the community. Driven by the important cultural role that the art community contributes to the quality of our lives, the Gallery is a creative space where artists and those who love art can come together.
“Embracing Arlington Arts Talks“ Podcast:
The show must go on, including the “Embracing Arlington Arts Talks” podcast. First, we chatted with the Artistic Director of Ballet Nova Matthew Powell about how his organization is dealing with the shutdown, the group’s outstanding success through live-streaming, and how they are embarking on offering online ballet classes. Next, we welcomed the President of Dominion Stage Matthew Randall and the President of the Port City Playhouse Mary Beth Smith-Toomey to discuss their recent merger, changes to their current season and a sneak peek at their 2020-2021 season.
We switched gears to the front of the theater house and interviewed avid theater patron Carlos Velazquez, who also serves as the president of the firm HMA Associates who updated us about how he is getting his “theater fix” during the shutdown. He also offered insight into succeeding in the digital marketing world. We rounded out the month talking to National Museum Leader Marsha Semmel about how museums are not only responding to the shutdown, but also technology changes overall in order to best meet the demands and desires of museum patrons.
To listen to these interviews, or any others in the past, follow this link.
We have been very busy on the media front trying to spread the word about the importance of arts and culture, ways we are trying to help arts organizations and artists, online events available and more.
The Washington Post published a Letter to the Editor from the Embracing Arlington Arts Treasurer Robert Goler about how the organization is helping Arlington arts organizations and artists through this COVID-19 crisis through weekly ZOOM “support group” calls where we swap intelligence, discuss the shutdown, ways to keep in front of audiences and hear from experts in several important focus areas listed on our COVID-19 Resources page.
The organization submitted a Community Post column published by ArlNow about the many initiatives the organization is putting in place to assist and help artists and arts organizations cope and remain healthy during the COVID-19 crisis.
An OpEd column written by Janet Kopenhaver, the Embracing Arlington Arts President, saluting artists and arts organizations for “keeping the lights on” and helping heal our community during the COVID-19 crisis was published by the Washington Post.
Janet Kopenhaver wrote a blog for the Arlington Chamber of Commerce that detailed the many ways (on top of financial support) in which our corporate sector can help non-profit arts organizations. The blog was especially relevant during the shutdown that is seriously and negatively impacting our arts and culture industry so drastically.
Broadway World also published a story on the many initiatives Embracing Arlington Arts is embarking on to help keep the arts healthy and strong during the COVID-19 crisis.
Janet Kopenhaver was the featured guest on the Stagecraft radio show and podcast with Alex Vidales and Don Zientara to talk about such things as dearth of performing arts venues in Arlington, new lobbying strategy for the arts nationwide, how theater has been changing over the years, biggest surprise about fundraising and so much more!
Our arts organizations have also been busy, submitting several Community Post columns to ArlNow. BalletNova wrote about the many innovative ways they are streaming classes and productions. The Educational Theatre Company gave details about its virtual theater classes. Encore Stage & Studio wrote a column on their virtual classes. Finally, Festival Argentino announced the soon-to-be-released highlights video from the past 30 years of the festival.
Our Facebook Page – A Special Request:
Embracing Arlington Arts is pursuing several advertising campaigns about our arts organizations, events, podcasts and more. One of our avenues is to target Facebook users and drive them to our links. In order to strategically place these ads, we are attempting to develop a targeted audience in Facebook based on our “followers”. However, we cannot do so until we have at least 1,000 – and we are so close!!!
We are hoping to get your help. If you are on Facebook and have not yet “liked” and “followed” our page, can you do so today? If you have done so and liked the stuff we post, please ask your friends to also “like” and “follow” the page (this is especially effective). By developing a more targeted audience list, our ability to help ALL arts organizations in Arlington and the DMV will be greatly enhanced.
If you would like to support the work Embracing Arlington Arts by making a donation, here’s how:
* Make tax-deductible contributions online.
* Tax-deductible contributions by check: check made out to Embracing Arlington Arts and sent to Embracing Arlington Arts, 754 North Vermont Street, Arlington, VA 22203
Every dollar helps us help the arts in so many ways. Thank you in advance!
Embracing Arlington Arts 