Welcome to the Old Millennium

| Print Post This | Like (0) | Comments (0)

WHILE IT'S EASY TO COMPLAIN about living in and around Washington, D.C. — housing costs are out of control, traffic's a nightmare, the Redskins stink — there's plenty to love, too. One of the biggest benefits is having free access to numerous top-notch arts events, including exhibitions, festivals, plays and concerts.

In other towns, you would have to pay through the nose to see the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, paying upwards of $50 for a ticket. Or if you wanted to catch indie-rock darling Sufjan Stevens, you'd have to shell out at least $15, probably more.

But at the Kennedy Center tonight, in honor of the Millennium Stage's 10th anniversary, you can see both acts, and more, for free — providing you snagged one of the gratis tickets. If not, don't fret; you can still take part in the festivities.

"We're simulcasting on screens in the Grand Foyer," said Garth Ross, director of Performing Arts for Everyone, the Kennedy Center department that oversees the Millennium Stage, among other endeavors. "And the Navy Commodores will be on the Grand Foyer Millennium Stage at 6 p.m., opening with big band and going into classical, orchestral and so forth. So there's still a lot of things for people who come without a ticket," including a National Symphony Orchestra performance of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition."

Every day at 6 p.m. for the past 10 years, the Millennium Stage has produced high-quality entertainment events, free of charge. Normally no tickets are required, but Monday night's celebratory events are the exception. (On Jan. 27, there were 2,300 Stevens tickets given away in mere minutes.)

From the start, Ross said, the Millennium Stage was meant to "both reach out to audiences who would be new to the Kennedy Center and also be able to expand what we present [regularly] so that people who come to the Kennedy Center with some regularity will be [exposed] to new experiences as well."

While Ross said the Millennium Stage's programming is often an extension of the Kennedy Center's traditional focus on classical arts, "[T]here's the side of Millennium Stage where we're truly complementing the program at the Kennedy Center by presenting something that might be outside of what might be the norm [here]. That would be the case with a lot of our American and international roots-music programming, a lot of our contemporary dance programming, a lot of work with embassies here in Washington. These are programmatic elements that are unique to the Millennium Stage."

And the District's all the better for it.

» Kennedy Center, 2700 F St. NW; 6 p.m., free with ticket, plus free simulcast without a ticket in the Grand Foyer; 202-467-4600. (Foggy Bottom-GWU)

Sufjan Stevens by Denny Renshaw
Garth Ross by Kendall Barrett
Alvin Ailey Dance Theater courtesy Kennedy Center