Location

Kennedy Center supports the timeless tradition of street art and sheds light on artists and companies who are producing extraordinary work not on a proscenium stage but in public spaces. From May 5-13, 2012, the festival offers free programming at the Kennedy Center as well as locations around Washington, D.C., featuring: contemporary visual arts including graffiti, chalk drawings, murals, and installations, as well as large-scale spectacles, street musicians, parade culture, flash mobs, puppetry, circus arts, and clowning. Look Both Ways: Street Arts Across America, part of the Rubenstein Arts Access program, will focus on artists from across the country such as Nick Cave, Project Bandaloop, Bread and Puppet Theater, Mass Ensemble, Midnight Circus, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Nana Projects, and more.

The Kennedy Center is working closely with the D.C. Office of Planning (DCOP), Metro, D.C. Commission on Arts and Humanities, Destination D.C., National Capital Planning Commission, and the U.S. General Services Administration to identify Metro-accessible locations across the city, making the festival performances available to all area residents. Look Both Ways: Street Arts Across America will connect and enliven communities through fun, surprising, and creative use of common spaces, and will draw attention to vibrant communities with a rich sense of place, heritage, and vitality that are beyond the National Mall. Through active arts engagement in a citywide event, the festival establishes a working partnership between the city, the Kennedy Center, government agencies, national and local arts organizations, and businesses, enhancing the civic life of Washington, D.C.