US President Donald Trump has announced a 2-year closure of Washington’s Kennedy Center performing arts venue for renovations.
The centre will be closed starting July 4, when the US celebrates its independence.
“This important decision, based on input from many Highly Respected Experts, will take a tired, broken, and dilapidated Center, one that has been in bad condition, both financially and structurally for many years, and turn it into a World Class Bastion of Arts, Music, and Entertainment,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.
Trump’s announcement comes as the arts venue faces a series of event cancellations, many of which linked to the US president’s forceful takeover of the centre since returning to the White House.
Trump ousted the previous leadership, handpicked the centre’s board members, appointed himself as chair and added his name to its facade, renaming it the ‘Trump Kennedy Center’.
Trump did not address the cancellations. He said the centre will resume operations after two years ‘with a scheduled Grand Reopening that will rival and surpass anything that has taken place with respect to such a Facility before’.
Among performers and groups who have recently cancelled gigs at the centre are Philip Glass, who withdrew his Symphony No. 15 Lincoln, saying that the centre’s current values are in ‘direct conflict’ with the message of the piece.
The centre, the US capital’s leading performing arts venue, has historically hosted over 2,000 events per year.
Most recently, it screened the premiere of a documentary on the first lady, Melania.
DW
