ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT BEST PLACE To DANCE LIKE YoU’RE IN A PHoToSHooT
Flash
645 Florida Ave. NW, (202) 827-8791, flashdc.com
Behind the two wooden doors that lead to Flash, a nightclub on Florida Avenue NW, is an intriguing space. On one side of the first floor is a bar; on the other, a dance floor with a DJ playing a blend of house, techno, and hiphop. On a Friday night, in some great weather, people can see Flash’s liveness from the
street. The club has tables and chairs so patrons can chill out and enjoy the music. Pretty good, right? Well, that’s not all. There’s a twist to Flash that makes it the place to be in the D.C. nightlife scene. There are two ways to get to the second level: You can go directly to a stairway with a ton of dope graffiti artwork on the walls, or you can reach the
stairs through… the booth. It’s a photo booth, to be exact, where people can have their picture taken before they enter the flip side of Flash: a vibrant club where lights flash with the beats and mixes the DJ is currently playing. There’s a path of lights on the walls that lead to the DJ booth, where a group of camera lights flash every time the bass drops. It
can feel like you’re dancing in a photoshoot. With events like DC to BC’s popular VICES dance nights—which happen to feature the best DJs in the District—Flash is becoming a well-recognized venue for performances and parties. It’s definitely the place to slide through on a Saturday night. Hope you’re —Vance Brinkley ready to take pictures.
BEST VoLUNTEER PUBLIC RADIo DJ DURING A BLIzzARD
WPFW’s James Funk wpfwfm.org/radio
“I feel like we are essential like a fire department, [the] armed forces, or the police department,” says James “Jas” Funk, a volunteer DJ at public radio station WPFW 89.3 FM. On Jan. 23, as a blizzard blanketed the D.C. area in a record-breaking amount of snow, Funk kept the station that plays jazz, soul, blues, news, and more on the air from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Early that morning, with much of the city shut down, Funk got in his four-wheel-drive vehicle and headed to WPFW’s studio at 1990 K St. NW with a bunch of CDs he intended
to play during the “Oldies House Party” and “House of Soul” shows he always co-hosts between 10 a.m. and noon. Funk, who is also a DJ and go-go talker for Proper Utensils and Rare Essence, was also scheduled to fill in for the host of the bluesy “Roots and Fruits,” which ends at 2 p.m. But Funk soon realized he would also be guesting for the hosts of later shows, too: the funkier “Southern Soul Rumpin” and the Motown-friendly “The Andrea Bray Show.” Alone in the studio, Funk did his best to pick music that stayed true to the themes of each
show, log the song titles into WPFW’s website, answer the phone when he could, and engage in his usual amiable on-air chatter, which on this day included snow-plow talk. With the freedom that only a public radio station like WPFW can offer, Funk played bouncy three-minute R&B tracks from the Clovers and when he needed a breather, 14plus-minute psychedelia-influenced tracks from the likes of Rare Earth and Iron Butterfly. Midday he presented gritty Etta James numbers, early afternoon included the Nellie “Tiger” Travis stomper “Mr. Sexy Man,”
and by evening, he dispensed lush soul like the Dells’ “Dry Your Eyes.” At 7 p.m., Funk turned over the studio to Program Director Katea Stitt, who also spent a lot of hours onair that weekend. Funk used to work long days at a post office and says he is thankful for the calls he got that day, but he “wasn’t looking for any accolades.” “It felt good that I touched a lot of people and touched their hearts. But it was just part of my duties as part of the station.” —Steve Kiviat
BEST NEW (oLD) MUSEUM
National Museum of Women in the Arts 1250 New York Ave. NW, (202) 783-5000, nmwa.org
It’s been dazzling to watch the transformation of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. It started in 2014 with “Total Art,” a straightforward and satisfying show of video artworks by 10 contemporary women artists, including rising stars (Alex Prager) and longtime favorites (Pipilotti Rist). The wave continued that year with a sharp new projection by Soda_Jerk, a two-person collective. With “Super Natural” and “Organic Matters,” two broad group shows examining the relationship between women and nature, the National Museum of Women in the Arts all but announced its new direction: as a significant voice in contemporary art in Washington, D.C. This change is a long time in com-
ing. True, over this span, the museum also mounted “Picturing Mary: Woman, Mother, Idea,” a traditional show whose only real flaw was that it contained no contemporary visions of Mary (as a woman of color, for example, or an abstract concept). Notwithstanding the occasional blockbuster, the National Museum of Women in the Arts is dedicating more and more space and recognition to women who are practicing art today, at a time when gallery and museum exhibitions alike are still dominated by men. Museums in D.C. have mixed records on showing art by both sexes. At the Phillips Collection, the American and European masterworks hanging on the walls are overwhelmingly artworks by men, but the
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museum’s contemporary-projects series, “Intersection,” features many more women than men. The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has a decent record on showing new works by women, although its collection is also a men’s club. Women simply don’t rank at the National Gallery of Art. So the National Museum of Women in the Arts serves as an important balance to these institutions. It’s like Ruth Bader Ginsburg says: How many women will be enough on the Supreme Court? When there are nine. The National Museum of Women in the Arts still has work to do. It has not organized a significant show by a living African-American artist in at least the last decade—if ever.
(Some traveling exhibits, like a 2013 survey of Faith Ringgold, have stopped over.) The museum could do more to recognize local women artists and engage directly with the District, whose residents ought to be its strongest constituency. The museum could stand to borrow edgier traveling shows and mount more short-term projects. Something about the National Museum of Women in the Arts still feels fusty—as if there’s a fiber show always lurking just around the corner. With a couple of truly unexpected, off-kilter shows, the museum could easily put that reputation behind it. A change of the museum’s name and a sleeker brand wouldn’t hurt. In the meantime, the museum is making —Kriston Capps all the right decisions.