Kennedy Center

MARIO RITTER:Welcome to American Mosaic in VOA Special English. I'm Mario Ritter. This week on our program we answer a question about the Kennedy Center, in Washington... MARIO RITTER: Our listener question this week comes from China. Chun-Quan Meng wants to know more about the Kennedy Center in Washington. The Kennedy Center presents music, dance, plays and other performances. The full name is the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The idea began with legislation signed by President Dwight Eisenhower in nineteen fifty-eight to create a National Cultural Center. The building opened in nineteen seventy-one as a memorial to John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth president. He and his wife, Jacqueline, strongly supported the arts. Architect Edward Durrell Stone designed a simple white building that overlooks the Potomac River. The Kennedy Center has several performing areas. The Concert Hall is the largest. The National Symphony Orchestra performs there. So do popular entertainers. The Washington Opera, ballets and musical comedies are performed in the Opera House. Plays and some opera and dance productions take place in the Eisenhower Theater. Smaller theaters in the Kennedy Center present music groups and plays. The Family Theater presents performances for young people. Each year more than four hundred performances are offered free of charge by local, national and international artists. Over the years, some of the world's top artists have performed at the Kennedy Center. Many special events also take place there. These have included a month-long celebration of the traditional and modern arts of China. They have also included an exploration of the culture of twenty-two Arab nations. The Kennedy Center also serves as an educational headquarters. It supports and teaches people about the performing arts in America. It creates programs for teachers and students of all ages. It supports competitions and training programs for students. And it pays young performing artists to create new works. The Kennedy Center also has traveling productions attended by millions of people each year. The fiftieth anniversary of President Kennedy's inauguration will be January twentieth, two thousand eleven. The Kennedy Center will honor the former president with a special concert and three weeks of performances and events. President Kennedy once said: "I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for our victories or defeats in battle or politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit." Source: Voice of America