Hi, everybody.

I'm Felicia Curry, and welcome to "WETA Arts," the place to discover what's going on in the creative and performing arts in and around D.C. On this edition of "WETA Arts," D.C.'s libraries are being transformed by groundbreaking architecture... Man: It's a building that a child will come in and think about a better life.

Curry: an outdoor sculpture exhibition invites visitors to Foggy Bottom... You walk through the neighborhood and look through this art show, and it just--it puts you in a different space.

Curry: and here at GALA Hispanic Theatre in Columbia Heights, co-founder and executive director Rebecca Medrano reveals how the theater is roaring back with shows this fall.

Medrano: There is no other space where they can connect to their culture that they've left behind.

Curry: These stories and more on "WETA Arts."

♪ The D.C. government has put more than half a billion dollars into rebuilding the city's public libraries.

In the process, it's brought the work of world-renowned architects to D.C.'s neighborhoods.

[Indistinct chatter] Southwest Library in Washington, D.C.'s, Ward 6 is about to open for business.

Well, we came here to see the grand opening of the library.

We're just excited to see a--I think, a bigger sized library with, I think, a pretty large kids section.

This building was, like, built, and it was so cool.

Now I'm really excited for it to open.

I can't believe how beautiful the outside-- if the outside looks that good, imagine what it looks like in the inside.

Curry: Checking the security arrangements and greeting the public is Richard Reyes Gavilan, the executive director of the D.C. Public Library.

Wait a minute.

I know.

Wait just a minute.

This project started for me 7 years ago when I first moved to Washington, D.C.

The old Southwest Library was a bunker-style, Brutalist building in the worst sense of the word.

The windows were these small slivers that produced zero light for the interior.

It was the sort of space that I talk about all the time, where you go there and get what you need and get out as fast as you can.

Curry: Southwest branch is the 21st D.C. library to be either renovated or replaced in an initiative that started in 2004.

There are lots of subjects... Curry: Tom Sherwood, co-author of "Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D.C.," has covered D.C. politics since the 1970s and has followed the D.C. Council's capital investment projects closely.

Sherwood: Any government-- state, local, city-- if it's in financial trouble, it goes into deferred maintenance, and deferred maintenance is a polite way of saying ignoring, what happened to the D.C. libraries.

They were old, they were musty, they were all the things you could think of for bad libraries.

In Southwest, where I live, the city razed the whole place and built these stark, Brutalist buildings.

They don't welcome you in.

There are even fences, where people live behind these brick walls, and they don't come out onto the street and say, "Come inside."

They say, "Keep out."

We're gonna see changes.

It's not until the second term of Anthony Williams, the mayor at the time who actually said, "Let's fix the damn libraries."

Williams: The libraries were part of a broader strategy for the rejuvenation of a city really centered on what I call refurbishing the public realm of a city.

Cities are about great streets, great neighborhoods, great downtown, great waterfront.

They're your spatial building blocks, so libraries are part of a great downtown, they're part of great neighborhoods, but they're also part of this public space.

Public space should be honored, important, valued space, and that includes good design.

Gavilan: Go back 100 years, it was very important to create majestic-looking libraries from the outside.

You have the classic Carnegie libraries with the stairs that will take you up through a 40-foot entryway, but once you were inside a library, you were there really to do one thing, and that was to interact with the books.

Over the past 25 years as information has become much more easily accessible, libraries have really morphed into something that is not specifically about books.

The books still play obviously an important role in the library, but really, what you're doing is trying to create spaces that are gonna satisfy people's needs, whether they're workforce needs, social needs, entertainment needs.

Libraries have become much more complex in terms of their service model.

My job is to translate the community's wishes for library services into something that my staff can accomplish.

When they announced two of the branch libraries-- I think it was the first two that they were going to completely build from scratch, and they were gonna build two small branch libraries.

Is that really a big architectural story, but the architect they chose was David Adjaye.

That is a big architectural story.

He's one of the great architects working today.

He's the architect who designed the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and he works around the world.

He's working with a very limited budget for an architect of his caliber, and he has a long list of functions these libraries have to perform, and so I was expecting something like the Gap T-shirt, you know, something that's really nicely designed, clean, simple, basic materials, and affordable.

That's not what he did.

He came back with two incredibly different libraries.

One is this beautiful, shiny pavilion set in a forest, and the other is this meditation on the architecture of the mid-century when we built these concrete buildings on stilts, and there was a kind of science fiction quality.

It's a very concrete, very modernist building.

Both of them were really, really beautiful.

The Francis Gregory one I really like because there's this little strip of forest nearby, and somehow, it really feels like it loves living in that spot.

It feels like the pavilion an aristocrat might have made in a garden for having a cup of tea except it's a democratic space.

I love the shininess and color on the outside and the way that captures the light and the greenery around it, and then I also love the interior, where the architects are creating little peeks and visions looking through this interesting lattice work that he's done.

Curry: The new buildings, while significant investments in their own right, were small projects in comparison to the renovation of the main branch, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, designed by the world-famous pioneer of modernism Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

Gavilan: When I first moved to Washington, D.C., the carrot that was dangled in front of me was the opportunity to work on the renovation of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library downtown, which of course was a multi-year, $200 million-plus project.

Being a part of a thoughtful modernization of that library was probably the most challenging and rewarding project of my entire career.

Sherwood: This King Library was symbolic.

The Control Board, which was trying to control expenses, met in the basement of Martin Luther King Library.

We will start with the budget considerations.

Sherwood: And if you have ever been to a soul-sucking place, it is the basement of this library.

Mies van der Rohe died before this building opened.

I'm hoping he never saw it below ground level because it's hideous.

Low ceilings, stark brick walls, dark corridors, ugly.

It was ugly.

Kennicott: In the original conception of the building, it was a glass box wrapped around books, and that was the fundamental state.

"This is a library.

This is how you get information.

"This is about democracy.

We provide this service to you," and to have that glass box around books, especially at night when you could see the books lit up inside, that was kind of magical.

This building made a big impression when you walked in the door, but it didn't really tell you how to navigate it.

You walk into the lobby, which is a wonderful space.

It's a big, beautiful open lobby with a great mural, very dramatic, but where are the stairs, where are the elevators?

How do I get from this lobby up to the floors where the books and the stacks are?

Because it was a Mies building and because there was a constituency that felt very strongly that the building should be preserved, it forces the city and forced the library to make what was essentially an aesthetic decision, and that was to balance how much value in civic terms do we place on beauty, on design?

The city government and the library was willing to make an investment in something that is really intangible when you're in a committee meeting or at a hearing but is incredibly tangible when you're sitting here like this and seeing the results of it.

Gavilan: The fact that the building was one that many residents thought was completely unsalvageable from the perspective of creating a dignified, delightful space we were able to create just that inspiring space that preserves all of Mies' legacy, but it also finally creates a building that, I think, speaks to the building's namesake.

It has all the trappings of a building that a child will come in and dream and think about a better life and think about how he or she can contribute to that better life.

Kennicott: It speaks really well to the demands that the library system placed on the architects and the architects' willingness to meet those demands is that very often in the new buildings the children's space is the nicest space.

Now that doesn't just happen by accident.

It's the kids who are getting the spaces that have the best views and the best ambiance and feel the most welcoming because that says something about the constituents the library serves, the willingness to respect something other than the usual things that we tend to value when it comes to architecture, which is power and money, right?

Those spaces hopefully will create lifelong library users.

[Indistinct chatter] Curry: Back at Southwest Library, the opening ceremony is underway.

I could not be prouder than I am today, standing with Mayor Bowser for her seventh library grand opening.

[Cheering and applause] Rich said that I've opened 7 libraries, and, council, we have our eye on some more libraries to get built in Washington, D.C., so we're gonna keep doing it, you're gonna keep supporting them, the kids are gonna keep loving them, and we're gonna keep making sure that more D.C. residents have access to all that we have to offer in this city.

Gavilan: 1...2...3!

[Cheering and applause] Gavilan: What was really thrilling about Southwest that I understood from the beginning was the classic mid-century modern architecture is unlike any other neighborhood in D.C. and that we would have the ability to try to re-create that into something new, so you'll see that with all the exposed wood, the very minimalist lines throughout, the folded roof that's reminiscent of some of the crinkled balconies on some of these fifties- and sixties-style buildings, and so it fits into the neighborhood perfectly, and it is--you know, it's a style of architecture and design that I personally love.

I'm very fortunate to work in an industry where architects are thriving.

The fact that libraries have changed so much over the past 20, 25 years, it really does give architects the ability to work with librarians on creating these really new inspirational centers for learning.

They're not transactional spaces any longer.

They really are the spaces that are built for learning collaboratively or independently.

Each library is an art project in and of itself.

Sherwood: Art is an essential part of a living and breathing city.

From mundane, regular things to the artwork behind me, art is another way children learn.

They may not even know it.

If a young child comes in and looks up at this and is inspired to go home and try to draw it, case closed.

Williams: I love what they've done.

I mean, this is an example of continuity of good government.

We have a series of mayors.

They've all been dedicated to refurbishing community and public space.

Gavilan: To work with members of the community and to deliver something that really speaks to their own aspirations for what a library should be is just incredibly fulfilling.

I believe that this is a real boost to the community to see a building that they're gonna be able to come in and use and love and have for generations to come.

The D.C. Public Library has 26 branches with facilities for everything from 3-D printing to making music, from digitizing your home movies to kicking back in the café.

Check out everything the library has to offer at dclibrary.org, or better yet check them out in person.

Every two years, an outdoor sculpture exhibit appears in a 3-square-block neighborhood in Foggy Bottom.

The latest exhibition features local artists with global ideas.

Woman: My work revolves around people, planet, and economy, and so this is a perfect setting to bring all those 3 concepts together.

I need some time to work physically with the land, and then after that, I have hundreds of sticks to complete the installation.

I have a long day ahead.

Given that I have these 5 big blobs, my tumbleweeds, I think they needed to find a space to give a feel of being in nature, and they've done it.

It's a fantastic site.

This is my first time in the Foggy Bottom Biennial.

This is my third time.

Biennial Show of Sculpture.

My name is Kayleigh Bryant-Greenwell, and I am the curator of the 2021 Arts in Foggy Bottom Outdoor Sculpture Biennial.

Man: This is historic Foggy Bottom, which is only about 2 or 3 blocks big.

That's it.

You walk through the neighborhood and look through this art show, and it just--it puts you in a different space for a short period of time, and it gives you a break.

And so that's what I want people to take away, to just enjoy, take it in, just look at how creative people can be with just everyday, normal stuff, with rocks, with sticks, whatever it is.

Kermes: I document games of Scrabble, and I applied that onto the fabric, screen printing, and then I used wood block printing for all of the haiku.

I did design the pieces knowing that they will be at the effect of the elements much like a tumbleweed.

My name is Jerry Truong, and I consider myself a multidisciplinary conceptual artist.

The pieces are meant to resemble street signs, but they also sort of look like protest signs.

You come up onto a sign like "Justice for all?"

right?

Number two, I think it is.

Truong: As you continue to walk down the street, then you see other signs-- "Indivisible?

", "Under God?"

It's that moment of being caught off guard by this question and then forcing a certain reflection.

Bryant-Greenwell: Sanzi's work is in this really interesting juxtaposition with Jerry's work.

These fabric pieces that evoke a sense of looking kind of like trash.

With Jerry's work in that lot together, it just really has--has a vibe.

Heh heh.

Stephanie when I saw her work, I mean, I completely fell in love.

The artists that I've selected are expert question makers, question designers.

Maye: I've been in Foggy Bottom for 25 years, so pretty well embedded into the neighborhood, and from the third show, we were part of the Arts in Foggy Bottom, that family, that community.

I'm Jackie Lemire, and these are my friends and the other co-founders Jill Nevius and Mary Kay Shaw.

I had the good fortune of meeting Jill, who said, "Oh, you have an arts background.

"You should meet a friend of mine.

We should just get together for tea."

That started it.

Ha ha ha!

We needed to get neighbors to agree to allow us to put sculptures in their front yards.

Nevius: They were willing to do it, even though sometimes they didn't even like what they had, but then they'd end up just loving the camaraderie and having the visitors come into the neighborhood.

I was approached by one of our friends and neighbors, who works in the Watergate across the street.

Would I be interested?

I said, "Yeah.

Absolutely."

Heh!

"Contribute my front garden here?"

This is done by Dalya Luttwak.

She's quite well-known, and internationally, she's shown these pieces of this style at the Venice Biennale, so exciting to have that sort of international tie-in.

Ah, but this one is sticking up.

No.

This one should not be extended.

Luttwak, voice-over: My subject matter are root systems.

My intention is to reveal what nature chose to hide.

It was not my intention to be political here.

It was my intention to make you think what this could mean.

The experience that I was hoping that visitors would have was that this isn't just, you know, some pretty art to look at.

It's very deep and meaningful and will hopefully stick with you and make you ask some questions of yourself, of your environment, of society.

The reason-- They might, but it's for art.

Woman: We're looking at this piece, and we're thinking about where we individually come from.

Thank you.

I didn't meet you.

I'm Chinese, he's Irish-Scandinavian, right?

We're all different.

We all come from somewhere, but it's deeper than that.

There is an undeniable part to our history that is steeped in race, and that is a part of our roots, and I hope that when people come and visit Foggy Bottom and they walk by this wonderful and brilliant piece of artwork that they'll remember that we're all connected, we all come from the same soil, we all breathe the same air, we all have families, we all have love in our lives, and so I'm hoping that-- I'm hoping that it'll bring us together.

Only took me 2 years and 8 1/2 hours today.

So excited that we reached this point and that people can experience it.

Whoo-hoo!

The 2021 Outdoor Sculpture Biennial is up through Sunday, September 26, and visitors can take self-guided tours by scanning QR codes posted at each installation.

Hi, Rebecca.

Welcome to "WETA Arts."

We are so excited to have you on, and thank you for inviting us into your beautiful theater home.

I know some of our viewers might not know what the GALA in GALA Hispanic Theatre stands for.

GALA was founded in 1976 as Groupo de Artistas Latinoamericanos, which means Group of Latin American Artists, and we were really a family of artists from throughout the Spanish-speaking world and the Caribbean.

Many of the artists who came here were looking for freedom of expression, escaping repressive regimes, looking for a place to continue to create.

I know some people think that you only do Spanish-speaking productions.

Is that true?

No, that is not.

We are totally language accessible.

We have done productions in English, we have done bilingual musicals like "In the Heights" and "Fame."

♪ Baby, remember my name ♪ Accessibility is very important to us.

If we perform in English, you get the surtitles in Spanish.

If it's in Spanish, you get them in English.

Our children's programs are done bilingually, and of course, we have dance and music that requires no language.

[Upbeat music playing] I do have to say this for our viewers who don't know.

You were the first theater in D.C. to open back up during the pandemic.

Not only that, you were one of the first theaters in the nation to open up during the pandemic even for just a brief window.

Can you tell us a little bit about that experience?

Thank you for bringing that up.

We feel we worked very hard.

It was certainly a challenge.

A lot of questioning, you know, among staff and audience and doing surveys about whether people would feel safe to come back, but principally, we also did a major renovation to the theater with putting in a whole new air system, doing new carpeting, new seats.

That enabled us to go to the mayor and to ask for a waiver in the fall of 2020.

We were able to do 3 weeks of a classical Spanish play "Perro del Hortelano," and the actors performed behind a Plexiglas structure.

Restrictions were lifted as far as capacity, but we still did social distancing to make people feel safe.

You know, there's still a lot of psychological-- it's a very personal decision.

We called people.

We made sure that everybody who came did feel comfortable.

So, Rebecca, what is playing now at GALA Hispanic Theatre?

Well, right now, we have onstage a modern adaptation of a famous play by Federico García Lorca called "Doña Rosita la Soltera," "Doña Rosita the Spinster," and the message is that not all women want to get married and the prejudice against them and how they overcome that.

What do you think the biggest change is since the pandemic that you've had to accommodate in how you approach the work, how you approach your mission?

It's made us pivot.

It's made the education department work really hard to find out what we can do digitally.

There's such just an incredible number of immersion schools, Spanish language classes, so in order to stay in touch with the teachers in the schools, we filmed.

Tell us a little bit about your educational programs.

Oh, certainly.

We from years ago have had a program called Paso Nuevo, which means new step, for youth, Latinx, BIPOC youth, immigrant youth, low-income from the community.

We open up the theater to give them a second home really.

They come after school.

They get involved in creating their own work, their poems, now they're doing podcasts.

Many of them graduate.

They're the first in their families to go to college, and we've recently been employing them, especially during the pandemic when so many of them lost part-time jobs that supported their families, so it's really a place where they find adult support and where they can be with their peers.

Do you do anything for our younger ones?

We do.

GALita, which is our children's program, and that is a bilingual program.

We commission plays.

[Kids shouting] [Speaking Spanish] Medrano: In September will be "Sylvia Méndez" about the Puerto Rican- Mexican child of immigrants, and advocated for the integration of schools in California way before the famous integration cases of the schools happened.

We do less heavy plays, as well, throughout the year for children, and they are bilingual.

We also have that during the weekday for matinees and on weekends for families.

[Barks] I know that you have been a resource to the Latinx community around D.C. Can you tell us a little bit about that role?

We are the only Spanish language theater with a permanent space.

We feel it is important to stay connected to our community because there is no other space where they can hear their stories told, where they can tell their stories, and where they can connect to their families and their culture that they've left behind and pass it on to their children so that the next generation also stay connected to this wonderful, diverse culture and traditions.

So what do you say to the people who haven't yet visited GALA and are a little nervous about it because it's Spanish-speaking?

I think you shouldn't be nervous.

Jump in, jump in.

The water is wonderful.

You can have a good experience, and it will be accessible.

[Speaking Spanish] I think there's something for everybody.

The Flamenco Festival is certainly coming up.

We have a film festival, and we have programs for children and families on the weekends, and we will respect people's desire to be safe, and we want everybody to feel--to feel good about the experience.

Rebecca, thank you so, so much.

It has been a pleasure having you on "WETA Arts."

Thank you so much, Felicia.

It's been my pleasure to be here.

Here's a thought from poet M.C.

Richards based on her book "Centering: in Pottery, Poetry and the Person."

"All the arts we practice are apprenticeship.

The big art is our life."

Thank you for watching this episode of "WETA Arts."

Be well, be creative, and enjoy the art all around you.

I'm Felicia Curry.

Announcer: For more about the artists and institutions featured in this episode, go to weta.org/arts.

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