Citified: Arts and Creativity East of the Anacostia River looks at creativity, identity, and community in Far Southeast Washington, D.C., neighborhoods. Presented in collaboration with the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum, it highlights the connections among residents of urban communities as expressed through arts and creativity. Citified alludes to the fact that many African American residents living east of the Anacostia River have parents or grandparents who migrated from the rural South, particularly North and South Carolina, and who continue to maintain connections with their southern (although often no longer rural) heritage.
Citified also refers to the ongoing transition from cultural and performance traditions shaped primarily by rural agrarian environments to those shaped primarily by wage work in urban industrial environments. Here, in place of rural quilting bees, quilters like the Daughters of Dorcas & Sons get together in churches and community recreation centers to pass on shared traditions. It is here, too, that the sounds of rural church choirs and musicians, as well as blues and country music traditions, transform into urban popular music and become the foundation of go-go music.
The Citified program is part of a long-term Anacostia Community Museum initiative, Call and Response, which explores arts and creativity through exhibitions and installations, museum collections, and community-focused programs. The Anacostia Community Museum is dedicated to a mission centered upon contemporary urban communities, and to research, documentation, and programming that are community-focused. At the core of the museum’s work is the belief that active citizen participation in the recovery and preservation of community historical assets, cultural and arts activities, and community advocacy are important and powerful instruments for creating and maintaining a sense of community and civic ownership.
Join the Anacostia Community Museum staff and Festival participants in celebrating the creativity and cultural expression found in schools, churches, community organizations, businesses, and other venues in East-of-the-River neighborhoods. Meet master artists and creative, inspiring residents from this part of Washington, D.C. Enjoy performances by line dancers, African dancers and drummers, church choirs, hip-hop artists, comedians, and go-go bands. Listen to storytellers; watch demonstrations of tattoo art; learn how to make quilt blocks from members of a multi-generational quilting guild; and participate in craft activities.
