DC SWAN (Support Women Artists Now) Day returns to Georgetown, offering FREE performances during March

SWAN Day/Support Women Artists Now Day is an international holiday designed to showcase the power and diversity of women’s creativity. From 2007 and 2013, Guillotine Theatre and Women in Film & Video organized DC SWAN Day, an all-day celebration of women artists in Georgetown. For the past three years, DC SWAN Day has been held in other parts of the city, but this March the musicians, theatre artists, poets, and visual artists are back in Georgetown.

SWAN Day is always the final Saturday in March, but DC has such a rich, creative community of women artists that we are presenting events throughout the entire month.

From March 2 through March 28, Baked & Wired (1052 Thomas Jefferson St NW, WDC 20007) will host /in(t)ərˈakt/, an exhibition of works by artists Jennifer Droblyen, Joy Stern, and Veronica Szalus, curated by Alia Faith Williams.

In preparing for /in(t)ərˈakt/, Williams was intrigued by the possible combinations of each artist and the physical spaces at Baked & Wired -- and how the audience might then interact with the works. Thinking broadly of the varied ways women interact with the world, and then more specifically how women artists interact with their environments and then on a micro level how the crowds at Baked & Wired might interact with this particular art in this space. The three artists that were selected to participate bring a range of styles and perspectives to the show.

Jennifer Droblyen is a mixed media artist who finds inspiration in taking a “natural and ordinary (object) that (is) seen everyday but might be overlooked, and expand, saturate, and improvise its spirit to breathe new life and focus on to the subject- making it extraordinary.”

Joy Stern is a painter of diverse interests and skills. Her works range from traditional to abstract, from ethereal to concrete, from suggestion to reality. She has worked in all media at The Art Students' League, the Columbia School of Painting & Sculpture and the Cleveland Institute of Art. Her paintings are included in many collections from New York to Santa Fe, as well as in DC, where she lives and exhibits.

Veronica Szalus typically exhibits large installation pieces. We are fortunate that she will stick to the wall with us for Baked & Wired. “Utilizing physical elements of form and space intersecting with light and with time, I create a means and expression for the transition from one state into the next. My work demonstrates the constancy of transformative change that extends from the life of organic matter to the existence of the non-organic.”

On Thursday, March 23 there will be a lunchtime screening of THE ZOOKEEPER’S WIFE followed by a Q&A with the film’s director, Niki Caro (WHALE RIDER, NORTH COUNTRY, McFARLAND, USA). Contact director@wifv.org for time, location, and more info on this screening.

At 7:00 pm on Thursday, March 23 Georgetown Neighborhood Library (3260 R St NW, WDC 20007) will host Poets on the Fringe, a reading of works by local women poets. Poets on the Fringe has published three books, created a video series, and participated in public readings in many DC venues.

At 7:30 pm Friday, March 24, the DC SWAN Day Kick Off features performances by D.C. based singer-songwriters Lara Supan and Heather Mae at Baked & Wired. Supan is most well known for her unapologetic combination of musical styles and subject matter. "Supan’s voice has all the grit and guts of a farm girl and, improbably at the same time, all the velvety smoothness of a nightclub vixen." (John Ellis, No Depression). Heather Mae is an imaginative lyricist with a powerhouse voice. L-Mag calls Heather Mae "the new queer Adele". Mae breaks ground with her new social justice infused EP, entitled I am Enough (#60 - iTunes Pop Album) by shining light on touchy subjects not often heard in pop music.

On Saturday, March 25 lower Georgetown will be the site of a collaborative arts project, poetry readings, short film screenplays by local woman writers and theatrical performances, including devised work, interactive performance, and staged readings of plays by women playwrights.

10:00 am - 1:00 pm, Hickok Cole Architects (1023 31st St NW, WDC 20007) will host a series of events coordinated by Women in Film & Video starting with an art potluck where instead of bringing food to share, participants bring an object to share in a collaborative artwork, and including, a one-hour screening of short films from around the globe, a table-read of two short screenplays by local screenwriters and featuring local actors, and a poetry reading. The art potluck welcomes families.

2:00-6:00 pm, Grace Church (1041 Wisconsin Ave, NW WDC 20007) will host staged readings, devised, and interactive theatre by Ellouise Schoettler, Naked Theatre, The HBC Playback Theatre Ensemble, Danielle Drakes, McKenya Dillworth, Guillotine Theatre, and other artists.

For more information about SWAN Day events happening around the world, please visit www.SwanDay.org.

All DC SWAN Day events are free and open to the public.