Note: This is my 200th post. Just thought I’d share that.

HEALTH CARE REFORM ON THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S WATCH
See where the Obama administration is going with health care reform; submit your stories; read the reports. The healthreform.gov site is user friendly.

President Obama will appear in Green Bay, Wisconsin today to discuss health care reform in a town hall meeting.

SCHOOL FOR SWINGERS
Trapeze School of New York has opened on the spot of the old Washington, DC Convention Center (between H Street and New York Ave., NW). Yes, this is the very same school featured in an episode of “Sex and the City.” Time for DC to get its Circus freak on minus the elephant march. The H Street site will be opened until the fall and then there’s a move planned for a tent set-up at Nationals Park. The cost is $120 for a 2-hour session that might enhance teamwork, trust building, or you can improve your sword fighting skills. The trapeze classes already seem to be sold out through July. They do offer jestering and juggling. Besides, a nice fall day wouldn’t be a bad time to swing through the air with the greatness of breeze. http://washingtondc.trapezeschool.com/classes/daily.php

WHAT’S YOUR D.C. STORY?
Lyrical City Writing Workshops offers writers new and “marinated” to season their work from a D.C. perspective cultural and otherwise: Thomas Sayers Ellis leads “Inside the Pocket: City as Ryhythm” on June 14, Toni Asante Lightfoot leads “Jean Toomer in DC: City as Identity” on July 5, Sharan Strange leads “The Personal is National: City as Monument” on August 23, and Holly Bass leads “City as Soundscape” on September 6th. All seminars meet Sundays from 2:30 to 5:00 pm at the Washington Historical Society at 801 K Street NW, DC. Workshops are open to all. To apply: send your name, a brief statement (50-150 words) explaining what you hope to get out of the workshop, a writing sample (one poem or short prose piece). Pre-registration required; limited to 12. Cost: $25 for each workshop; some scholarships available. Email: langstondays@gmail.com.

Sunday, June 14 at 2 PM TAROTE – The Arts Reaching Out Through Education is holding auditions for its Summer Players Academy at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center (The County Room, University of Maryland, College Park). Students 7 – 17 are invited to be part of the summer production “From Harlem to Hip Hop.” Guest instructors include actor, comedian, radio/tv host “Lazee” Lamont King; Broadway tap dancer Baakari Wilder; and a special workshop session with Grammy-Award winning Songwriter and Vocal Coach Glenn Standridge. There’s a $25 audition fee. Camp dates are June 29 – July 24, M-F 8 AM – 4 PM. For information visit www.tarote-usa.org or call 888-850-4852.

SILVERDOCS – June 15 – 22
AFI Silver Theater, Silver Spring, MD on Colesville Road (Take Red Line Metro to Silver Spring)
• 8 days
• 100+ films representing more than 60 countries
• 14 Academy Award nominated films
• 25,000 festival attendees from around the globe SILVERDOCS is an eight day internationally recognized film festival that celebrates independent thinking and generates global media attention.

Shorts by Albert Maysles and David Maysles will be one of the features at the festival. This is the brothers production team that brought us “Grey Gardens” (1975) the honest yet exposing cinema verite documentary of the two Edith Beales, an eccentric and somewhat cloistered mother-daughter duo living in East Hampton. The cult-like success of the film is most likely rooted in the fact that the Beales were the aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. The documentary has been inspiration for a Broadway musical as well as a recent HBO drama that starred Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange as Little Edie and Big Edie. A “Grey Gardens” book release and festival starts tomorrow in New York. Visit: http://www.mayslesfilms.com/

Listen to Albert Maysles on “The Power of Documentary,” this year’s Silverdocs Guggenheim Symposium honoree.

Another doc featured in the festival is a Brazillian “Billy Elliott” titled ONLY WHEN I DANCE by filmmaker Beadie Finzi. The documentary premiered at the Tribecca Film Festival this year.

From the filmmaker’s bio/interview – Silverdocs on-line
We looked at a number of social projects and became fascinated by a little run-down ballet school called Centro de Danca in a northern suburb of Rio. It was very unusual in that it offered 70 free places every year to kids who could not pay for class. Irlan and Isabella were two such students, then in the final year of the dance school. And as soon as I laid eyes on them, I knew we had our characters. Not only were they incredibly talented as dancers but both so charismatic and charming.

On the flip side of the theme is another doc DANCING WITH THE DEVIL about the drug wars in Rio de Janeiro.

Full schedule of films and other programs available at http://silverdocs.com/

DC’s LIVING MAYORS LOOK AT 30 YEARS OF CHANGE IN THE CITY
WEDNESDAY, June 24th from 6-8:00pm The Humanities Council of Washington, DC presents a discussion on the transformation of Washington, DC over the past 30 years with the city’s four living Mayors: (clockwise in photo) Adrian Fenty, Anthony Williams, Marion S. Barry, Jr., and Sharon Pratt.

LOCATION: Historical Society of Washington, DC, 801 K Street, NW across from the Walter Washington Convention Center (named for the city’s first Mayor). Closest Metro: Mount Vernon Square/Convention Center Metro.

RSVP at www.wdchumanities.org or call 202.387.8391.