Performers Withdraw Shows Over Trump-Kennedy Center Name Change

Two more acts have canceled upcoming events at the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.

The cancellations come after the board voted to change the name of the building to the Trump-Kennedy Center, adding President Donald Trump’s name to the facade.

The Cookers, a jazz septet, canceled two performances set for New Year’s Eve.
“Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice,” the group said in a statement.
“Some of us have been making this music for many decades, and that history still shapes us.”
“We are not turning away from our audience and do want to make sure that when we do return to the bandstand, the room is able to celebrate the full presence of the music and everyone in it,” the group continued.
“We remain committed to playing music that reaches across divisions rather than deepening them.”

Billy Hart, the band’s drummer, said the building’s name change had “evidently” played a role.

A New York-based company, Doug Varone and Dancers, said Monday it has canceled two April performances planned to mark its 40th anniversary.
“It is financially devastating but morally exhilarating,” Varone said, noting the company stands to lose $40,000 by canceling.

Last week, Richard Grenell, the president of the Trump-Kennedy Center, fiercely criticized a musician’s sudden decision to cancel a Christmas Eve performance as a result of the name change.
“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment — explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure — is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit Arts institution,” Grenell wrote in a letter to musician Chuck Redd.

Grenell has threatened to sue Redd for $1 million.

The performing arts center was named after President John F. Kennedy a year after his assassination.
The law explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else and from putting another person’s name on the building’s exterior.