Performing artist collective kicks off weekly protests at Kennedy Center

A Hands Off the Arts organizer holds his sign out front of the Kennedy Center. All photos by Emma Cieslik.

BY EMMA CIESLIK March 13th, 2026

This past Friday, Hands Off the Arts kicked off their first weekly protest outside of the Kennedy Center. On an unusually quiet night at the nation’s art center, a group of about 50 protesters with Hands Off the Arts, a coalition of artists, art workers, and art patrons fighting to keep the arts free from government oversight, gathered at the bottom of the northern stairs to chant and dance at the nation’s cultural arts center, facing down a line of special security police. 

Facing away from the Center and the protestors, security watched as people flooded past them down the steps to join the gathering.

Led by Tara Hoot, a local drag queen, Hands Off the Arts leaders spoke, along with former Kennedy Center workers and patrons, and local Vietnamese drag queen Ant Honey performed on the sidewalk. Ant Honey was scheduled to perform in Sài Gòn By Night, a cabaret celebrating Vietnamese culture in honor of the 50th anniversary of the end of the war in Vietnam in April, but when the Kennedy Center was taken over, it was cancelled as part of the administration’s prohibition of drag performances. 

“I was actually banned from performing drag here last year among many other queer artists,” Ant Honey told me. “I was thrilled to perform my Donald Duck Trump drag because it’s a community performance. It’s for the community. It’s for protestors, and I wanted to give that gift back to the community.” 

Local drag queen Ant Honey performs their "Donald Duck Trump drag."

In defiance, Ant Honey performed in a blonde combover wig, red baseball cap, and navy jacket overtop a duck costume with a wide yellow bill over their nose. They lipsynced and danced along to songs like Madonna’s “Material Girl,” throwing up fake golden coins into the air, before stripping off their jacket, button up shirt, and red tie to reveal their duck feathers underneath and twerking their fluffy white duck tip tail. 

Tara Hoot then welcomed Mallory Miller, a performer and former dance curator at the Kennedy Center and one of the co-founders of Hands Off the Arts, who spoke about why the organization, which held a dance protest this past November outside the Kennedy Center, decided to start weekly protests. 

“As far as I know, there are no other workers who have gone to sleep one day and then the next day, woke up and the president of the United States was suddenly their boss.” In response, Kennedy Center staff joined together to form the Kennedy Center United Arts Workers, but in August, Miller was fired from her job “as a blatant form of union busting,” she said. Hands Off the Arts gathered to protest the news that the Kennedy Center would be shuttered for the majority of Trump’s remaining presidency. 

Just one week earlier, Trump announced on Trump Social and Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell confirmed that the Kennedy Center will close for two years for renovations and the National Symphony Orchestra director Jean Davison quit in response to Trump’s takeover. The Center itself is embroiled in a legal battle against musician Chuck Redd, suing the musician who cancelled his Christmas Eve show.  

But Mallory implored protestors to maintain hope--that same day, she explained, Ohio Representative Joyce Beatty filed an emergency motion with a federal court to block Trump’s plan to close the Kennedy Center. “We want to make sure that we show a sustained care for this location,” Miller said that she and others will host these weekly protests for as long as they need to until their demands are met--namely that the Kennedy Center does not close. 

“We have to stop the closure, save the jobs, get his name off of it, and bring the artists back,” Tara Hoot boomed into the microphone. “Artists are not showing up. They don’t want to perform because Donald Trump’s name is on there. Donald Trump’s name is toxic. Everything he touches dies.”

“Who knows what it’s going to look like when he’s done with it,” another protestor shouted. 

Edward Daniels, a long-time union actor based in Washington, DC, similarly disputed Trump’s claim that the building is falling apart, saying that “I don’t know a single artist in this city that’s performed in that building that said the building is falling apart. Sure it’s a maze downstairs to get to the actors’ area, but we love it. This is the epitome of our local arts scene.”

“Right now, I’m so glad because of so many things that are happening people are standing up and seeing something and saying something,” he said. We need that more than ever right now. Of course, the creative community, we have very creative ways of doing that.”

Protestors held up signs and participated in chants in front of the arts center.

One protestor Miriam read a passage from Timothy Sneider’s On Tyranny on defending institutions. “Do not speak of our institutions unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions cannot protect themselves. They fall one after the other unless each is defended from the beginning. So chose an institution,” she read before turning to the Center stark white building to her right, “and we are choosing an institution tonight.”

“I love the idea that we are going to start to do this every Friday, whether there’s anything going on in the house or not. I find it ironic that the only performing art that is going on at the Kennedy Center tonight is happening outside of the building,” Miriam chuckled. 

“As much as it galls me to walk into that building,” a 39-year-old subscriber to the National Symphony Orchestra said, “I walk in the back door on the river terrace. I will not walk in the front door. I will not walk in by his name.” She stood bathed in red and blue lights from police cars, holding a neon green and pink sign reading “Hands Off” and a light-up American flag umbrella. 

Throughout the hour and a half-long protest, eight police cars stopped on the street alongside the stairs and spoke briefly with the protest organizers, who explained that they had a permit for the demonstration. After about an hour, most of the police cars left except for four that blocked traffic along F street. The Kennedy Center special police remained for the entirety of the protest.  

“There’s no need for the Kennedy Center to close for two years,” Hoot said. “The only reason that it’s closing is because it’s been totally mismanaged by the new people in charge, and they need to get the boot.” 

“My dress is older than most of the things in the Kennedy Center. … And that carpet was just replaced two years ago. I wore red in honor of that carpet tonight,” she said before twirling. “It’s easy sometimes to think what is there that we can do. … How do we fight back? And that’s why I bought 57 wigs and some Maybelline makeup.”

Local drag queen Tara Hoot hosted the first weekly protest.

She went on to lip sync to Barbara Streisand's “Don’t Rain on My Parade” with bubble wands in both hands. Protestors looked on, smiling and cheering as a celebration unfolded outside the strangely quiet arts center. After an hour and half, the mood shifted to a dance party fueled by two portable boomboxes and the rave-style lighting of the police lights.