Avenue of Aspirations
16th Street and Washington DC

a documentary project of CineCitizen Media

The Washington Post
Sept. 21, 2006
"Drawn Into a Circle of Drum-Driven Rhythms" by Heather Murphy

There is something hypnotizing about the ritual that keeps people going back, week after week, year after year, even if they don't play an instrument or dare to dance.

On Sundays for more than 40 years, the Meridian Hill Park drum circle has been bringing people together from across the region.

Every week, so long as Mother Nature permits, dancers, drummers and spectators of all ages and backgrounds gather in the park from 3 to 9. It usually starts with just a few people, but by late afternoon, it often grows into a crowd of hundreds.

Following the music to the edge of the park (also known as Malcolm X Park) in Northwest Washington, you never know exactly what you'll find. In the past three to five years, as the ritual has exploded in popularity, the circle has turned into a sort of human circus. On any given Sunday there might be capoeira artists tumbling over one another's heads, tightrope walkers dangling between two trees or a punk woman shaking her hula hoop to the West African beat.

"It's the safety valve for the mental health of the city," says Kevin Lambert, a journalist who lives in Columbia Heights and has been drumming at the circle for about 13 years. "The one place where people can jump up and down and scream without being carted off to jail."

It is a place where anything goes and people who would normally have nothing to do with one another choose to interact.

On a recent Sunday, a man with mismatched shoes handed out sticks of sandalwood incense to a group of picnicking preppies.

Across the way, a middle-aged German woman did a choppy African-inspired stomp, her fanny pack shaking up and down.

"Come dance," professional dancer King Baba James of Nigeria urged a group of young women before kicking his legs up and flying through the air.

"When I started coming here like 10 years ago, I was the only one dancing and teaching classes," said James, who performs across the region as part of Malcolm X Drummers and Dancers. James is now only one of several expert dancers who take it upon themselves to motivate spectators to start moving.

At the center of it all is always a circle of percussionists. The group varies in character and number every week, and consequently so does the music.

On a recent Sunday they played drums of all shapes and sizes, including djembes, congas, bongos and timbales. A few play cowbells, tambourines and even pieces of metal. There were professional drummers, such as Mamadi Nyasuma, who has played with the likes of Stevie Wonder, and there were novices who have owned drums for less than a month.

"One of the main reasons I go out there is because I enjoy the tremendous mixture of classes of human beings," said Doc Powell, founder of the Malcolm X Drummers and Dancers, who was one of the first people to play in the circle in the '60s. In 1975, Powell founded Malcolm X Drummers and Dancers, a group of performing artists that grew out of the cultural activities at the park.

Though the music appears to rise and fall spontaneously, master drummers like Powell are actually carefully directing the Cuban and West African rhythms. Some newcomers follow attentively, while others bang wildly, oblivious to the tradition.

"This is [a] new phenomenon, people just wanting to release energy," says Baba Aziz, a professional musician and drumming instructor who lives in Mount Pleasant. When Aziz started playing in the circle 20 years ago while studying at Howard University, no one dared to bang, he says.

Besides the tightrope walkers and wild hula hoopers, there is a history and tradition that is sacred to many. According to a widely accepted version of the circle's birth, the gathering began as a way to commemorate Malcolm X after his death in 1965.

"Drummers came in to hold him up in the form of a circle," says William Taft, co-chairman of the Capital City Juneteenth and U.S. Emancipation Day Council. After that, they kept doing it every week, drumming to honor the fallen leader and to express their African heritage.

The drum circle attracted the best musicians in the city and beyond. It became a place to hone one's craft, meet strangers and find old friends.

Sitting at its helm, year after year was Barnett Williams. As the neighborhoods around the park changed and newcomers flowed into the circle, Williams emphasized that anyone who respected the rhythms could join in. He taught newcomers, challenged old-timers, maintained order and provided inspiration, veterans say.

When Williams died in March, some feared that the tradition would go with him.

But the circle continues evolving like the neighborhoods around it.

"The energy is the same," says Tony Duncanson of Rockville, who began attending the circle in 1965. "But it's taken on a life of its own."

For independent filmmakers there is something known as "the bubble." Working in relative isolation, hunched in front of a computer screen, it's sometimes hard to know whether the story is taking shape or falling apart.

In 2004, documentary filmmakers Adele Schmidt and Erica Ginsberg decided to try and burst that bubble by getting local filmmakers and film-goers together to screen documentary films in progress - hence the name, "Docs-In-Progress." The bi-monthly screenings provide much needed feedback for filmmakers and an opportunity for the audience to offer up something never in short supply...their opinions.  

Click here to listen to the story, including an interview with Erica Ginsberg.

Dallas Morning News
April 14, 2006
"D.C.'s 'Church Row' reflects diversity" by Julia Ross

WASHINGTON -- Sundays, the S2 bus up the capital's 16th Street carries all manner of urban dwellers to worship: Solemn black men carry the Good Book, diminutive nuns in blue and white habits confer in Spanish, graceful Ethiopian women wrap themselves in gauzy white and gold shawls.

Though this historic north-south artery has long been viewed as a racial and ethnic dividing line, today its more than 4! 0 houses of worship connect the capital's diverse pockets -- Latin American and Asian, gay and straight, old-line and newly arrived -- like no other street in the city.

16th Street retains much of the sweeping, tree-lined majesty that architect Pierre L'Enfant envisioned when he contrived to create a world-class capital out of a malarial swamp in 1791. The 7.5-mile thoroughfare is graced with grand hotels, embassies, Beaux Arts mansions and apartment buildings, and a beautifully restored Italianate park.

But its lifeblood courses in the pews that populate just about every block, living up to its century-old nickname, "Church Row."

Why so many churches? According to Erica Ginsberg, a local filmmaker producing a documentary on the street's history, the 1815 arrival of St. John's Episcopal Church, just across Lafayette Square from the White House, probably established the street as a status address for religious worship, a stamp that lingers today.

Indeed, the 11 a.m. Sunday service at canary-yellow St. John's , with its creaky floorboards and centuries-old stained glass windows, provides visitors with a glimpse of establishment Washington. The hymns are traditional, the congregation well-coiffed, the sermons pleasant if bland ("no pain, no gain" was a recent message).

A well-timed visit might net a sighting of the president and his family, known to worship here in Pew 54 on special occasions.

The buttoned-down church has an alter ego, and at 1 p.m. it dons the mantle of Iglesia San Juan, opening its doors to the Latino community. The afternoon service feels like a family gathering, with cantos sung to guitar and tambourine. Kids show up in soccer jerseys, and congregants wish one another "la paz" with kisses and hugs rather than handshakes.

A couple of miles north, where 16th Street bisects immigrant-rich Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights, the iron-gated Shrine of the Sacred Heart says it serves faithful from 60 nations. Sunday mornings, vendors set up under striped umbrellas to create a town square that calls to mind more southerly capitals such as San Salvador or Quito. Churchgoers and passers-by have their pick of fried plantains and black beaded bracelets stamped Real Madrid, all for under a dollar.

Sunday Mass at Sacred Heart is offered in English, Spanish, Vietnamese and French-Creole, each a world unto itself. The noontime Spanish service is packed with Central American immigrants in polo shirts and jeans, while the 4:15 Haitian service draws a small but fervent crowd, a six-person choir swaying to the up-tempo beat of bongo drums.

At the Vietnamese Mass, women appear in traditional high-necked tunics over flowing pants and snap hand-painted fans back and forth, glinting silver in the smoky light. The sing-song language has a soporific effect, broken only when bells ring as the priest raises a chalice to the frescoed dome. He bows deeply, from the waist, to pay respects to the congregants; even the youngest among them returns the gesture.

Th e mood is less subdued across the street, where it takes Pastor Calvin E. Cage only minutes to work the black congregation at Meridian Hill Baptist Church into a crescendo of "Amens!" and "Yes, sirs!" during a sermon.

He's a master performer in a three-piece suit, loosening his tie and swiping a handkerchief across his face to let the crowd know he's just getting started. He feints, he pauses, he bellows. When he finally breaks into song and the organist kicks in, two rows of gray-haired female ushers, dressed head to toe in white, can't restrain themselves. They jump to their feet, waving fans stamped "Mayor Williams" and dance in the aisles.

A lower-key but no less interesting experience awaits a few blocks south at the unadorned All Souls Unitarian Church. There, the Rev. Rob Hardies quotes E.E. Cummings and rails against the religious right from a pulpit high above an upbeat crowd. Washingtonians of all faiths mix here on Sundays, and you'll find yourself wishing peace upon the tank-topped and tattooed, earnest public servants and gay couples toting babies.

All Souls sermons, available in MP3 format on the church's Web site, are light on Scripture and take pains to address issues that resonate with urban professionals, such as "Deliver Us from E-Mail."

But what really livens things up is the church's in-house theater troupe, the Kuumba Players, who present 10-minute morality tales with an ethereal flair. On a recent Sunday, the group performed "A Sufi Tale" with actors in the roles of wind, water and desert wafting down the aisles under gossamer scarves and emoting to the balcony. Looking down from his high-backed chair, even Mr. Hardies couldn't help but chuckle. 

Washington City Paper
August 12, 2005
"Street of Dreams" by Dave Jamieson

For the bulk of its run through the District, 16th Street NW isn’t necessarily an exciting place to hang out. Above Dupont Circle, there’s nary a bar or even a carryout for locals to lean against. And even if there were, the only thing worth watching might be the steady flash coming from the army of speed and red-light cameras, for which commuters brake abruptly as they bomb up- and downtown throughout the day. In fact, nothing reflects ambivalence to the street quite like the fact that Texas Rep. Henry Bonilla’s proposal to rename it Ronald Reagan Boulevard sat with Congress for a full week before anyone appropriately cried foul.

But those factors haven’t stopped local filmmaker Erica Ginsberg from kicking around the thoroughfare on nights and weekends for the past four years, filming her first feature-length documentary, Avenue of Aspirations, about 16th Street’s history. Ginsberg is hoping that, when she wraps production next year, she’ll show locals that there’s more to the strip than double-parked cars.

“This street is only seven miles long,” says the 35-year-old Greenbelt resident and Silver Spring native, “but considering all the different types of architecture, religions, race, and age groups, I’m not sure you get that anywhere else in this city.”

Riding down 16th Street on a Metro bus is a mundane ritual for thousands of commuters, but it was an epiphany for Ginsberg when she started heading downtown to her primary job, with the State Department, in the late ’90s. “Seeing all these people get on the bus, seeing all these things outside the window, I just got interested,” she says. “I looked to see what had been done. There was a book on the architecture of the street but not much else. I thought maybe I could make this into a film.”

At first, she and her cinematographer, Leon Gerskovic—Ginsberg produced Gerskovic’s documentary Crucible of War, about the Balkans—haphazardly shot events taking place along the corridor, anything from street festivals to Sunday services at some of the strip’s 40-odd houses of worship.

Since then, Ginsberg has spent a lot of her time filming the people who live and work in the gentrifying pockets along the street. She plans on structuring the 60-minute video through segments about particular 16th Street luminaries, such as Steve Coleman, the parks activist who helped reclaim Meridian Hill Park from muggers in the ’90s. Hence the film’s title: “It’s about all these people with their own aspirations, whether it’s to rejuvenate a park or rejuvenate a religious community,” Ginsberg says.

The director is hoping some film festivals and schools might eventually be interested in showing Avenue of Aspirations. To make do with her budget of zero, she’s been bartering services with other area film folks, such as Gerskovic, and applying for grants with local arts organizations.

But before she can worry too much about the business side, Ginsberg needs to pare down the 20-some hours of footage she’s shot along one of the city’s most pedestrian-unfriendly speedways. And she plans on braving the traffic to shoot more.

“There are too many stories to be told,” she says.

The Washington Post
August 5, 2005
"A Roadblock for Reagan: Proposal to Rename 16th St. Runs Into Objections" by Spencer Hsiu

A Republican congressman from South Texas has proposed renaming 16th Street NW as Ronald Reagan Boulevard.

Rep. Henry Bonilla, co-chairman of the 2000 and 2004 Republican national conventions, quietly introduced the 106-word resolution before Congress adjourned for summer recess July 28.

As word has spread in the nation's capital, neighborhood Web logs in the overwhelmingly Democratic city have crackled with disbelief, and elected D.C. leaders yesterday joined in protest. The Republican chairman of a key House committee also criticized the idea.

"Regardless of your political affiliation, most people agree that Ronald Reagan was an American icon," Bonilla, a former TV news broadcaster elected in 1992, said in a written statement yesterday. "He was a president of national significance and for that reason he deserves an honor in the nation's capital."

Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) objected, saying that renaming the historic north-south route that leads to the White House would mar the elegant street plan laid out by French engineer Pierre L'Enfant in 1791 -- and cost the city $1 million to alter maps and signs.

"It's been a long time since I've heard of a plan that made so little sense," Williams said. "Changing the unique and beautifully mapped street system in Washington would mean undoing . . . a design that has inspired millions of people from around the world."

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), chairman of the House Government Reform Committee with jurisdiction over Bonilla's legislation, called it "ridiculous" and said he would put it in the "appropriate file," according to a report on radio station WTOP's Web site that was distributed by Davis aides.

Davis noted that Congress has renamed Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and dedicated the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center on Pennsylvania Avenue NW. "If Congressman Bonilla wants to name anything else, he has to look at his own district in San Antonio," Davis said.

Washington's streets are laid out in a traditional grid, with broad diagonal avenues radiating from circles and squares. Generally, the avenues are named after the states; east-west streets are named after the letters of the alphabet; and north-south streets are numbered.

In 1986, Congress renamed a portion of 15th Street SW by the National Holocaust Museum after Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who rescued tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during World War II.

"Ronald Reagan, a conservative who respected tradition, might well have understood that the real significance of 16th Street is that it has given the White House its historic address, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), the District's nonvoting House member.

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