First Phase Complete: Ensuring High-Quality and Safe Facilities for Our Community
Sitar Arts Center completed the first phase of the Building the Next Stage project during the pandemic shutdown in 2020-2021. As DC marks three years since the shutdown order, we look back on how we used that time to ensure the health, safety, sustainability, and artistic excellence of our community arts center.
Sitar was founded with a guiding belief that every child deserves access to a high-quality arts education that can lead to life-changing experiences. In 2004, Sitar opened our state-of-the-art facility at 1700 Kalorama Road NW, with beautiful studios for every art form and highest quality equipment, instruments, and technology.
On that opening day, one young artist walked in and proclaimed, “I’m home!”
As the years passed, hundreds leaped and learned steps in our dance studio, acted in the 15 hit musical productions, and filled each of the 10 private practice rooms every afternoon with music, semester after semester, year after year. And after 15 years of continuous usage, our beloved center needed critical upgrades to its artistic equipment and systems.
As the leading voice for arts and culture in the District, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (CAH) understands the role that facilities play in enhancing artistic excellence and grounding organizational stability. CAH offers one of the only forms of stable public support in the city for capital investment in arts and cultural venues.
A CAH grant in 2019 replaced our well-worn dance studio floor, upgraded obsolete lighting and video systems in the theater, and enhanced our practice rooms, early childhood, and dance studios for 21st century learning. We also prioritized health and safety through a complete replacement of the aged and inefficient HVAC system and installation of Center-wide LED lighting. The grant leveraged matching gifts from 5 generous donors.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, CAH pivoted swiftly and offered funding to support COVID-19 related technology and safety equipment. With that support, Sitar upgraded its new HVAC to include medical-grade air filtration, added PPE across the Center, and invested in technology to improve virtual instruction and remote collaborative work. With that investment, Sitar ensured we met the call to continue its much-needed programming, first through the virtual space and then as one of DC’s first in-person places for arts education in 2021.
Simply put, Sitar would not have been able to welcome students back in person without the support of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities for these critical artistic and systems upgrades.
In 2021, CAH made its biggest investment in our future through a grant to purchase Sitar Next Door at 1724 Kalorama Road NW and increase accessibility to the arts for years to come.