The British Embassy and the U.S. Department of State are celebrating the launch of “Try Rugby USA,” a campaign to grow international community outreach and youth development around Rugby in the U.S., with a friendly rugby match.

WHAT:          U.S. v UK Friendly Touch Rugby Game

WHEN:          12:30-2:00pm Wednesday 24 February 2016

WHERE:        Cooper Field at Georgetown University

3700 O St NW Washington DC 20007

Playing on the UK team is Ken Harvey, a former Washington Redskins player, to help highlight the affinity for sports on both sides of the Atlantic and the NFL international series in London. Other members of the UK team consist of British Embassy staff and British Defence staff. Tosh Askew, who has coached England U19s for 5 years and won Grand Slam in 2004, Nic Rouse, rugby union player for London Irish in the Aviva Premiership, and Caryl Thomas, head coach of the University of Bath Women’s rugby team and has played for Wales Women in the Six Nations Championship and in two World Cups (2010, 2014), will coach the UK team.

Playing on the US team includes Whitney Stowell, President of Washington Irish RFC, and Chris Howard, a Tiger Rugby coach. Other players will include U.S. Department of State staff. James Walker, founder of Tiger Rugby, will coach and play on the US team.

The event is open to the public and media and free to attend. Parking is extremely limited, public transportation is recommended.

Rugby Facts:

• Rugby is the fastest growing sport in the US.
• The UK hosted the Rugby World Cup in 2015.
• Rugby will be part of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, having last been an Olympic sport in 1924. The US won gold that year, so have been the gold medal holders for more than 90 years.
• Famous rugby players include Sean Connery, Daniel Craig, John F Kennedy, JRR Tolkien, Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Russell Crowe, Chris Farley, Meat Loaf and Ernesto “Che” Guevara.

History of Rugby:

Rugby lore has the game originating in 1823, when a pupil at Rugby School, William Webb Ellis, picked up the ball during a football match and ran with it. This new game slowly spread around public schools and universities, with the first formal rules inked in 1845. A Rugby Football Union (RFU) followed in 1871, with an inaugural international – England versus Scotland – played that same year. 1883 then witnessed Britain’s Home Nations Championship, the first international rugby competition. By 1908, with the sport having long spread into many former British colonies, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa had all sent touring teams to compete.

Despite continued growth, rugby union didn’t turn professional until the International Rugby Board (later the IRFB, now World Rugby) removed player-payment restrictions in 1995. Continental club competitions soon followed, including Europe’s much-vaunted Heineken Cup and Super Rugby in the southern hemisphere. Today, World Rugby boasts 117 member countries.

For the first time, Premiership Rugby will host a game in the US. The London Irish v Saracens game will be played at the Red Bull Arena in New Jersey on 12 March 2016.

Try Rugby USA

Hosted by British Council USA, Friends of the British Council USA, and USA Rugby geographical unions and state based rugby organizations, the coaches from the Aviva Premiership Rugby Clubs will be joined on the road by coaches from US based Tiger Rugby. Together they will deliver a range of coach education sessions, coaching clinics for schools, universities, clubs, youth programs as well as linking with existing rugby based social projects like Play Rugby USA. They hope to build a sustainable network of coaches, clubs and players designed to bring together, develop the skills of and inspire the US rugby community to build pathways to introduce the sports and its values to youth.

Activities will take place in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington, DC, and Texas in the coming months.

For more details: http://www.britishcouncil.us/programmes/society/try-rugby-usa

Washington National Opera (WNO) continues its 60th anniversary season with Leah Crocetto in Recital, featuring the celebrated star of last season’s Dialogues of the Carmelites, on Friday, February 26, 2016 at 7 p.m. in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. Accompanied by acclaimed pianist Mark Markham, Ms. Crocetto will perform art songs by Strauss, Duparc, and Barber, as well as popular opera arias and a few of her favorite jazz standards.

Recognized as a rising star in the next generation of singers, American soprano Leah Crocetto made her WNO last season as Madame Lidoine in Poulenc’s powerful Dialogues of the Carmelites. She represented the United States at the 2011 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, where she was a finalist in the Song Competition. She is a 2010 Grand Finals winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and was the First Place Winner, People’s Choice, and the Spanish Prize Winner of the 2009 Jose Iturbi International Music Competition, and winner of the Bel Canto Foundation competition. A former Adler Fellow at San Francisco Opera, Ms. Crocetto has appeared frequently with the company, most recently in the title role of Verdi’s Luisa Miller in Francesca Zambello’s celebrated production.

In her stellar 2015-2016 season, Leah Crocetto makes two major debuts: her long-awaited Metropolitan Opera debut as Liù in Turandot, and her role debut as Semiramide in Rossini’s seldom-heard opera of the same name, with Opéra National de Bordeaux. Additional highlights of the season include Anna in Maometto II with the Canadian Opera Company and Donna Anna in Don Giovanni with Santa Fe Opera.

Last season, in addition to her debut at WNO, Ms. Crocetto performed Desdemona in Otello with English National Opera, Mimì in La bohème with San Francisco Opera, and Elisabetta di Valois in a new production of Don Carlo (a co-production with WNO) at Opera Philadelphia.

Equally at home as a soloist, a collaborator with some of the finest singers in the world, a jazz pianist, or a vocal coach, pianist Mark Markham and his interpretations have been praised by the public and press alike. Since 1995, Mr. Markham has been the recital partner of Jessye Norman, giving nearly 300 performances in over 25 countries, including recitals in Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, London’s Royal Festival Hall, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Salzburg Festival, Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo, Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv, the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus in Greece, and at the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize presentation to President Jimmy Carter in Oslo. In 1990, Mr. Markham was invited to join the faculty of the Peabody Conservatory, where he served for ten years as vocal coach and professor of vocal repertoire and accompanying. He relocated to Europe for a decade, living in the South of France while maintaining a busy international schedule as a solo artist and collaborative partner with Ms. Norman, before returning to the United States in 2011. In addition to performances around the world, he maintains a vocal coaching studio in New York City and Baltimore.

Washington National Opera’s 2015-2016 season continues with the company premiere of Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson’s Lost in the Stars, February 12-20 in the Eisenhower Theater, and concludes with its first complete presentation of Wagner’s extraordinary four-part Ring Cycle, with a world-class cast under the direction of Francesca Zambello and featuring the WNO Orchestra conducted by WNO Music Director Philippe Auguin, April 30 to May 22, 2016. WNO’s 2016-2017 season will be announced in the coming weeks.

TICKET INFORMATION:

All tickets to Leah Crocetto in Recital are $45 and are available online, in person at the Kennedy Center Box Office, and by calling (202) 467-4600 or (800) 444-1324.

Commissary will host the fifth annual Oscar’s viewing party on Sunday, February 28, 2016 from 4:00 p.m. – 12:00 a.m. The viewing party will kick-off with the Red Carpet viewing from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m., featuring passed hors d’oeuvres while the red carpet arrivals show on a full wall projector before the 8:00 p.m. awards. The entire evening features a limited open bar and endless flowing champagne, as well as a dinner buffet with more than a dozen Oscar-themed savory and sweet offerings.

An Oscar ticket will include event entry with viewing from all three bar TVs and two full wall projectors, and unlimited food offerings throughout the evening inspired by each nominated movie.

There are only 80 tickets available for this event. Tickets will not be sold at the door and can be purchased only by going to Commissarydc.com at the online ticket site (full ticket options & details below).

Full ticket details are included below, and the full press release is attached.

The Diplomats of Dance Society is excited to announce a post-performance champagne reception in celebration of the newest dance work by the Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company (DTSBDC).  On February 28, 2016 at 2:00pm and 6:00pm the public is invited to a free dance performance at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.  Following the 6:00pm performance, the Diplomats of Dance Society will host a reception at NoPa in celebration of the dance company, tickets can be purchased at http://diplomatsatnopa.eventbrite.com in advance at $20 for society members and $40 for non-members.

Time after time, the DTSBDC provides global audiences with cross-cultural perspectives while utilizing visual, musical, and spoken arts as well.  Choreographer Dana Tai Soon Burgess’s latest creation is no different.  Inspired by Alexander Gardner’s famous Civil War-era images, Burgess promises a powerful and moving performance in, “The Foster Suite: The Remains of Loss and Longing”.

The Diplomats of Dance Society is an organization dedicated to highlighting and supporting the DTSBDC’s unique artistic and cultural work both in the United States and abroad.  Young professionals and art-interested Washingtonians alike come together at events throughout the year to applaud Burgess and his dance company.  Members and donations for the Diplomats of Dance Society directly support ‘dance diplomacy’ as DC’s foremost modern dance group prepares to embark on two international tours as a U.S. State Department cultural envoy in 2016.

Street Light Circus presents – “Out of the Shadows”

The Fridge is pleased to present a one night pop-up gallery of new photographic works by the D.C. based collaboration, Street Light Circus.

The opening of “Out of the Shadows” will run from 7pm to 11pm on March 1st 2016.

Using Washington, D.C. as a backdrop, these photographs honor the body and urban spaces.

Where the physical prowess becomes extensions of architecture and humanity.

March 1st from 7 pm – 11pm

The Fridge Art Gallery

516 1/2 8th St., S.E. (Rear Alley)

Free Admission