Students performing at the Sitar Arts Center

There is a palpable energy that emanates from the Patricia M. Sitar Center for the Arts, located in the heart of Adams Morgan. Founded in 1998, the Sitar Arts Center has successfully created a warm and nurturing environment that instills a sense of community into everyone who passes through its doors—just so long as you know where those doors are.

“There are two things that I hear from everyone who visits,” said Ed Spitzberg, the Sitar Arts Center’s Executive Director. “They say, 1. ‘Wow, what a wonderful place,’ and 2. ‘I never knew this was here.'”

The Center moved into its current location, a colorfully decorated 10,700 square foot facility at 1700 Kalorama Road NW, in 2004. The dedicated staff and volunteers who work there offer a broad range of courses in the visual arts, dance, drama, creative writing, digital arts, and music. The Center has partnered with many of the area’s finest institutions to provide instruction, ranging from The National Symphony Orchestra, to the Shakespeare Theatre Company, to the Corcoran Gallery of Art. But the bulk of the teachers are volunteers who offer their services on a weekly basis. These instructors must have at least three years of experience in their given field. Most have day jobs, but in past lives have spent a lot of time honing their craft and continue to be semi-professional artists.

“Many of our teachers say the hour they spend here is the best hour of their week,” Spitzberg noted proudly.

The student body at the Sitar Arts Center, whose Spring semester begins today, has grown to approximately 480 students, a 50 percent increase from just last year. The students are generally between the ages of 6 and 18, and the vast majority live in the Adams Morgan/Mt. Pleasant/Columbia Heights area. In keeping with the Center’s original mission, 80 percent of the students come from low-income households.

The surrounding neighborhood has seen an increase in youth violence in recent months. That fact, coupled with the increased enrollment, shows that there is an increasing need and demand for the safe environment organizations like the Sitar Arts Center can provide.

As Spitzberg put it, “There is a crew right up the street from us. The kids can go up the hill to the gang, or come down the hill to us.”