This Thursday marks the start of the Fall Festival of Indian Arts, a program that is now in its fourth installment. This year's festival is entitled Celebrating Freedom, in honor of the 60th anniversary of Indian and Pakistani independence. Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh & Co., a local dance company, is staging the event and its mission is to mirror the modern South Asian experience by presenting traditional Indian dance forms in tandem with modern stylings. The......

>> DAM! Fest kicks of with its first night of shows featuring a dozen different bands at three venues, including New York's A Place to Bury Strangers (don't miss our interview with the band) and Dirty on Purpose at the Rock and Roll Hotel, Vandaveer and Julie Ocean at the Red and The Black, and Foreign Islands at DC9, among many others. Check out our guide to the DAM! highlights. >> Two film festivals open......

DCist's highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week. Repertory: D.C. Labor FilmFest Strictly speaking, the D.C. Labor FilmFest isn't a repertory festival, but with over half of their programming falling into that category, plus a dedicated retrospective to the great Ken Loach, we'll go ahead and shoehorn it into the category this week. The festival is put on by the Washington Metro Council of......

Today is National Coming Out Day, a day when gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are encouraged to be open about who they are. The annual observance began on October 11, 1988, exactly one year after the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. (The first one was held October 14, 1979.) While there aren't usually major events to commemorate the day, there are a couple of local events that coincide with......

FRIDAY: >> Let it be known - any country with a holiday that translates as "party of music" (or "music party") is OK in our book. In celebration of the French holiday Fete de la Musique, as well as the summer solstice, French and American musicians will be performing at La Maison Francaise tonight. Local guitar and cello duo Janel and Anthony*** will play from 8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on the auditorium stage, but......

>> The National are playing a sold-out show at 9:30 Club tonight, with Shapes and Sizes & Talkdemonic, doors at 7:15 p.m. If you don't have tickets, you have three options: Get thee to craigslist, park yourself at DC9 before the show and keep an eye out for folks who got stood up, or sit in the sweet, sweet air conditioning at home and tune into NPR's live streaming web cast of the headliners......

I thought I was getting such a good deal on my salon visits. A shampoo, a good cut, some pleasant conversation. They have good music playing, and everyone's friendly. Most importantly, the price is low enough not to seriously offend a sense of haircut-related frugality instilled through years in childhood spent getting bargain cuts in wood-paneled barbershops where grizzled Vietnam vets with fewer than 10 fingers cut hair with brisk efficiency while Hank Williams Sr.......

FRIDAY: >> The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception offers its annual Christmas Concert for Charity tonight. The Basilica's professional choir (featuring our very own DCist Charles!) will perform, followed by the choirs and orchestra of Catholic University. Admission is free, with a free-will donation to benefit the Spanish Catholic Center, a haven for immigrants to the Washington, D.C., area since 1967. The center provides services at locations in Mount Pleasant and......

FRIDAY: The DAM! Festival doesn't start until next weekend, but the organizers rightfully want you to be psyched for it to start already. They're hosting a Kickoff Party tonight at the Rock and Roll Hotel, with Exit Clov, The Dance Party, Dirty on Purpose (pictured), and DJ Geologist (who we interviewed earlier this week). $9 gets you in the door. >> Reel Affirmations, the D.C. area's Annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered film festival, wraps......

Written by DCist Contributor Christopher Durocher In commemoration of National Coming Out Day it’s time to set the record, er, straight. It’s time to admit what every gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered person already knows – mainstream, gay-themed cinema is, at best, a mixed bag. But don’t despair. Beginning October 12, the Reel Affirmations International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, is going to show D.C. that there is more to queer cinema than gay......

Well folks, today is 06/06/06. If you're unaware of the old wives tales associated with this date, Livescience.com may shed some light on it. And since it's somewhat hard to avoid an entire day, just watch out for any folks named Damien, the apocalypse, or devilish things today. Officers Placed on Leave after D.C. Jail Break: In what sounds like a Hollywood storyline, the D.C. jail break continues to make news. WJLA tells us that......

"Bread is Satan," Eve Ensler declares definitively early on in the production of The Good Body, her one-woman show and follow-up to the wildly popular Vagina Monologues, now playing at the Lincoln Theatre. As she nevertheless waxes on about the joys of bread and dismisses such derivatives as flatbread as the mere "memory of bread," Atkins aficionados, South Beach slaves, and whole-grain worshippers in the audience can’t help but grin with understanding. The tension between......

December may have been classic musical central, but January brings a new year and host of exciting options, heavy topics and renowned playwrights showcased by local theatres. Opening this week is Studio Theatre's anticipated Neil LaBute Festival, highlighting the work of the often-caustic man responsible for, among other things, The Shape of Things and In The Company Of Men. The festival kicks off with Fat Pig, which explores whether a man can overcome his friends'......

The first ever Duke Ellington Jazz Festival kicked off last night, and the District is all a buzz with what's in store for the weekend after what we've heard was a thrilling performance by the Dave Brubeck Quartet at the Lincoln Theatre. The rest of the schedule, put together by Dizzy Gillespie's former producer and manager Charles Fishman, looks to be equally goosebump inducing. We can't tell you how many e-mails and comments we've already......

Catherine Andrews contributed to these picks FRIDAY: >> It's your duty as a local music loving citizen: you must make it out to the Black Cat tonight to catch the line up of Washington Social Club (read our interview here), Monopoli, and Cartel. Their live shows range from frenetic to slowburning to melodious, and they're all a treat. DCist will be there with stacks of t-shirts to sell and info about the site. 9:30,......

A lot, if a story in today's WaPo is any indication. It seems that Shaw's African American community is balking at the notion of officially designating a stretch of 9th Street NW, between U and T streets, as "Little Ethiopia." The area has in fact been commonly referred to as such by a lot of District residents (including by DCist) since a whole bunch of Ethiopian restaurants and markets opened there in recent years.......

DCist considers ourselves fortunate enough to have been part of the 1,200 invite-only crowd at the Lincoln Theatre on U Street NW last night, where D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams delivered his the annual State of the District address. Part policy proposals and part campaign stump speech, the address clearly identified a city on the up-and-up but with still much to do. Williams listed problems and solutions, yet the genius was more in the underlying message......

Sad News at the Zoo. No, we don't have any word about the status of possible panda babies at the National Zoo, but you can check for pregnancy watch updates here. Sadly, we must turn to camels. The Post reports that the zoo's only camel died. It was an 18-year-old Bactrian camel, an endangered animal native to northwestern China and Mongolia that typically lives 35-50 years. Just to be clear, we don't know if......

D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams will deliver the annual "State of the District" speech next Monday at 7 p.m. from the Lincoln Theatre on U Street NW. In District politics, this is about as big as it gets, and DCist only naturally wants in on the action. There has been a lively debate in recent months over what, if anything, bloggers do. Are they journalists? Should they be granted similar access to media events? Can they......

(From DCist contributor Zoe Mitchell) U Street's long jazz tradition continues this weekend with the world premiere of the Suite for Human Nature with renowned jazz musician Wynton Marsalis (right), the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and The Boys Choir of Harlem at the Lincoln Theatre this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. According to an email circulated on the U Street News listserv, an uplifting satirical fable for the entire family, Suite for Human Nature chronicles the......

Oh my. Everywhere we looked this around, we were swamped by a multitude of events having to do with pine trees and carols and lights and cookies. You know what that means: the holiday deluge is officially upon us! Enjoy the next few manic weeks. FRIDAY: >> The ambitious and genre-hopping Magentic Fields, spearheaded by indie-god Stephen Merrit, play the Birchmere in Alexandria. $25. 10 p.m. >> Debbie Stoller, author of the hit Stich 'N......