Photo by Kevin Harber
The Kennedy Center announced today it has changed the selection process for the Kennedy Center Honors, after complaints over the honorees’ lack of diversity last year led one higher-up to reportedly hurl the f-word at a critic.
“Under the revised selection process, the solicitation of recommendations for Kennedy Center Honorees will be expanded,” a press release explains. “The Artists Committee, comprised of accomplished individuals in the performing arts and traditionally the source of recommendations to the Kennedy Center board of trustees, will be expanded to assure the broadest representation of outstanding candidates.”
Members of the public may submit recommendations for honorees on the Honors’ Web site, which will likely lead to some tween starting a “Help Make Justin Bieber a Kennedy Center Honoree” campaign.
A roaster of eligible artists will then go to an advisory committee—made up of Kennedy Center board members Cappy McGarr and Elaine Wynn, former Honorees cellist Yo-Yo Ma and actress Chita Rivera, and artist committee members opera singer Harolyn Blackwell and ballet dancer Damian Woetzel—who will narrow the field to 10 to 20 people. The Kennedy Center’s chairman and president, as well as the producers of the Honors, will then create “slates” of possible honorees, which will then go to the executive committee of the Kennedy Center board of trustees for a final decision.
The National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts and National Hispanic Leadership Agenda criticized the Kennedy Center Honors last year after Latino performers were shut out once again. There have only been two Latino honorees—Rivera and opera singer and former Washington National Opera general director Placido Domingo—in the Honors’ 35 year history.
In a very undiplomatic, not at all ill-advised move, Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser spoke to the head of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda by phone and told him, “Go fuck yourself.”
The revised selection process is certainly a more constructive response.
