Two more performers have cancelled shows at the Kennedy Center after the venue’s board voted to rename the institution to include US President Donald Trump’s name.
Veteran jazz band The Cookers announced they were cancelling two New Year’s Eve performances. In a statement, the group did not directly mention Trump or the Kennedy Center but said the decision “came together very quickly.”
Dance company Doug Varone and Dancers also said they would cancel two shows scheduled for April, adding that they “can no longer permit ourselves nor ask our audiences to step inside this once great institution.”
The Kennedy Center’s president, Richard Grenell, described the cancellations as “a form of derangement syndrome.” He said the artists who cancelled “were booked by the previous far left leadership” and suggested the decisions were politically motivated. Grenell has previously demanded $1 million in damages from musician Chuck Redd, who cancelled his annual Christmas Eve show citing the name change.
The centre’s board recently voted to rename the venue the Donald J Trump and the John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, adding new signage to the building’s exterior the following day. Some lawmakers and legal experts argue that Congress must approve the change, as the original name was set by federal law in 1964.
Members of President Kennedy’s family have publicly criticised the renaming. Joe Kennedy III, the late president’s grandnephew, described the centre as “a living memorial to a fallen president” and compared renaming it to changing the name of the Lincoln Memorial.
Other artists have also cited the name change in their decisions to withdraw, including folk singer Kristy Lee, who said she could not perform when “American history starts getting treated like something you can ban, erase, rename, or rebrand for somebody else’s ego.”
The cancellations have drawn national attention and sparked debate over the intersection of politics and the arts in America.
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