Washington City Paper (July 10, 2020)

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NEWS WHO GETS TO VISIT HOSPITAL PATIENTS? 4 SPORTS A NEW CHANCE TO RUN PERSONAL BESTS 7 ARTS HOW TO TAKE DANCE CLASSES IN A PANDEMIC 11

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Flying V Theatre’s artistic director has been accused of sexually harassing women for more than a decade.

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Allegations about his behavior resurfaced on social media.

This is what women have to say about his actions.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS COVER STORY 8 Speaking Out: Women who experienced harassing behavior respond to the actions of Flying V Theatre’s former artistic director.

NEWS 4 Visiting Powers: While COVID-19 remains an active threat, local hospitals have to reimagine their visitation policies.

6 Loose Lips: Does the Metropolitan Police Department use excessive force when interacting with dirt bike riders?

SPORTS 7 Time Bandit: Despite the pandemic, an AU alumna is running record times on a Virginia track.

ARTS 11 Dance Moves: With classes suspended, young dancers and their teachers figure out how to train.

12 Photography Business: A local artist tells the story of small business owners through photos.

13 Film: Zilberman on Palm Springs

CITY LIGHTS 15 City Lights: Hear long distance pals discuss their book about friendship and watch a video about the creation of the National Gallery of Art’s East Building.

DIVERSIONS 14 Crossword 18 Savage Love 19 Classifieds

Darrow Montgomery | 1700 Block of Columbia Road NW, June 30 Editorial

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NEWS CITY DESK

Visiting Powers

opinion, bringing doulas back to local hospitals is in the best interest for all pregnant people.

“I also just think about the irony. I just went to the dentist to have my teeth cleaned, and there were two people in the room with me then,” says Goodstein. “We could go eat at a restaurant …

Someone told me you could even get a facial, but you can’t have your doula with you at your birth?

Birth is scary. I have never had a baby before. I’m excited to have this baby, but I’m also scared. I’ve never stayed overnight in a hospital. I want the team that I put together there to support me, and it’s scary to think that I might not have that.”

Local hospitals have to make tough choices about which patients can accept visitors during the coronavirus pandemic. Some support workers, like doulas, feel left out.

The Bowser administration has allowed different sectors of the economy to ease restrictions and slowly reopen as the number of COVID19 cases and deaths decrease since the first wave of infections and fatalities in late spring and early summer. The virus is still active and there is no vaccine, but officials argue the D.C. health care system is equipped to handle the current rate of infections, so phased reopening began in May..

While the Bowser administration has issued orders for when businesses and traditional public schools could begin phased reopening, it has not done so for hospitals. Individual hospitals are ultimately setting their own policies related to visitation, Bowser’s press secretary, Susana Castillo, tells City Paper. “The DC Hospital Association has pulled together a small group of subject matter experts to provide recommendations and guidelines in an attempt to somewhat standardize the policies across the health care system,” Castillo adds.

Emily Pearl Goodstein has accepted the fact that her parents and siblings will not be able to visit her in the hospital when she delivers her baby this summer, even though they live locally and she’d really like them to be present. She has also accepted the fact that she won’t be able to invite a photographer to document the birth of her child. In a past career, she was a birth photographer, so she assumed she’d bring in someone to capture the moment.

But due to the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 550 D.C. residents since March, local hospitals have had to restrict visitation. George Washington University Hospital, where Goodstein plans to have her baby, temporarily restricted all visitors except in select circumstances, including labor and delivery. The hospital has not changed its visitation policy since a public health emergency was declared on March 11.

“They don’t know how the reopening is going to unfold,” Goodstein says. “I appreciate they are being cautious and they are making these decisions to minimize COVID spread.”

But the hospital considers doulas to be guests and, based on its policy of one visitor per pregnant person, Goodstein will have to choose between birthing with her husband or her doula, whom she considers an extension of her birth team.

Her doula, Casey Runck, is trained to provide emotional and physical support, has additional training in high-risk pregnancies, and has attended more than 250 births, including some at GW Hospital.

Having Runck at the hospital would make it easier for Goodstein to cope with the stressful experience. At 37, Goodstein is considered to be of advanced maternal age, and pregnancy complications are more likely. She is quick to recognize her privilege—she is a White woman who is close to her provider and believes her husband can advocate for her if need be—but she also recognizes this is not everyone’s experience. In her

Darrow Montgomery/File

By Amanda Michelle Gomez @amanduhgomez

University Hospital allows only one visitor for end-of-life care, whereas Sibley Hospital allows two visitors at a time. And some, like MedStar Health, which includes Washington Hospital Center and Georgetown University Hospital, list exceptions for patients undergoing an urgent or emergency surgery. United Medical Center says it “is prepared to make exceptions on a case by case basis.”

Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, visitors were welcomed into hospitals; they just named the patient and showed identification. There were designated hours, and the number of visitors a patient could see at a time were sometimes restricted, but there were waiting areas. “Visitors are an important part of the healing process,” Howard University Hospital states on its website. During the COVID-19 crisis, visitors pose a threat to patients and staff alike. They could have COVID-19. At one point during the pandemic, New York hospitals told pregnant patients they’d have to labor alone. This only changed after Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order reversing the rule.

Strict hospital visitor policies can also be barriers for patients with disabilities. Not every D.C. hospital makes clear on its website whether it makes visitation exceptions for all patients with disabilities who require in-person support. In some states, there were no exceptions for this community until courts intervened.

Disability organizations recently sued the state of Connecticut and a local hospital there, alleging their no-visitor policies discriminated against patients with disabilities. As a result,

health and safety considerations with the rights of people with disabilities to access in-person supports while they are hospitalized. She argues this would create greater clarity and continuity.

The DC Hospital Association just updated its guidelines for hospitals and health systems in response to D.C. entering Phase 2 in late June. The association is now recommending all patients be allowed one visitor “within designated visitation hours.” But it still recommends one visitor or support person per day whenever possible for select groups, including laboring patients. It also says patients who have or are suspected to have COVID-19 should still not be allowed to have visitors except in end-of-life situations. (City Paper requested an interview with the association, but did not immediately hear back.) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for its part, recommends hospitals “[l]imit visitors to the facility to only those essential for the patient’s physical or emotional well-being and care.”

With no formal rules in place across the District, individual hospitals are having to make the difficult decision of deciding who to allow in their facility, as there is still a moderate rate of community transmission in D.C. There is also little opportunity for public input.

“As we watch the world open up again to normalcy, the hospital should be the safest stronghold for that next phase, and that’s what we are doing,” says Howard University Hospital CEO Anita L. A. Jenkins.

Howard University Hospital is constantly evaluating its policies, and following what the hospital association recommends. By and large,

George Washington University Hospital A City Paper review of visitation restrictions related to COVID-19 shows acute hospitals across the District have largely maintained a novisitor policy over the course of the pandemic.

There are limited exceptions for specific inpatient stays. In addition to labor and delivery, all hospitals have exceptions for end-of-life care and pediatrics. There are slight variances—Howard

4 july 10, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

the state ordered a policy change via emergency regulations. Tauna Szymanski with CommunicationFIRST, an D.C.-based organization that advocates for people with speechrelated communication disabilities, says the ideal situation would be having a local government body set a clear policy that applies to all hospitals about how to balance coronavirus-related public

Jenkins says, the hospital is very stringent on who is allowed to enter the facility. The hospital is not testing every visitor for COVID-19, she says, so it must be very methodical. For instance, it will not accept student volunteers over the summer.

“When you start talking about introducing additional layers of personnel in the hospital, we do want to be careful,” Jenkins says in response to

NEWS this reporter’s question about welcoming doulas.

“We want to make sure our patients are safe, that they are not exposed to unnecessary exposure from the community. That is first and foremost.”

Meanwhile, hospitals in other neighboring states have relaxed visitation restrictions.

Virginia Hospital Center, for example, updated its visitation policy effective July 1 to allow obstetric patients to invite a partner and one certified midwife or doula. The update reflects decisions made by the individual hospital. “The safety of our patients and staff is our top priority,” a spokesperson writes via email. The hospital also relaxed other restrictions, such as allowing many outpatients to be accompanied by one support person and returning visiting hours in the evenings for select patient areas.

D.C. has been generally slower than its neighbors to reopen. Virginia has already moved to Phase 3, whereas the Bowser administration has yet to even publicly discuss what Phase 3 could look like. During daily press conferences, DC Health Director Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt has credited the city’s comparatively slow phased reopening with why we have not seen an increase in infections as other parts of the country have.

The pandemic has not stopped deliveries, but it has changed them. And now there is a concerted effort to welcome doulas back into hospitals. The local affiliate of the American College of Nurse-Midwives wrote an open letter requesting that policymakers ease visitation restrictions to allow doulas in the delivery room, in addition to a laboring person’s select partner.

“Doulas should be utilized as a service to enhance goals to improve birth outcomes and reduce racial and ethnic disparities,” the letter, published May 29, says. “We urge health systems to avoid fear-based policies and decisions.

DC ACNM advocates for the presence of in-person labor support persons and doulas in all but extreme circumstances where the risk of contagion outweighs the proven benefits of these individuals.”

Midwives at GW Hospital have also been advocating for the return of doulas. Jashia Pinkney, a certified nurse midwife who just completed a one-year fellowship at GW Hospital, says she and her colleagues emphasize the importance of doulas during town halls with physicians.

“In a big practice like GW, where as a midwife on call I can have up to three to four births, doulas are very essential,” Pinkney tells City Paper.

“Just like a midwife, just like a doctor, doulas are essential providers and are trained to be able to help mothers during labor … Doulas are essential, and there is actual evidence published that supports the use of doulas for labor and birth.”

Pinkney points to a recent peer-reviewed, World Health Organization-supported study that shows individuals who received continuous support during childbirth were more likely to have spontaneous vaginal births and less likely to report negative feelings about their experience or use pain medication. “Subgroup analyses suggested that continuous support was most effective at reducing caesarean birth, when the provider was present in a doula role,” the study reads.

Some doulas have begun offering their services virtually. Runck, who is a solo doula and typically attends one to two births a month, still offers emotional and relational support over Zoom or other video chat platforms; she’s attended five virtual births during the pandemic. In Runck’s experience, clients are more likely to choose a partner over a doula. “It is a family that is born. It is not a baby that is born,” she explains.

It’s challenging for Runck to fully appreciate what’s happening in the delivery room with such a limited camera view. She recalls having to provide meaningful feedback to one of her clients who was pushing during delivery, but she couldn’t really see what was happening. She conveys her support through language because she is not able to provide the kind of physical support she usually does, from grabbing ice chips to offering massages.

“There are definitely benefits to a virtual doula. I feel very, very strongly that a virtual doula is better than no doula,” says Runck.

“Doulas have been left out of the conversation” around hospital visitation restrictions under COVID-19, Runck adds.

“Doulas are so passionate about what we do and making sure our families are safe that we would do what it takes—if it is testing, or whatever the case may be—to make sure we can get back in and support these families again,” says Amanda Coles, a solo doula serving patients in the D.C. region.

As of July 2, GW Hospital says it does not have plans to change its visitation restrictions. “Please know that we recognize the importance of each family’s birth plan and do not take decisions such as this lightly. We also understand how difficult it is to not be with loved ones while they are in the hospital and to have limited support from loved ones while in the hospital,” says a GW hospital spokesperson.

In contrast, a freestanding birth center at Community of Hope, a care organization that serves low-income and homeless D.C. residents has welcomed a pregnant person’s doula in addition to their one visitor during labor throughout the pandemic.

“At the end of the day, our main goal is for women or birthing people to be happy with their birth experience, and we understand that support has a huge role in that,” says Tracie Brown, a certified nurse midwife with Community of Hope.

She supports calls for the return of doulas to hospitals and worries about the unintended consequences of visitation restrictions. In trying to address D.C.’s high maternal mortality rates, particularly as it relates to Black women, health care leaders have been working to secure support systems, including doulas, for pregnant people.

Barring doulas from in-person support for the unforeseen future without substituting this care could impact health outcomes, Brown says.

“How people birth and how they feel about their birth experiences impacts how they feel and how they transition. Depression and anxiety increase maternal morbidity, so it’s something that I think hasn’t been taken into consideration from hospital systems,” says Brown. washingtoncitypaper.com july 10, 2020 5

NEWS LOOSE LIPS

Deadly Force A federal lawsuit alleges that MPD engages in a pattern and practice of targeting dirt bike riders with excessive force.

Jeffrey Price and Arnell Robinson died nine years, one month, and 29 days apart, both in dirt bike collisions with Metropolitan Police Department vehicles. In March 2009, witnesses say Officer Michael Pepperman struck and killed Robinson, 20, with his unmarked Ford Taurus on O Street NW. In May 2018, Price, 22, was killed in a collision with Officer Michael Pearson’s patrol SUV on Division Avenue NE. Price is one of the men killed at the hands of MPD officers whose name local police critics repeat in their demands for reform within the department. Those voices have grown louder and attracted more attention of late, after a White officer in Minneapolis killed George Floyd, a Black man, sparking protests throughout the country. Many cities are considering or have passed police reform legislation in response.

The police actions leading up to Robinson and Price’s fatal incidents are just two examples of what attorney David Shurtz says is a pattern and practice of MPD officers using deadly force against Black men riding dirt bikes. (It is illegal to ride a dirt bike on D.C. streets.)

Shurtz represented Robinson’s family in a lawsuit filed in 2009 against the District and Pepperman. He collected about 230 sworn affidavits from dirt bike riders to support his claims.

Because most of those affidavits pertained to incidents that took place after Robinson’s death, however, the judge only allowed Schurtz to use 22 as evidence of an established practice.

The case settled out of court for an undisclosed amount and was dismissed in 2016.

Now, Shurtz represents Price’s family in another wrongful death lawsuit, and because Price’s death in 2018 occurred after each of the incidents recalled in those 230 affidavits, Price’s family can theoretically use all of them to bolster their case and show a pattern and practice.

Lawsuits against police officers often come with questions of qualified immunity—the legal doctrine that shields officers and other government officials from liability. House Democrats have a proposal to eliminate that protection as part of a police reform bill, but Senate Republicans see it as a “poison pill.”

But a more significant step, from Shurtz’s perspective, is to hit police departments and officers in their bank accounts.

Shurtz’s lawsuit, filed on behalf of Jeffrey Price’s mother, Denise, accuses Pearson and two other MPD officers, David Jarboe and Anthony Gaton, of negligence, assault, battery, and constitutional violations of due process and use of excessive force. Shurtz is asking the judge to award a total of $100 million in

Darrow Montgomery/File

By Mitch Ryals @MitchRyals

monetary damages to account for the loss of Price’s life and, separately, as punishment for the government’s alleged pattern and practice of targeting dirt bike riders.

Punitive damages are ordinarily unheard of in civil litigation against municipalities. But Shurtz believes Price’s situation represents a unique case.

Shurtz says a 2010 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Reggie B. Walton opened the door for monetary damages as punishment only in “extraordinary circumstances.” He believes Price’s death qualifies as an extraordinary circumstance when taking into consideration the District’s alleged pattern of “hitting … bikers with their government vehicles or otherwise driving them off the road into dangerous obstacles and situations,” the lawsuit says.

Instead of handing out discipline, MPD officers who “target black bikers with deadly force are routinely given promotions and pay increases which inspires other officers to target black bikers with their cruisers with impunity,” the lawsuit claims.

“When I look at the 200 witnesses attesting to the well-known practice of using police cruisers to knock off riders, it tells me the District needs to be concerned about a spectacular loss,” says Carl Messineo, a local attorney who has experience in police misconduct cases but who is not involved in Price’s case. “The allegations show an utter disregard to Black lives.”

Messineo, a co-founder of the public interest legal nonprofit Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, also points to MPD’s general orders on vehicle chases that explicitly prohibit officers from intentionally hitting another fleeing vehicle with their vehicle. That section of the order is

6 july 10, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

redacted in the version MPD publishes online.

Messineo provided LL with an unredacted copy.

Officer Pepperman’s involvement in both cases raises questions about the integrity of MPD’s internal review and disciplinary mechanisms.

According to Pepperman’s account of the 2009 fatal collision, he was headed east on O Street NW when he saw Robinson and two other motorbike riders coming toward him. He claimed the bikes were headed the wrong way on a one-way street, and he stopped in the middle of the roadway to allow the bikes to pass.

Pepperman claimed that Robinson sped ahead of the other two, looked back and then forward toward the police car, and then “turned the handle bars of his dirt bike to the left,” and “plant[ed] his right foot on the ground,” according to court records. His bike slid under the car, but Robinson’s momentum flung him into a parked car, Pepperman claimed.

But witnesses, including Officer Gina Leveque, Pepperman’s partner and passenger that day, dispute his description.

For starters, the vehicles were traveling on a two-way road. Robinson’s fellow dirt bike riders and an unconnected bystander said Pepperman swerved from his lane, crossed over the centerline of O Street NW, and collided with Robinson. Leveque told a crash investigator that Pepperman “did that on purpose,” though she later walked back that statement, attributing her reversal to the emotion of seeing Robinson’s crash.

“I guess I just wanted to point the finger, I guess,” Leveque told police investigators. “I don’t know. I was just really, really upset.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute Pepperman, and MPD’s crash review panel determined Robinson’s death was an unavoidable accident.

In 2018, Price was riding his dirt bike on Division Avenue NE toward Fitch Place NE, where Pearson was parked, according to his family’s lawsuit. Officers Jarboe and Gaton chased Price, who, according to a police report, was traveling at 70 miles per hour.

As Price approached Fitch Place NE, the police narrative says, Pearson pulled his vehicle onto Division and spotted Price riding in the wrong lane. Pearson then pulled his vehicle forward to avoid Price. But witnesses dispute that account, saying Pearson intentionally pulled in front of Price and created “a situation where the collision with Price was unavoidable, deliberate and intentional,” the lawsuit says.

In written responses to the suit, MPD denies that Pearson acted inappropriately.

After hearing about his nephew’s collision, Jay Brown rushed to the scene. He was greeted

by Pepperman, who introduced himself as a crash investigator, Shurtz says. An MPD spokesperson declined to answer any of City Paper’s questions, including whether Pepperman continued as a crash investigator, citing the ongoing litigation.

As the case continues through the court system, the D.C. Council is considering sweeping changes to police operations and protections.

The Council passed emergency legislation in June that required Mayor Muriel Bowser to identify officers involved in fatal and serious incidents, as well as release body camera footage within 72 hours. The measure was retroactive to October 2014, and gave Bowser a deadline of July 1 to release old cases.

Although three officers involved in Price’s death are identified, his mother Denise Price still has not seen any video footage of the incident, Shurtz says. In response to her Freedom of Information Act request submitted shortly after her son was killed, MPD said it has 51 relevant videos, but “because the privacy rights of other individuals were unable to be protected, we could not create any clips for viewing.”

Bowser did not sign the legislation into law by the July 7 deadline, and the Council passed a revised version during its legislative meeting on the same day. The new version, which was crafted with Bowser’s input, according to the Washington Post, extends the deadline for publicly identifying officers and releasing body camera footage of deadly and serious uses of force from 72 hours to five business days. It also pushes back the deadline for Bowser to release names and body camera footage of old cases from July 1 to Aug. 15.

In addition to a FOIA request, Shurtz says Denise Price asked to see video footage of her son’s collision after the Council’s June legislation, to no avail. His next court date is July 10, when he’ll submit his request for evidence discovery. At the top of the list are the 51 videos MPD has refused to release.

“They’re long on promises and short on delivery,” Shurtz says. “It’s been two years. We still don’t have anything.”

SPORTS RUNNING

Time Bandit Canceled races haven’t stopped Keira D’Amato, an unsponsored amateur, from running Olympic qualifying times on the track.

Keira D’Amato’s fourth grade teacher didn’t think she was being ambitious enough.

As part of a class assignment at Waples Mill Elementary School in Oakton, the teacher asked students to draw a picture and write down what they wanted to be when they grew up. D’Amato’s goal was simple: She dreamed of becoming a professional athlete.

“I think you’re selling yourself short,” D’Amato remembers her teacher saying. “Why don’t you choose, like, doctor or the first woman president or something? I was like, ‘Nope, I want to be a professional athlete.’”

Two and a half decades later, D’Amato is as close to being a sponsored professional runner as she’s ever been. The 35-year-old Northern Virginia native and American University cross country and track and field alumna is setting personal bests and running world-class times more than a decade after her last official track meet— all while working 40-plus hours a week as a realtor and parenting two young children.

Last month, a video of her running 5,000 meters in 15 minutes and 4 seconds—an Olympic qualifying time—during a time trial on a track in Richmond, Virginia, went viral. The FloTrack video entitled, “35-Year-Old Mom Runs OLYMPIC Standard 5K!” has nearly 90,000 views, and D’Amato’s effort was mentioned in the Washington Post and Runner’s World, among other publications, many of which focused on the fact that she is a mother. She also became just the seventh woman 35 and over in history to run a sub 15:05 5K, according to FloTrack.

Despite the fact that races are canceled and international events like the Tokyo Olympics are postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, D’Amato continues to run and train as if nothing has changed in her schedule. Friends have questioned why she’s working out so hard without any races. Her results at time trials are not official and do not qualify her for any events, including the Olympics. But running fast gives D’Amato a sense of control.

“It’s kind of sticking it to the man a little bit,” she says. “It’s like, OK, COVID, you have shut everything down and you really destroyed a lot of things and made this really hard on everybody, but you’re not gonna stop me … You shut down all the races. I don’t need a race. I’ll do it on the track by myself. That’s fine.”

D’Amato and her husband, Tony, enjoy watching track meets on TV whenever they can.

She remembers when, after catching coverage of the women’s 100-meter race at the 2012 London Olympics, the two of them raced each other in front of their townhouse just for fun. But

Tony D’Amato

By Kelyn Soong @KelynSoong

Keira D’Amato seeing professional women compete on the biggest stage made her wonder, “What if?”

“I loved watching it, but there’s always that part that’s like, that should be me, right? Like I didn’t get that chance to really see what I could do, and it was just, it was a little bit hard to swallow,” D’Amato explains.

After finishing as a four-time all-American and an 11-time Patriot League individual champion at American University, D’Amato ran her last official track meet and hung up her racing spikes in 2008, when an ankle injury forced her away from the sport. A surgery followed, and D’Amato moved on to the next phase of her life.

She and Tony have two children, a 5-year-old son, Tommy, and a 3-year-old daughter, Quin, and currently live just outside of Richmond, in Midlothian, Virginia.

D’Amato felt her identity shift. “I had to learn how to kind of, like, forgive myself and let it go that I didn’t reach those goals,” she says.

It wasn’t until she finished the 2017 Richmond Marathon in 2:47—two minutes off the qualifying time for the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials—that she realized she had unfinished business and a second chance at being a professional in the sport.

This February, she placed 15th at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Atlanta with a personal best time of 2:34:24. D’Amato also finished 20th at the Houston Half Marathon in January with a time of 1:10:01, and was supposed to represent Team USA at the World Athletics Half Marathon Championships in Poland at the end of March. The race has since been postponed until October.

Races occasionally pay for D’Amato’s entry fees, and Potomac River Running, a D.C.-area running shoe store, provides her shoes, but

otherwise she pays for travel and hotels on her own. Unlike many of the women she competes against, D’Amato is not a sponsored, professional athlete.

“I would love to be supported,” D’Amato says. “Financially, it would really help and take a burden off my family. There are so many ways a sponsor could help me even more, but I also know that I’ve gotten this far without one. So I can keep doing it this way, that’s fine. But ... if the right sponsor came along, that would be awesome, too.”

The night before the 5K time trial, Tony reached out to their mutual friend Brandon Miles with a request.

Miles, who was a high school track teammate of Tony’s, has years of experience filming track races as the live events coordinator for MileSplit, a website covering high school track owned by the sports-streaming service FloSports. With no official races currently happening, Tony wondered if he would be interested in filming his wife run a solo time trial. Miles had already filmed another workout video of D’Amato in April.

“I know Keira’s been putting in a lot of hard work training,” Tony says. “For an athlete, you don’t get many chances to show your fitness on that stage, and given there wouldn’t be a huge crowd there or anything, and with races canceled … this was a great opportunity to showcase Keira .… She is in the best shape of her life, might as well get a video of it.”

Miles didn’t hesitate in agreeing. “I jumped at the opportunity,” he says.

D’Amato set her alarm for 5 a.m. the next morning, but was awakened by one of her children nearly an hour earlier due to an incident in

the bathroom. There was, as D’Amato describes, “poop everywhere.”

“I’m in there, like, cleaning that up, and I’m thinking, I really hope this means it’s going to go well today,” she laughs. “I hope this is a sign. Get the crappy part out of the way in the morning.”

Shortly after, D’Amato left her house for the track at St. Christopher’s School, and warmed up with her training partners, Silas Frantz and Emily Mulhern, before the time trial. Frantz, a former Georgetown University track athlete, had agreed to pace D’Amato for the 5K, and the two had been running weekly track workouts together for about a year, until Frantz moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, recently.

Also in attendance that morning was D’Amato’s coach, Scott Raczko, and a group of about a dozen runners from a local running club who had just happened to cut through the track during their run.

By 7 a.m., D’Amato and Frantz were off. Frantz says he was told to run between 73 and 74 seconds per lap. D’Amato set a personal record of 16:09.86 in the 5,000 meters back in June 2006, but she went into her time trial believing she could run near the 15-minute mark.

D’Amato crossed the finish line to cheers from the small crowd gathered, and checked her watch before putting her hands on her knees. The time didn’t surprise her, but the overwhelming response from the running community did.

“It was a little surreal,” she says. “I wasn’t expecting that at all. And then it was a little bit confusing because, like, I couldn’t figure out if it was my age and that I’m a mom and I’m a realtor that was the headline or was it the time that was the headline … But also, I think that part of that attention was that there’s literally nothing else going on. I picked a really great time to have a standout moment.”

In lieu of races, D’Amato has been running solo time trials to test her fitness or pacing other runners. Two weeks after the 5K time trial, she ran a personal best of 4:33 in the mile. In May, she helped Virginia high school runner Caroline Bowe break 5 minutes in the same distance.

D’Amato averages about 70 to 100 miles a week, which is down from the 100 to 130 miles she runs weekly during a marathon training cycle.

When races return, she wants to be ready. “I keep telling people, I’m not getting any younger,” D’Amato says. “I’m going to do it when I can, and that’s now.”

Her next goals include representing Team USA at a competition, winning a national title, and setting more personal bests. She will eventually invest in some track spikes.

Frantz, her training partner, has even bigger ambitions for D’Amato.

“I think she can make the Olympics if things go really well,” he says. “I don’t think we would expect that necessarily, but I see no reason why she shouldn’t have an equal chance as other women in the country of making the 5K or 10K [teams]. They’re high goals, but I think they’re appropriate.”

D’Amato tears up at her friend’s words. All her childhood dreams, she says, “are back up for grabs.”

washingtoncitypaper.com july 10, 2020 7

Speaking Out

By Emma Sarappo Jason Schlafstein, the founder and artistic director of Flying V Theatre, a small, nearly 10-year-old theater company based in Montgomery County, has a history of sexual harassment stretching back more than a decade, multiple people who know and have worked with him say.

Although Flying V previously investigated his behavior, Schlafstein was not fired and associate artistic director Jonathan Ezra Rubin did not resign until a June 19 series of tweets about Schlafstein gained wide attention in the D.C. theater community. On June 20, Schlafstein was placed on administrative leave as anger stewed on social media. Late on the night of June 22, Flying V, known for its quirky, off-beat productions and its pop culture focus, announced Schlafstein and Rubin were no longer with the company.

8 july 10, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

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Discussion of Schlafstein’s behavior resur- misconduct, he denies that his behavior was a way that could reasonably be understood as an she says. “And he told me something to the effect faced when a woman tweeted about a 2016 inci- harassing. “I believe that there was potentially abuse of power,” according to the company’s June of: ‘Yeah, situations can be misconstrued. Look at dent when he drove her home from the bar where a hostile work environment,” he says. “I cer- 20 Facebook post. However, the board decided me, I’m sober, I’m driving you who, who’s drunk, a show he directed for a different theater company tainly believe that there was no sexual miscon- not to terminate him at that time “in significant home; I’m an artistic director and physically bigtook place. After the show ended, Schlafstein duct, and I believe that there was absolutely an part due to a serious commitment by Jason to do ger than you. People could ask questions about heard she was interested in theater and new issue with my inappropriate behavior related to the work necessary to understand his position of this right now,’” she recounts. “And all of the hairs in town. They began to chat, and she eventu- my position, and a lack of boundaries between power within Flying V and to avoid actions that on my neck stood up. It went from being like ‘Oh, ally ended up drinking heavily with the cast. my personal and professional interactions with could cause any member of the Flying V commu- Jason’s just kind of creepy but harmless’ to me She attempted to use Uber to get home, but he people. I asked people if they were interested in nity to feel that he was using his power for personal realizing that he very much knew that if he wanted offered to drive her instead. She passed out in the going on a date, or said that I thought they were gain.” Flying V’s board president Judy Gilbert to act on that moment, he had the power to do so.” car and woke up outside of a movie theater, where interesting and cool and I would like to get to Levey declined City Paper’s request for comment. Schlafstein says he was trying to reckon with his role in the theater community and that Schlafstein tried to convince her to see X-Men: know them better. That was the limit his comments reflected his relief at havApocalypse. He’d expressed interest in seeing it all of my interactions with anyone.”

“A lot of people knew enough to advise people ing someone in the scene he could talk After he was placed on administranight, and she’d agreed, but she says she hadn’t to in a friendly manner and feel comnot to work at Flying V, but no one has actually meant she wanted to see it late that night while tive leave, but before he was terminated, drunk. (Schlafstein said it was clear he meant that Schlafstein wrote a post on his perdone or said anything up until this point, and fortable around.

Schlafstein was very aware of the night; another person who was at the bar recalls sonal Facebook account, which he later now it’s sort of all coming out in the open.” line of outright unacceptable behavturning down his invitation that night.) She asked deleted, addressing how “allegations ior, she says, and made sure to never him to drive her home and he obliged, after mak- resurfaced.” He admitted he expressed The company’s associate artistic director, clearly cross it. But, she says, he still made multiple ing his disappointment clear, she says. A year later, interest in and asked out women who worked for she says, she auditioned for a Flying V show and Flying V while he was the artistic director. “I am Rubin, who resigned the same day Schlafstein women feel unsafe and uncomfortable in personal he asked her out for coffee before the audition had absolutely aware now how those actions, however was fired, had held his position since the begin- and professional spaces. “It’s not about the gray finished. “I will say it didn’t feel like a quid pro quo unintentioned, fall into a predatory paradigm,” ning of 2020, but had worked with Flying V since area there or what his intention may be or may not moment, but it did feel very uncomfortable given he wrote. He also described how accounts of his 2011. He served as Flying V’s fight and intimacy be. It’s about as an artistic director, as someone in our previous interaction,” she says. She asked not behavior came to the attention of Flying V lead- director and ran workshops in the region on effec- a position of power, you need to be on it and 100 ership three years ago, and claimed “they were tively staging intimacy in theater. He wrote in a percent aware of the implications and the impact to be named for privacy reasons.

In an emailed statement, Schlafstein tells City seriously investigated at the time by the Flying Facebook post that he wanted to apologize for his you are making in any decision you do, especially Paper “... that night I found myself in a situation V board with my full cooperation and support.” complicity in Schlafstein’s behavior, adding that when you are working with young and emerging where I was given consent to drive someone to Dozens of comments on his post demanded his he loved him “like a brother,” and that, “I have artists.” She eventually left professional theater.

The woman who he tried to see X-Men with always known him to genuinely want to be the a movie and once that consent was revoked, I resignation. characterizes his behavior as “malicious clueMany comments made reference to best person he can be.” immediately took her home .… I did not engage After backlash, Rubin wrote another post, lessness.” “Jason gets this pass from everyone in any illicit or illegal behaviors.” He also says he Schlafstein’s use of “resurfaced” in the Facebook did not ask her out on a date—he was asking her to post. “I think it’s sort of been an open secret in where he said, “I am sorry for the hurt and pain because he’s clueless, but I mean, if you maintain D.C. theater for years,” says Angela Pirko, the that I have caused and for not speaking up louder that cluelessness for an ongoing period of time, catch up in a friendly manner.

“Was what he did illegal? I don’t know. Was resident director and co-producer at Nu Sass and more unequivocally before now.” On the especially when you’re told that it’s causing harm, Productions, a small woman- night of June 22, he posted his resignation letter then it becomes malicious,” she says. what he did illicit? Yes. And Schlafstein says it’s extremely complicated to focused local theater com- on Facebook, where he acknowledged that he’d I don’t think it’s up to him to “Jason gets this pass pany. She participated in previously heard about Schlafstein’s behavior and navigate relationships in a field where one’s social make that judgement call,” from everyone because Shakespeare Theatre’s 2015- apologized for how he’d “made excuses for the and professional contacts overlap so heavily, and the woman says. “Was it not 2016 Directors’ Studio with fragments of stories I had heard and I had under- that from the moment he became aware of his a great show of judgment? he’s clueless, but I “A lot of people estimated the severity or multiplicity therein, power in the theater community, he has tried to Absolutely! And not the show mean, if you maintain Schlafstein. knew enough to advise peo- which is completely unacceptable.” In the post, act responsibly and professionally. He says he was of judgment you’d want from that cluelessness for ple not to work at Flying V, he encouraged the Flying V board to overhaul unaware of how many of the women City Paper someone in an artistic direcbut no one has actually done the company’s leadership structure and to hire spoke to felt until now. He also says his unwillingtor role, when people who an ongoing period of or said anything up until this women, people of color, and LGBTQ people. ness to cross lines of unacceptable behavior is true work with artistic directors time, especially when point, and now it’s sort of all When asked for comment, Rubin directed City and a positive statement about his character, and are in an incredibly vulneryou’re told that it’s coming out in the open.” that he takes those lines very seriously.

Paper to his resignation letter. able space.”

“When people have provided me with honest Another woman, who asked not to be named “I knew that Jason was not As the Twitter thread causing harm, then it for privacy reasons, described an interaction with and direct feedback about how I could be a better someone I would send young gained attention, D.C. thebecomes malicious.” women artists to,” she says. Schlafstein that was similar to the initial tweets. In leader, a better collaborator, or a better mentor, ater artists began posting on “I wish I had maybe done the summer of 2018, about four years after they I’ve responded with appreciation and intentional social media, both publicly and in private Facebook groups, about the harass- more at the time, because it’s a lot more than I real- first met, he attended her 26th birthday party at a shifts to my processes and communication styles, ment, abuse, and assault they’d experienced at ized, and I think a lot more people than I realized bar with many others from the theater scene. She for the better,” he says. “I believe those changes says he gave her unsolicited casting advice, telling and that growth was on consistent display over the hands of people in regional theater—includ- had complaints against him,” she says.

After graduating from the University of her the reason she wasn’t cast often was because my time with Flying V, as I grew from a novice, ing Eric Schaeffer, the founding artistic director of Signature Theatre, who stepped down in late Maryland in 2008, Schlafstein’s profile in the the- she was very smart and very pretty, and people 25-year-old college graduate to the leader of a June following multiple accusations of sexual ater scene rose for a few years before he was able couldn’t see her as smart because of that. That performing arts company with multiple wings and disciplines. assault. Many stressed that these kinds of behav- to co-found Flying V Theatre in 2011. The small, comment, comAnytime I was iors are common in the D.C. theater scene; others nonprofit company, which bills itself as “theater ing from an artis“It was just a really dehumanizing, given the oppordescribed it as a “#MeToo moment” in regional for people who don’t like theater,” is known for tic director, shook tunity for awaredegrading experience. Today, we’d theater, both in large, well-established companies focusing heavily on pop culture elements, put- her confidence, ness, and to grow like Signature and smaller theaters like Flying V, ting on shows that took inspiration from the she says, and recognize that’s bullshit, but back and better myself, computer game Oregon Trail, Ben Affleck and was detrimenwhich tend to use more non-unionized actors. then I was like, well, maybe he’s right.”

I took it.”

Multiple people wrote that Schlafstein was Matt Damon, Superman, and Sherlock Holmes. tal to her career.

Nev ie , w ho known for sexism, making inappropriate In 2015, the company won the John Aniello Award Schlafstein says advances, and retaliation against people who for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company at he never implied she couldn’t be cast because asked that her full name not be used, says she met rejected his advances. Maryland Theatre Guide the Helen Hayes Awards, which honors new com- of being both pretty and smart, and that he was Schlafstein in 2007 when they were both in colspeaking purely as a peer at a social occasion, not lege at the University of Maryland; he was a few reported Schlafstein was also accused of cyber- panies that show great promise. years older than her and they hung out in the same Flying V knew about Schlafstein’s behavior as a professional. stalking and making sexual advances toward Later, after she’d had multiple drinks and some theater circles. She says he sexually harassed her intoxicated people, which he denies. In the 115 for years. In 2017, under the leadership of board comments on Flying V’s announcement of his president Melissa Wiley, there was an investiga- of her best friends had gone home, Schlafstein, for months in college after she made it clear she leave, multiple people shared accounts of what tion that resulted in “a determination that Jason who was sober, was still at the bar. He insisted she was not interested in him romantically or sexually. they believe was inappropriate behavior and had inappropriately crossed professional and not take an Uber back to her boyfriend’s house and Two of Nevie’s friends from college confirmed personal boundaries by expressing romantic offered to drive her instead. They began talking to City Paper that she told them about much of called on the company to fire him.

While he does admit to some professional interest in female members of the community in about #MeToo and the concept of “blurred lines,” Schlafstein’s behavior at the time and afterward. washingtoncitypaper.com july 10, 2020 9

“It was just a really dehumanizing, degrading experience,” she says. Schlafstein says he only ever asked her out twice, then moved on.

Nevie also ended up leaving professional theater, but in one of her last professional experiences, a 2010 production at 1st Stage, Schlafstein directed the other half of the play, and they shared rehearsal space. During that production, there was an instance where he walked into the ladies’ side of the dressing room unannounced, she says.

“I was, like, half-naked in the middle of changing my costume. He did not knock or announce himself or ask if he could come through. He needed to talk to one of his actors on the women’s side,” she says. “Then again, there’s this toxic thing in theater where you’re just supposed to be OK, you’re doing quick changes, everybody’s naked around each other. But this was a man who sexually harassed me and had repeatedly tried to convince me to date him.” (Schlafstein says he has never entered a dressing room unannounced.)

She felt increasingly disillusioned by the industry and all of the abusive men in it, she says, and eventually stopped doing theater.

Watching Schlafstein’s behavior discussed publicly and seeing him fired was both cathartic and painful for Nevie. She’d spoken about him before, she says, but no one wanted to take action, especially after he started his own company. “I felt like if people had listened to me 10 years ago, how many girls would have been saved that pain?” she says. “How was he allowed to run a company in the first place?” Schlafstein says Nevie disliked him for years for personal reasons, and her opinion has no bearing on his professional conduct at Flying V or elsewhere.

Another woman, Katie, who asked for her

full name not to be used, went to college with about intense, semi-private monologue work Schlafstein and was later a company member at after the point in rehearsals when cast members Flying V. She recounted multiple experiences of were expected to be naked, including one whose inappropriate behavior in professional settings. In character undressed onstage like Katie’s did.

Schlafstein says actors never rehearsed nude 2008, when she was 20 and Schlafstein was turning 23, she was an actor in The Naked Party, which while alone or in closed settings, and the use of he wrote and directed, at the 2008 Capital Fringe nudity was carefully and professionally strucFestival. The conceit of the play is that multiple tured in the rehearsal process.

Later, in a 2013 Flying V production, Katie people are going to a college “naked party,” where they all undress upon arrival, and as a result, each played a character who, in the midst of a breakcharacter delivers a long monologue into an imag- down, wearing only a bra, straddles another character and places his hands on her breasts. ined mirror while getting naked.

Schlafstein did private monologue work where When they were blocking the scene onstage, he had Katie “actually undress, actually be Schlafstein had her take her shirt off. “At this point, I did know better, but naked for this private monois inappropriate and not logue rehearsal,” she says. “I “More than anything, itindustry standard to actudid not understand this at the I want to see longally have me be shirtless time, maybe he didn’t either, while we’re blocking that but I can’t express to you how term change so that scene,” she says. “That was wildly inappropriate it was for people like me don’t completely unnecessary.” actors to actually be naked for leave theater.”

Additionally, she had an audithis monologue work. It was ence: A group of men workcompletely unnecessary and detrimental, to be honest, because it’s really hard ing on the production watched her run her lines, to concentrate on the intellectual work of work- which “was a very challenging scene to do from ing on a monologue when the reality is you’re an acting standpoint, not even hard emotionactually naked in the room with this person.” ally, but from an intellectual perspective, a proShe was naked in a room with just Schlafstein fessional perspective,” she says.

Eventually, she felt uncomfortable and disand another man, the stage manager, and ran her monologue for about an hour, she says. Another tracted enough to ask to clear the room, and cast member from The Naked Party, whose char- Schlafstein and the others obliged. In the afteracter did not have an undressing monologue, math, she says she was embarrassed and uneasy, says he was not aware of any discomfort or of as she felt the impression was that she’d had a any semi-private naked rehearsals at the time, “diva moment.” Schlafstein apologized, but but stressed he didn’t “want to say somebody 9.875” she still felt she was seen as unreasonable, and else’s experience didn’t happen.” Two other Schlafstein’s support was cold comfort—he cast members told City Paper they recall hearing acted “like he wasn’t the one who had set up

the dynamic in the first place that made me feel unsafe,” she says. Katie’s scene partner, Josh Adams, confirmed her telling of events.

Katie remained with Flying V until 2018, after the internal board investigation that found Schlafstein had abused his power but allowed him to retain his role. She was not aware of the investigation at the time. “At a certain point, I was like, yeah, I can kind of keep myself safe here. But by being a member of this company, I’m enabling this person, and I’m making it look like this is a safe place to work,” Katie says. She’s now a company member at a different theater in Montgomery County.

In the post announcing Schlafstein’s termination, Flying V stated it would take the coming weeks to establish a “plan of action” and would provide further updates no later than July 15.

The last week has been a mix of emotions for the woman who first tweeted, but her main regret is tweeting her thread on Juneteenth. “I should have waited a day,” she says. “All of this energy that is being directed at these problematic guys by a largely White woman brigade isn’t being directed at the conversation about race that is happening globally, and also the conversations about race that are happening in the D.C. theater scene.”

With Schlafstein removed, the woman whose birthday party Schlafstein attended says the scene—and the company—may be able to make some progress. “Flying V is not Jason, and Jason is not Flying V, so I’m excited to see what they move forward with, and I think it’s going to give their company a chance to do something new and fresh,” she says. “More than anything, I want to see long-term change so that people like me don’t leave theater.”

DC Public

Library

Phase 2 Reopen Services

Effective June 29, 2020 Anacostia | Benning | Cleveland Park | Mt. Pleasant | Northeast | Shepherd Park | West End | Woodridge

Library Hours:

Takeout services include:

Mon – Fri: 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.

Closed for Daily Cleaning: 2 – 3 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday: Closed

■ Book Pick up ■ Remote Print Job Pick up ■ Computer Access ■ Full service printing

COMING SOON...

Lounge seating and access to study rooms.

Customers must continue to wear a face mask and practice social distancing.

These locations will open July 6 for returns only. Takeout services will begin on July 13.

Bellevue | Capitol View | Francis A. Gregory | Petworth | Shaw | Tenley-Friendship

For more information on additional services and branch re-openings, please visit dclibrary.org/reopen.

10 july 10, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

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ARTS

Dance Moves How the pandemic is impacting local dance schools and the next generation of ballet dancers

Maryland Youth Ballet

A Maryland Youth Ballet studio prepped for dancers’ return

By Mary Scott Manning Contributing Writer For many years, the fundamentals of ballet class have remained largely unchanged. There was a barre, there was a mirror, and there was the beat of a piece of music. But recent months have seen that relative consistency brought to a halt.

The coronavirus pandemic forced ballet schools and dance centers in the D.C. area to abruptly close. Ballet dancers, once poised with one hand resting lightly on the barre and the other lifted overhead, now stand beside a dining room chair or a bannister during virtual class, if they have class at all.

Just offscreen, teachers and musicians are engineering creative ways to approximate in-person class, while executives and board members make calculations and contingency plans. The question hangs in the air: Will we reopen at all?

In March, when D.C. Public Schools announced a two-week closure until April 1, local dance studios followed suit, either taking a spring break or posting a handful of prerecorded lessons to tide dancers over.

But the pandemic’s longevity soon became clear. For many schools’ leaders, the first concern—even ahead of potential financial fallout—was how to continue classes. Ballet lessons provide structure to the day and an outlet for younger dancers. More serious dancers need regular classes the way all athletes need regular training. The instruction is also crucial: Part of the teacher’s role is to observe students and correct their form when necessary.

Translating ballet training onto a screen is more complicated than it would initially seem. Joining class on a video platform like Zoom requires internet access; the Federal Communications Commission recommends a broadband subscription for regular use, like a class. According to the American Community

Survey, about 83 percent of D.C. households have internet access, but only about 70 percent have a broadband subscription (rather than satellite or dial-up internet, or a cellular data plan). And these rates vary by ward. Less than half of households in Wards 7 (45 percent) and 8 (48 percent) have high-speed broadband subscriptions.

“Our class sizes have limited because most of the children don’t have access to telephones and the internet,” says Carrington Lassiter, executive director of Northeast Performing Arts Group, which provides arts education, including ballet classes, in northeast and southeast D.C. Lassiter estimates attendance in dance classes fell from around 40 kids in a week to about seven to 10.

Students also need a tablet or computer they can commandeer for the length of class, or even a smartphone. (Imagine learning a new dance combination on a screen the size of an index card.)

Even if children can do barre exercises at home, their safety must be considered. The height of their makeshift barre matters for preventing injuries, and the floor needs to have traction.

Especially for children, online safety is also a concern. “We set up passwords and waiting rooms and disabled things like the chat feature or the share screen to make it really challenging for any type of hacking,” says Monica Stephenson, head of school at The Washington School of Ballet Southeast Campus at THEARC in Ward 8.

These considerations aside, studios reopening depends on the guidance of their local governance. Under Mayor Muriel Bowser’s reopening plan, dance studios would likely fall under “arts education organizations.” Phase One guidance advised “continuing to use virtual or digital means for arts education, programs, and services.” Phase Two began on June 22, allowing studios to reopen with five people per 1,000 square feet with physical distancing. Phase Three will allow for 10 people in that area.

All of the directors featured in this story say they place students’ health and safety above concerns for their school’s finances. But, because tuition makes up one of the major sources of revenue for a ballet school, the limited reopening plan could make the finances of keeping the doors open even harder. The directors say they have taken a significant financial hit, or anticipate struggles by the fall.

Bethesda Conservatory of Dance went from more than 40 classes a week this spring to about 15 this summer by combining age groups and levels.

“We’re essentially not charging for the Zoom classes—it’s just the right thing to do for our students,” says its owner and director Colleen Snyder. “For us, it was just a matter of being able to give an outlet to the kids.”

“Financially, it’s terrible,” Alyce Jenkins, executive director of Maryland Youth Ballet, says of the pandemic’s consequences. As dance schools go, Maryland Youth Ballet was in a relatively stable position. Tuition for the children’s

program was already paid through March, and few families asked for refunds. Over the years, the school had managed to save a rainy day fund, and it successfully applied for a Paycheck Protection Program loan, with difficulty. “It was rough just finding a way to submit an application,” Jenkins says. But the loan will enable them to continue operating for the summer.

Schools have redesigned their summer programs. Maryland Youth Ballet is offering its summer session both virtually and in person with a strict safety protocol. Among other measures, all students will wear a mask at all times and bring their own hand sanitizer, and the studio floors have been marked off into 10-foot spaces. The Washington School of Ballet and Bethesda Conservatory of Dance, on the other hand, have transitioned their summer programs fully online.

“We’re delivering the same number of hours of instruction and intensity and rigor,” Stephenson says, but the tuition is now significantly less. “We recognize obviously the differences between training at home versus training in a state-of-the-art ballet studio.”

Boards of directors for dance programs throughout the region are making similar calculations. Adagio Ballet School of Dance in Arlington decided to close entirely.

“Unfortunately, our board of directors has come to the decision that the laws currently in place and the uncertainty of what is to come leave us no other option but to close,” the school wrote in an email to parents.

Bound up in these complex decisions are children, for whom a ballet studio is a place to make friends and build confidence. Paige Coles, 8, took ballet and jazz at Adagio. When classes started on Zoom, they became the highlight of the week, an opportunity to dance and a time to see friends.

“We didn’t see her smile,” says Rachael Flores, Paige’s mother. “Then all of a sudden, she was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I saw Miss Stephanie,’ ‘I saw Miss Sarah Beth.’”

Paige and her younger sister both danced at Adagio. When she spoke to City Paper, Flores had shared the news of the school’s closing with Paige, but was still struggling for words to explain the loss to her younger daughter.

“I can’t tell you that there weren’t tears for both,” she says. “The 8-year-old and mom.”

For many children and their families, a dance school becomes more than a place to take class after school. As Lassiter puts it, “Northeast Performing Arts Group is home for a lot of our kids.”

At the Washington School of Ballet, the children in Level Three go together to be fitted for their first pointe shoes, a special milestone for ballet dancers. One student in Level Two asked her teacher, Stephenson, what would happen if they couldn’t go to the store next year.

Stephenson encouraged her, echoing the now-familiar phrase that this is not permanent, and there will be a time when class in the studio resumes.

“And even if there’s a delay in pointe shoes, you are going on pointe one day,” Stephenson says.

washingtoncitypaper.com july 10, 2020 11

ARTS

Photography Business A local artist discusses her project taking portraits of small business owners and exploring their mental health during the pandemic

By Jennifer Anne Mitchell Contributing Writer

WCP: What does the name Inbox Full mean?

The pandemic has greatly impacted Violetta Markelou, a small business owner, local photographer, visual artist, and DJ. To navigate the difficulties, she created a portrait series with accompanying interviews called Inbox Full, currently available to view on her website and recently published by Washingtonian, which captures 12 small business owners in the District, with a focus on their mental health.

“If we really say that we care about small business owners and they’re the backbone of America, well, who are they?” Markelou asks. “Why don’t we know them, and why don’t we know what they’re going through?”

Markelou held a yearlong DJ residency at The Four Seasons Hotel Washington, D.C., until January 2020, and a four-year DJ residency at The Ritz-Carlton, Washington, D.C. When the city began closing down in the middle of March due to the COVID-19 outbreak, she says, the Ritz paused her residency until further notice.

The idea for Inbox Full came to Markelou during a meditation in mid-April, a practice that helps her manage her own mental health during the pandemic. “It was like a lightbulb moment for me,” she says. “This is something I need to do. I need to put my camera on my community and tell their story.”

She first spoke with her friend Katina Georgallas, the owner of MASTIHA Artisan Greek Bakery, about photographing her in front of her closed business, and the series took off from there.

Markelou was born in Greece, then lived in Maryland with her parents. She moved to D.C. in 2008, and built her creative home in the city. In her nearly 20 years of working as a photographer and visual artist, she’s collaborated as one of eight artists in the all-female, D.C.-based art collective SUPERFIERCE, and shown work at multiple exhibitions, including at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

City Paper spoke with Markelou to learn more about the vision behind Inbox Full, as well as her personal connection to the D.C. small business and creative communities.

VM: You know when people ask you how you’re doing and let’s just say they ask you in an email or a text message, which I hate. Because it’s too much for me to write to you. It’s too much for me to text you. It’s too much. I would have to have a conversation with you for you to understand the clusterfuck of emotion in my mind.

So Inbox Full was a metaphor for all the stuff circling in your mind. It’s full. It’s just full. There’s too much there.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

WCP: Did any of these small business owners stand out to you?

VM: I think all of them are [heroes]. Anybody who has the guts to start their own business and have financial uncertainty and just push every day for their vision and for their passion is a hero.

WCP: How do you hope this portrait series impacts the public’s perception of small business owners?

VM: I hope that they see them as an essential part of the community. I hope that they understand that most businesses run on very small

the business in an empty space. With Louie [Hankins, owner of Rito Loco/El Techo], that was outside of his restaurant. And the light was just that perfect, magical golden hour light. It hit him at that moment, and it was just a magical moment. So he’s on that street where his business is; he’s looking out at an empty street. I just tried to capture them and tell the stories of them in that environment that they’re so used to most of the time—getting joy from it and then all of a sudden they’re not.

WCP: How did the project impact your art?

VM: This project and creating this series has definitely reignited my passion for portraiture and knowing also it’s really my purpose to do this. I just feel really strongly that I am a storyteller. And it’s reignited my passion for my work and the importance of my work.

All of these people inspire me to keep going.

I don’t want to see them giving up and I don’t want to see myself or feel myself giving up. I just feel strongly that that’s not what I’m supposed to be doing in this life.

As far as DJing, it’s more important now than ever to lift people’s spirits.

And whether I get my residency back or not, I’m going to start my radio show that I’d been doing at The Line Hotel; I’m going to start it in my apartment probably next week. And just to keep bringing joy to the world and lift people up through the music.

WCP: You photographed people in many different industries. What were some common themes?

Violetta Markelou

VM: I think everybody has pivoted in a way where there’s growth in how they’re going to run their business.

The common thread is more perspective. Everyone really gave a perspective of where they’re at now and how they see the future. I think everybody really just examined their own life and examined what’s happening and how they’ve been affected by it.

Louie Hankins, Owner of Rito Loco/El Techo WCP: Why did you choose to focus on this topic?

VM: I feel that small businesses haven’t been given the proper spotlight during this crisis, and it’s very important to me to show the community and what they’re going through. Because I think when you have small businesses, you have employees and there’s multiple levels of stress. I really care about these people and I care about my community and if these places succeed or fail.

12 july 10, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

profit margins and within months they can go under without proper support. I don’t think anybody in D.C. wants to see a city of billionaires and corporations having every business on the block. That would totally change the city. So I really hope that when people see this they’ll understand how essential these people are to the vibrancy of the community [and] the diversity of the community.

WCP: What was the artistic process behind these portraits?

VM: I wanted to capture them at their business.

Whether it’s them outside of the business or in

WC P : W hat d id you lea r n throughout this process?

VM: I just think this whole [pandemic] that’s happened shows you that we’re all human and we’re really connected. We’re all experiencing worries about our health, our financial future, the future of our business, the future of our families, the state of the world.

What I learned and what I think that everybody is understanding right now is how we really need each other; we need human social interaction. There’s never gonna be a Zoom meeting that’s going to replace breaking bread with somebody.

I just read this and I thought it was great: If we replace “I” with “we” then “illness” becomes “wellness.”

ARTS FILM REVIEW

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Hope Springs Eternal Palm Springs Directed by Max Barbakow It is best if you go into Palm Springs without knowing anything. Its surprises are a big part of its charm, and yet previews for the film make no attempt to hide its bizarre premise. Rather than being spoiler-free, this review will assume you’re either aware of its plot, or don’t care that it is revealed to you. This is a love story about two depressed, anxiety-ridden people whose mental states are constantly deteriorating. But it is also demented, charming, and funny as hell.

Andy Samberg is Nyles, and he is a guest at a wedding in California. His behavior is erratic.

He seems aloof and drunk—he is wearing swim trunks and a Hawaiian shirt, while everyone else is in a suit—and yet he is somehow able to predict the future. This casual bravado intrigues Sarah (Cristin Milioti), so she agrees to leave the wedding for a casual hookup. Then things get really strange: Both she and Nyles are sucked into a glowing cave, and they wake up in the exact same place they were the day before.

They are stuck in a time loop. Nyles has likely been in it for years, while Sarah just started.

Now that Nyles has a partner in crime, he is able to share his strange existence with someone else, and possibly develop feelings for her.

The most obvious reference point is Groundhog Day, and yet no one in the film references it. Screenwriter Andy Siara and director Max Barbakow realize that kind of self-awareness would cheapen Sarah’s slow discovery of her predicament and eliminate crucial character beats. More importantly, the sense of humor in Palm Springs is more absurd and dark. Nyles was probably given that name because it sounds like “nihilist,” and indeed he wanders through the wedding as if nothing matters. He decides the time loop is liberating because the alternative is too much to bear, so that leads to scenes

of mayhem, like when he and Sarah steal a plane or plant a bomb at the wedding reception. Sarah has her own dark impulses, and part of the film’s charm is how carefully they’re revealed.

All the characters in Groundhog Day sound like sitcom characters. They are clever and pithy when they need to be, and the big emotional beats are overwritten in a reassuring way. But in Palm Springs, Siara really digs into what might happen to people who are stuck in a time loop for eternity. Nyles’ dialogue sounds articulate, at least until you stop and think about what he is saying for a moment, and realize his brain must have atrophied. There is a sad, strange scene where he realizes he cannot remember what he does for a living. Sarah goes the other way, using the time loop for a specific kind of growth.

Their impasse represents two contradictory, yet recognizable impulses in human nature.

Aside from the philosophical and psychological aspects, Palm Springs is also engaging as a romantic comedy. Samberg and Milioti are evenly matched, with his slacker energy serving as a foil for her destructive type-A impulses. Their common ground is their predicament, and a commitment to drinking alcohol (the characters almost always have beer in their hand). J. K. Simmons plays Roy, another key character, and he adds a gnawing sense of suspense and surprise to every scene. He and Nyles have a curious relationship, and that subplot resolves in a resonant way that does not rob the characters of their edge.

Palm Springs arrives at a time when our weeks and months have blended together.

There is prescience to the film, although I suspect many of us would rather be stuck in a California hotel with a nice pool, instead of our homes full of frozen meals and unfinished puzzles. Barbakow finds the right look for film, imbuing it with yellow hues, like the characters are hungover from too much sun. And everyone’s deadpan nihilism comes with a weary sense of acknowledgement. It is hard to imagine a riff on Groundhog Day being much better than this.

—Alan Zilberman Palm Springs is available to stream on Hulu starting July 10.

e Visit thper City Paor more f e t i s b we age Love.

Sav washingtoncitypaper.com/ columns

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DIVERSIONS CROSSWORD

Scaling Up

By Brendan Emmett Quigley

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14 july 10, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

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LAST WEEK: SQUIRM OF AN IDEA

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CITY LIGHTS City Lights

Alice Wong discusses Disability Visibility

July 26 marks the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the 1990 legislation that recognized disabled Americans’ rights to access public space and be protected from discrimination. Disabled activist Alice Wong, known for creating the Disability Visibility Project, is bringing her work amplifying contemporary disability media and culture offline with the new book Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century, which she edited. In the introduction, Wong writes, “I want to center the wisdom of disabled people and welcome others in, rather than asking for permission or acknowledgment.” Disability Visibility is attuned to the nuances of race, gender, class, and sexuality, and how those categories intersect with and transform the lived experience of disability. For example, Keah Brown, the author of The Pretty One, reflects on that book’s debut and the power of her own Black disabled joy in an essay excerpted in Elle last month. Disability Visibility, available as an e-book, an audiobook, and in print, was also translated to a plain language format by Sara Luterman to provide “a radical new kind of accessibility,” as Luterman writes in the forward to that edition, which is available as an e-book, an audiobook, and in print. Wong will also be part of a P&P Live! event with Rebecca Cokley and Jen Deerinwater on July 11, where the three will discuss the anthology and disability culture virtually with live captioning and ASL interpretation. The discussion begins at 6 p.m. on July 11. Registration is available at politics-prose.com. Free; donations recommended.

—Emma Sarappo

City Lights

Learn about the National Gallery of Art’s East Building

The pressure was on. The builders were responsible for something locals and visitors to the nation’s capital would admire forever. So went the rallying cry: “You’ve gotta do it right. You’ll just never do anything like this again in your life.” Those words set the tone of a mini-documentary about the late 1960s construction of the National Gallery of Art’s East Building. The video stitches together behind-the-scenes footage of architect I. M. Pei’s geometric vision, tracing its 10-year transformation from a pit of exposed earth into a “stone in the nation’s crown.” Despite the concrete and hammers, shots of sun rays streaming through the iron skeleton add a delicacy to the documentary, and the care is clear: “You don’t get a second shot at it,” one craftsman says.

To dress the outside, artisans hand-picked individual marble slabs, sourced from the same Tennessee quarry that provided the material for the Gallery’s West Building in 1941. Once again, the pressure was palpable, as Pei’s minimalist design allowed for no exterior decorations to hide mistakes. This step alone took nearly four years to complete. Later, in 1976, sculptor Alexander Calder stopped by to discuss his mobile for the foyer, his last major work, which he approved one week before his death. The towering kinetic shapes still greet visitors today—or will, once again, when the museum reopens. Until then, delight in watching the individual shapes hung, one after another. And when you do return, you’ll be awed by more than just the art on the inside.

The video is available at nga.gov. Free.

—Emma Francois

City Lights

Virtual exhibition tour with Tai Hwa Goh In a year rife with meditations on the relationship between humans and nature, Tai Hwa Goh’s evocative print installations offer a chance for more reflection. After a nationally competitive search, her work is on display this month at the Torpedo Factory Art Center as the Target Gallery’s 2020 solo exhibition. Born in South Korea and holding MFAs in printmaking from the University of Maryland and Seoul National University, Goh creates 3D installations using printed and cut paper. She presses thin sheets of beeswax onto paper before arranging them to create an opaque image that captures the eye with a surreal but colorful spark. According to Goh, her work “contrasts between the joyful tropical fantasies of landscape vis-a-vis a land brashly invaded by fragments of American suburbia.” The paper installations in the Target Gallery offer another great example of natural inspiration—in this case, flowers and trees warped into something distinctly unnatural. The artwork highlights humanity’s obsession with beautiful plants and the unnerving effects that obsession has on the world writ large. Goh has been featured multiple times in the D.C. area, including at Johns Hopkins University and the Korean Cultural Center. You can see Goh’s work in person in Alexandria, but sessions are limited by COVID-19 restrictions. There is a virtual reception on July 10, 2020, where the public is free to view the art installation and watch an in-depth video walkthrough from Goh herself. The reception will take place at facebook.com/targetgallery at 7 p.m. on July 10. Free. —Tristan Jung washingtoncitypaper.com july 10, 2020 15

City Lights

Not So Concrete

offers color images that feature a widely varied palette, often discovered during the artist’s urban walks and nature hikes. Her works sometimes echo satellite images of urban street grids or beaches, scanning electron micrographs of cells, or surfaces of far-flung planets—views far more dramatic than their original sources, which range from pavement and bark to eroding rock.

While it’s a pity that a viewer can’t press their nose right up to one of her prints as they could at an in-person exhibit, BlackRock’s online interface allows Gerskovic’s images to be expanded well beyond thumbnail scale to something close to their full effect.

The exhibition is available through July 31 at blackrockcenter.org with an accompanying catalogue. Free.

—Louis Jacobson

City Lights

In Not So Concrete, sponsored by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, nine artists share their ideas of how identity, consciousness, and culture shape architecture. The coronavirus pandemic pushed the exhibition fully into the digital realm, adding a whole new layer of complexity to the topic. Four of the artists contribute mixed-media works: Pierre Davis, whose works rely heavily on wood; Joan Snitzer, whose gridded pieces suggest Pollockian action painting; Zofie King, who makes combines out of found objects; and Steve Wanna, who creates minimalist sculptures. Michael Crossett produces screen prints with a Metrorail theme, while Cassidy Garbutt offers dreamlike pigment prints. Two artists dwell in visual complexity: Pam Eichner, who creates mathematically inspired digital drawings on aluminum, and Monica Stroik, who paints in the op art style. The most eye-popping piece is Yaroslav Koporulin’s 48-by-96 inch “Caulk Painting,” a work in scarlet and black that drips rough-textured black caulk from the wall to the floor. The exhibition is available online to Aug. 14, with artist talks every Tuesday from noon to 1 p.m. from July 7 through Aug. 11. A full list of artist talks and registration links is available at ashe-and-norton.com.

—Louis Jacobson

Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman discuss Big Friendship

City Lights

Telethon for Regional Community Theater

As the coronavirus continues to demand the national center stage, community theaters in the D.C. area are trying to keep their heads above water amid show cancelations. On July 17 and 18, almost 20 theatre companies will host Community Theatre Thrives!, a fundraising telethon to rally donations and ensure that affordable, local, all-volunteer theater is still available in the D.C. region when performers can once again safely take the stage. Because community theaters operate on tight budgets to keep shows accessible, the loss of ticket revenue is a severe blow, and theaters are looking to increase philanthropic income until the pandemic is over. The theaters hosting Community Theatre Thrives!—like Reston Community Players, Silver Spring Stage, and Laurel Mill Playhouse— also hope to spotlight the wealth of artistic talent and passion that makes the vibrant community theater scene in D.C. possible, and to underline what a devastating loss its disappearance would be. The event will showcase the talents of these organizations in a two-day performing arts event, so whether you prefer a matinee or an evening production, you can bring quality, local theater into your computer, your home, and, hopefully, your list of charitable contribution tax deductions. The telethon begins at 6:30 p.m. on July 17 and runs all day on July 18 at theatrethrives.org. Free; donations encouraged.

—Ryley Graham

City Lights

Gordana Geršković: Texturescapes If you’re Gordana Geršković, a photographer who trains her macro lens on abstracted and decontextualized surfaces, there’s really no risk of running out of raw material. So it makes sense that only a year after mounting an impressive exhibit at the Foundry Gallery, Geršković is back with an exhibit, Gordana Geršković: Texturescapes, that echoes the best of her previous work, but with little overlap between the two shows. In an online-only exhibit sponsored by the BlackRock Center for the Arts in Germantown, Geršković 16 july 10, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

If you weren’t already missing your friends, chances are that months in isolation have you craving Sunday brunches, museum trips, and nights out at the bar. Still, it turns out long-distance friends have a lot to share with the rest of the world. That’s why Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, hosts of the Call Your Girlfriend podcast, are virtually headed to Sixth & I to discuss Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close. Sow and Friedman are long-distance friends; Sow lives in Brooklyn, while Friedman lives in Los Angeles. (They met, however, in D.C. in 2008.) The roots of Call Your Girlfriend are their cross-country phone calls to discuss, in their words, “the intricacies of pop culture and the latest in politics.” And since the podcast’s launch in 2014, hundreds of thousands of listeners continue to tune in. Perhaps there’s just something universal about missing your friends, about sharing life’s biggest milestones—or everything you need to know about Joe Biden, police abolition, and celebrity gossip—through the telephone. In Big Friendship, Sow and Friedman tackle their

own “big friendship,” which they define as a “strong, significant bond that transcends life phases, geographical locations, and emotional shifts.” They also bring in friends and experts to discuss just how relatable their “big friendship” is. If you find yourself with a particularly bad case of heartache, or you’re looking to witness more of Sow and Friedman’s friendship, tune in for a virtual book discussion with Sixth & I. As a bonus, the authors will be in conversation with Mari Andrew, author of Am I There Yet?: The Loop-de-loop, Zigzagging Journey to Adulthood. The virtual book discussion begins July 16 at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are available at sixthandi.org. $10-$31.

—Sarah Smith

City Lights

Jennifer Ackerman discusses The Bird Way

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I have spent a lot of time during this quarantine looking at birds, in part because my boyfriend is an avowed bird nerd, but mostly because I’m always in search of something new to look at while I spend my days close to home. In addition to the migratory species that briefly visited en route to their summer destinations, I’ve become closely acquainted with the blue jays, woodpeckers, and orioles that visit my back porch during cocktail hour. On walks around the neighborhood’s ponds, I’ve met cormorants, herons, and many mother ducks that, like human parents, are tasked with teaching their offspring important life skills, like how to swim and how to avoid being trampled by a car, a bike, or an errant foot. Each of these creatures behaves differently, and while I like to think I know why they do the things they do, I am no ornithologist. Enter Jennifer Ackerman, whose 2016 book The Genius of Birds taught readers a bit about the way birds think. Her new book, The Bird Way, offers similar insights into the ways birds around the world act. Some of them are aggressive, some are compassionate, and all of them are a lot more intelligent than we give them credit for. On Sunday, Ackerman will lead a Zoom discussion of The Bird Way as part of Politics and Prose’s P&P Live! Series. She might not be able to tell me how to convince my backyard blue jays to stop squawking at sunrise, but maybe I’ll start to understand why they do it. The discussion begins at 5 p.m. on July 12. Registration is available at politics-prose.com. Free; donations recommended. —Caroline Jones

washingtoncitypaper.com/membership washingtoncitypaper.com july 10, 2020 17

DIVERSIONS SAVAGE LOVE

Need some love advice?

Curious about kinks?

Visit the City Paper website for more Savage Love. washingtoncitypaper.com/ columns

I’m a lesbian in a long-term relationship. After much conversation with my partner we’ve decided to explore cuckolding role-play together. I’m not comfortable bringing another person into the relationship, especially right now, but I am willing to explore this as a fantasy. The thing is, I’m having a hard time figuring out how to do it. There’s not a lot of info out there on how to engage in cuck role-play, especially between two women. Could you point me in the right direction here so we can have some fun while remaining monogamous?

—Couldn’t Undergo Cuckolding Kink’s Glories In Real Life “You can definitely introduce cuckolding themes and even a cuck identity into your relationship while remaining monogamous,” says Thomas, a married gay man and former cuck blogger whose husband has cucked him many times IRL. “In fact, many cuckold relationships are monogamous and cucking remains in the fantasy realm.”

Thomas even sees his relationship as monogamous, at least on his side. “The definition of monogamy varies greatly for each couple,” says Thomas, “and I do consider myself monogamous because I’m the cuck, and so I don’t technically have sex with other guys. My husband does. I just get to watch sometimes.”

Let me quickly define terms for readers who somehow missed the 300 other columns I’ve written about cuckolding over the years: A cuckold relationship is a one-sided open relationship where one partner is free to have sex with other people while the other partner remains faithful. What distinguishes a cuckold relationship from your standard open relationship where one person doesn’t care to sleep around is the element of humiliation. In most cuckold relationships, CUCKGIRL, the cuck— the person who remains faithful—enjoys being teased or mocked by their “unfaithful” partner. Sometimes the “unfaithful” partner’s lover or lovers, usually referred to as “bulls,” participate in the erotic humiliation of the cuck partner.

Thomas created a popular Tumblr blog about gay male cuckold relationships back when there was very little information about gay cuckolds online, CUCKGIRL, much less gay cuckold porn or other resources. In fact, there was once so little info online or anywhere else about gay cuckolds that many people—myself included— weren’t convinced that gay cuckolding was actually a thing.

Cuckolding wasn’t a thing in Thomas’s marriage at the start. “Total monogamy had always been the plan,” says Thomas. “But I got interested after seeing some straight cuckold porn.

I immediately identified with the cuck, but I was too embarrassed to bring it up with my husband because it went against our vision of our marriage, but also because I only ever saw cuckolding represented in straight porn.”

Raising awareness of gay cuckolds and representing gay cuckold relationships motivated Thomas to start his blog. So if you’re not finding anything out there about lesbian cuckolding, CUCKGIRL, perhaps you could borrow a page from Thomas’s playbook and create the content and resources you would like to see.

18 july 10, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

Sadly, Thomas’s gay cuckolding blog is no more. His was just one of the many sex blogs, deeply personal passion projects, one and all, that were lost forever after the geniuses who ran Tumblr decided to purge adult content from their platform. In a matter of days, Tumblr saw its traffic fall by one-third and its value crater. Yahoo paid $1.1 billion to acquire Tumblr back in 2013, but six years and one porn purge later, the site sold for just $20 million, less than 2 percent of what Tumblr was worth when it still hosted Thomas’s gay cuckolding blog. (The moral of this story: Don’t fuck with gay cuckolds.)

Thomas thinks it’s entirely possible for you and your partner to enjoy lesbian cuckolding fantasies while keeping your relationship monogamous on both sides. That’s what Thomas and his husband did for many years.

“My husband and I started playing around with cuckold fantasies several years into our marriage, and it remained a hot role-play fantasy for a long time,” says Thomas. “It was fun, it was sexy, and it improved our ability to communicate with each other about sex in general.”

They kept their fantasy play simple at first—for example, his husband would talk about a guy he found hot while Thomas blew him or Thomas would tease his husband about a sexy new coworker of his that he knew his husband had a crush on. They would use insertion toys and pretend they were other guys’ dicks and gradually introduced some humiliating dirty talk into

“While there are no studies that show ‘once a cheater, always a cheater,’ studies have shown that someone who has cheated is more likely to cheat again.” their cuckold role-play talk, only as Thomas’s husband became more comfortable with the idea of humiliating him. “Making use of cam sites is also a great way to explore if you’re comfortable with that level of monogamish,” says Thomas. “If you’re a cuck like me, watching your partner perform for someone else is incredibly erotic.”

A more monogamous way to explore cuckolding without opening the relationship—not even a crack—is simply to ask your partner to tell you about her past sexual encounters.

Listening to your partner talk about hot experiences she had with other women while you masturbate or while you two fuck is a great way to explore cuckolding without actually opening up your relationship. You’ll be bringing people up, CUCKGIRL, not bringing them in.

“But just as a gay cuckold couple’s fantasies aren’t identical to a straight couple’s cuckold fantasies, a lesbian couple’s fantasies aren’t going to be the same either,” says Thomas.

“CUCKGIRL and her partner just have to find their own way. But the most important thing is to keep communicating. Always communicate!

If a particular form of role-play isn’t working, tell your partner. And give each other veto powers and go easy on yourself. Cuckolding is a fantasy that plays with your fears around monogamy and infidelity—it can be very hot, but it can be scary, too, so take it slow.”

Like a lot of sex bloggers who were kicked off Tumblr, Thomas migrated over to Twitter, where he currently has more than 13,000 followers. His handle on Twitter is @gaycuckoldhubby.

—Dan Savage I’m a straight lady in my mid-30s and I just found out my husband of six years and partner for 10 has been cheating on me for the last five years. As far as I knew, we had a perfect marriage, probably the best relationship, sexual or otherwise, I’d ever been in.

If this was a one-off affair, I think I could work past this—counseling, open marriage, some sort of solution. But the fact that he’s lied to me for the five years and that the sex was unsafe (I saw video) disturbs me.

My heart doesn’t want this to end—he’s been my best friend, lover, and support system for 10 years—but my brain is telling me that even if we renegotiated the terms of our marriage, he’d deceive me again.

I’m working with a therapist, but what’s your take?

Once a cheater, always a cheater? I don’t expect an all-knowing answer. But a little perspective would be helpful.

—Duped Wife For most of your marriage—for most of a marriage you describe as perfect—your husband was cheating on you. My perspective/two cents: Instead of regarding everything that worked about your marriage as a lie, instead of seeing every loving moment as just some part of your husband’s long and very selfish con, you might want to see what was good about your marriage and what was bad about your husband as two things that existed side-by-side. So instead of telling yourself, “This was a lousy marriage, it was all a lie, I just didn’t know it,” tell yourself, “It was a good marriage despite his cheating, it wasn’t all a lie, but it was a lot less perfect than I thought.” That’s where you’ll need to get if you want to stay in this marriage, and that may be the biggest “if” you’ll ever confront in your life.

And while there are no studies that show “once a cheater, always a cheater,” studies have shown that someone who has cheated is more likely to cheat again. Not certain to cheat again, but more likely to cheat than someone who’s never cheated. I’m so sorry you’re going through this, particularly now.

—DS I often masturbate thinking about the straight boy who wakes up in female underwear, tied up, gagged, and pegged by a female. Is there a name for this fantasy?

—Good And Simple Pervert I can’t give you a name—a name for this sequence of events and mélange of kinks— but I know plenty of professional female dominants who would be happy to give you an estimate.

—DS Email your Savage Love questions to mail@savagelove.net

CLASSIFIEDS Legal LATIN AMERICAN MONTESSORI BILINGUAL PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Special Education Services Latin American Montessori Bilingual Public Charter School (LAMB) is seeking Special Education services for school year 2020-21 from qualified vendors licensed and insured to conduct operation in the District of Columbia. Services to include Speech/ Language Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Physical Therapy services, and evaluations and screenings by therapists in the areas listed above.

RFP details may be requested at accounting@ lambpcs.org. Proposals should be submitted no later than July 17, 2020.

SUMMONS CASE NO.: FN2020-000770 SUPERIOR COURT OF ARIZONA IN MARICOPA COUNTY Jorge A Ascencio Name of Petitioner / Party A And Suyapa A Ascencio Name of Respondent / Party B WARNING: This is an official document from the court that affects your rights. Read this carefully.

If you do not understand it, contact a lawyer for help.

FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA TO: Suyapa A Ascencio 1. A lawsuit has been filed against you. A copy of the lawsuit and other court papers are served on you with this “Summons.”

2. If you do not want a judgment or order entered against you without your input, you must file a written “Answer” or a “Response” with the court, and pay the filing fee. Also, the other party may be granted their request by the Court if you do not file an “Answer” or “Response”, or show up in court. To file your “Answer” or “Response” take, or send, it to the: Office of the Clerk of Superior Court, 201 West Jefferson Street, Phoenix, Arizona 850032205 OR Office of the Clerk of Superior Court, 18380 North 40th Street, Phoenix, Arizona 85032 OR Office of the Clerk of Superior Court, 222 East Javelina Avenue, Mesa, Arizona 85210-6201 OR Office of the Clerk of

Superior Court, 14264 West Tierra Buena Lane, Surprise, Arizona 85374.

After filing, mail a copy of your “Response” or “Answer” to the other party at their current address.

3. If this “Summons” and the other court papers were served on you by a registered process server or the Sheriff within the State of Arizona, your “Response” or “Answer” must be filed within TWENTY (20) CALENDAR DAYS from the date you were served, not counting the day you were served. If you were served by “Acceptance of Service” within the State of Arizona, your “Response” or “Answer” must be filed within TWENTY (20) CALENDAR DAYS from the date that the “Acceptance of Service was filed withthe Clerk of Superior Court. If this “Summons” and the other papers were served on you by a registered process server or the Sheriff outside the State of Arizona, your Response must be filed within THIRTY (30) CALENDAR DAYS from the date you were served, not counting the day you were served. If you were served by “Acceptance of Service” outside the State of Arizona, your “Response” or “Answer” must be filed within THIRTY (30) CALENDAR DAYS from the date that the “Acceptance of Service was filed with the Clerk of Superior Court. Service by a registered process server or the Sheriff is complete when made.

Service by Publication is complete thirty(30) days after the date of the first publication.

4. You can get a copy of the court papers filed in this case from the Petitioner at the address listed at the top of the preceding page, or from the Clerk of Superior Court’sCustomer Service Center at: 601 West Jackson, Phoenix, Arizona 85003 or 18380 North 40th Street, Phoenix, Arizona 85032 or 222 East Javelina Avenue, Mesa, Arizona 85210 or 14264 West Tierra Buena Lane, Surprise, Arizona 85374.

5. If this is an action for dissolution (divorce), legal separation or annulment, either or both spouses may file a Petition for Conciliation for the purpose of determining whether there is any mutual interest in preserving the marriage or for Mediation to attempt to settle disputes concerning legal decisionmaking (legal custody)

and parenting time issues regarding minor children.

6. Requests for reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities must be made to the division assigned to the case by the party needing accommodation or his/her counsel at least three (3) judicial days in advance of a scheduled proceeding.

7. Requests for an interpreter for persons with limited English proficiency must be made to the division assigned to the case by the party needing the interpreter and/or translator or his/her counsel at least ten (10) judicial days in advance of a scheduled court proceeding.

SIGNED AND SEALED this date FEB 05 2020 CLERK OF SUPERIOR COURT

By M. PATTERSON Deputy Clerk of Superior Court 7/10, 7/17, 7/24, 7/31/20 THE SOCIAL JUSTICE SCHOOL REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS The Social Justice Public Charter School (SJS) is soliciting proposals/ quotes from qualified service providers for Human Resources Analytics Services; Finance and Accounting Services; and Student Data and Analytics Services.

Proposals shall be submitted as PDF documents no later than 5:00 PM on Friday, July 24, 2020 at 5:00pm.

Contact: reginald@thesocialjusticeschool.org.

NOTICE OF INTENT TO ENTER A SOLE SOURCE CONTRACT: IDEA IntegratedDesign and Electronic Academy PCS intends to enter into a sole source contract with Stoiber & Associates for architectural services for approximately $45,000 for the upcoming school year.

Stoiber & Associates has a unique capacity to preform renovations and reconfiguration of the building and site to better configure spaces to support current programmatic strategies for students, administrators, staff, visitors, and subtenants. For further information regarding this notice contact Nicole Seward at nseward@ideapcs.org no later than 7/21/20.

BRIDGES PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL NOTICE OF INTENT TO ENTER A SOLE SOURCE CONTRACT Bridges Public Charter School intends to enter into a sole source contract with The Literacy Lab for tutors to be placed

within the school. These tutors are serving as effective reading assistants specifically equipped to promote educational achievement. * Bridges Public Charter School establishes the sole source with The Literacy Lab intended for the low cost and high quality initiatives in reading as a fundamental that will lead to student achievement. * For further information regarding this notice, contact bids@bridgespcs.org no later than 4:00 pm Monday, July 20, 2020.

MUNDO VERDE PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS Food Items and Substitutes/Dedicated Aides 1. Food Items. MVPCS is advertising the opportunity to bid on food items (perishable and nonperishable) for the 20202021 school year with a possible extension of (2) one year renewals.

All food items must meet at a minimum, but are not restricted to, the USDA holding and processing standards and, where applicable, National School Breakfast and Lunch labelling requirements. Additional specifications outlined in the Request for Proposal (RFP) such as; sourcing, delivery, farm to school, etc. may be obtained beginning on July 6 from Danielle Revers at (202) 750-7060 or drevers@ mundoverdepcs.org . Proposals will be accepted at 30 P St. NW, Washington, DC on July 27, not later than 5pm. All bids not addressing all areas as outlined in the RFP will not be considered.

2. Substitutes and Dedicated Aides. MVPCS is seeking proposals for dedicated aides, shortterm and long-term substitutes for SPED and general education for SY21 and possible yearly extensions. Please contact Elle Carne at ecarne@ mundoverdepcs.org for full RFP details. All bids are due via email on July 17 at 3pm. Any bids not addressing all areas as outlined in the RFP will not be considered.

Note that the contract may not be effective until reviewed and approved by the District of Columbia Public Charter School Board. .

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