Thursday, May 1, 2025
The first weekend in May is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser at Glen Echo Park, the historic amusement park on the C&O Canal in Maryland — originally a Chautauqua Assembly — that became an arts center and a National Park Service site in 1971.
On Friday, May 2, from 6 to 8 p.m., the Glen Echo Park Partnership for Arts and Culture will hold the first of three Art Walk in the Park evenings. The other two first-Friday dates are June 6 and Aug. 1. (The series skips July on account of Independence Day.)
The following day, Saturday, May 3, is Carousel Day, opening day for the 104-year-old Dentzel Carousel’s 2025 season. Giddy up!
Four exhibitions will open with free receptions during the May 2 Art Walk. Small-scale landscape drawings by Lauren Scavo-Fulk will go on view in the Park View Gallery. “Evolving Worlds,” displaying nature-based works made of cast-off objects by Eric Celarier, will open in the Stone Tower Gallery and paintings of urban landscapes by Bennett Vadnais in the Stone Tower Studio. Popcorn Gallery visitors will be the first to see Glen Echo Pottery’s “Color Wheel 2025.”
Also on view: the “Ready for It” exhibition of photographs by area high school students in Photoworks and “Magic Staircase,” a public art installation by Lauri Hafvenstein.
The studios in Glen Echo Pottery, Photoworks, SilverWorks, Glassworks, the Art Glass Center, the Sculpture Studio and the Yellow Barn Studio & Gallery will be open to the public, in many cases with art for sale, artist demonstrations and hands-on art activities. From 7 to 8 p.m. in the Yellow Barn, the public can observe Ken Conley’s Friday Night Figure Drawing class, space permitting.
Other Art Walk opportunities: Mexican street food from the Square Taco Food Truck, music by the WCM [Washington Conservatory of Music] Jazz Trio and contra dancing to traditional American, Irish and Quebecois tunes with Friday Night Dancers.
“We love presenting Art Walk in the Park,” said Jenni Cloud, the partnership’s marketing and communications director. “It gives the public an opportunity to visit all of Glen Echo Park’s resident visual arts studios in one evening. Visitors learn about the studios’ classes and exhibitions, meet resident artists and instructors, view artists at work, purchase unique artwork and gifts — and just enjoy the beauty of the park.”
The hours for this year’s Carousel Day, rain or shine on Saturday, May 3, are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides are $2 each or $5 for an all-day pass, also good for evening rides, available from 8:30 to 10:30 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online at glenechopark.org.
Apart from the 1921 carousel itself, built by the Dentzel Carousel Company of Germantown, Pennsylvania, Carousel Day’s main attraction will be an 11:45 a.m. performance in the Art Deco Spanish Ballroom by Step Afrika! — the African American dance company celebrating its 30th anniversary. Other groups appearing in the Spanish Ballroom: Furia Flamenca at 12:45 p.m., the Culkin School of Traditional Irish Dance at 1:45 p.m. and Rhythmaya at 2:45 p.m.
The Bumper Car Pavilion will showcase Washington Revels at 11 a.m., “The Rainbow Bird” at 12:15 p.m., Washington Conservatory of Music at 1:15 p.m., Adventure Theatre MTC pre-professional performers at 2:15 p.m. and Mark H Taiko Connection at 3:15 p.m. (Mark H [no period] Rooney is “the world’s most dangerous half-Japanese/half-Scottish solo improvisational taiko [Japanese percussion] artist.”)
As on Friday night, the studios and galleries will welcome visitors and offer hands-on art activities. Puppet Co. and Happenstance Theater performers will rove. Food options: Praline Café, the Timber Pizza food truck and Pacha Mama Juice Co.
The National Park Service’s mobile visitor center will be open, with tours of the nearby Clara Barton National Historic Site available. Prior to cranking up the carousel, a Glen Echo Park Civil Rights and History Tour will set out at 10 a.m.
More to see and do on Saturday: short films featuring Folklife Apprenticeships and Heritage Awards artists and, with separate ticketing, Glen Echo Park Aquarium, “Charlotte’s Web” at Adventure Theatre MTC at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. and “Jeghetto’s Workshop” at the Puppet Co. at 11:30, 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. (Jeghetto is hip-hop puppeteer Tarish Pipkins.)
That evening, DC Rawhides Dance will perform at 7 p.m., with a Viennese ball, “An Evening With Strauss,” following at 8 p.m.
Glen Echo Park is located at 7300 MacArthur Boulevard in Glen Echo, Maryland. There is a suggested donation of $10 for Carousel Day. Those planning to visit on either day can RSVP (preferred, not required) at glenechopark.org.