Thursday, July 9, 2026
Were you expecting things to quiet down after the Fourth of July? This weekend may be just as celebratory in D.C., what with the Japanese Star Festival at Hillwood, Bastille Day at the French Embassy and Cowpie — a vest-pocket version of Cheyenne Frontier Days — at Eastern Market. Don’t forget to catch Bugs in “Rabbit of Seville,” Friday and Sunday at AFI.
Star-Crossed Lovers
Tonight, Thursday, July 9, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens, 4155 Linnean Ave. NW, marks Tanabata, the Japanese Star Festival, the one day when legendary lovers Orihime and Hikoboshi are allowed to meet. Attendees can make paper lanterns and tanzaku messages, try calligraphy and origami with Japan-America Society guidance and learn from Air and Space Museum volunteers about the key constellations, with music by the Washington Toho Koto Society. Tickets are $20, $7 for students and $5 for ages 6 to 18.
Playing With Color
Also tonight, from 6:30 to 9 p.m., the National Building Museum, 401 F St. NW, hosts Late Night: Color in the Playground, the Playground being the museum’s interactive summer installation. Visitors will experience how color shapes the spaces we inhabit and impacts how we connect to them. Experimental pop collective the North Country performs at 8 p.m. Food and beverages will be available for purchase. Tickets are $25, $20 for students.
Cars, Not Jeans
On Friday, July 10, at the Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries Building, 900 Jefferson Drive SW, the National Museum of American History presents Looking Under the Hood of Lowriders from 1 to 2 p.m. Steve Velasquez, lead curator of “Corazón y Vida: Lowriding Culture,” which features two lowriders — customized cars with lowered bodies — moderates a panel made up of NMAH Head of Design Michael Denison, NMAH Head of Exhibition Development Howard Morrison and Mike Valle, Just Klownin Car Club president.
Toon Time in Silver Spring
Eight classic cartoons will be screened in an hourlong program called Looney Toons All Stars Part 1 at AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, 8633 Colesville Road in Silver Spring, Maryland, on Friday, July 10, at 2:45 p.m. (and also on Sunday, July 12, at 11:45 a.m.). Two shorts, “Baseball Bugs” (1946) and “Snow Business” (1953), were directed by Friz Freleng and the others — “Drip-Along Daffy” (1951), “Rabbit Hood” (1949), “Rabbit of Seville” (1950), “Rabbit Fire” (1951), “Duck Amuck” (1953) and “One Froggy Evening” (1955) — by Chuck Jones. Tickets are $8.
Party Like It’s 1789
The Embassy of France, 4101 Reservoir Road NW, invites you to celebrate Quatorze juillet on Friday, July 10, from 7 to 10:45 p.m. at Bastille Day 2026: 250th Anniversary. This “French-American Celebration” features tastings from 20 local chefs with paired wines, dancing — first to music by the Hot Club of Baltimore, and then with DJP “spinning the best of French pop, international favorites and dance floor anthems” — and an online auction and raffle. Tickets are $145.90 ($119.20 if you’re under 30) on Eventbrite.
Home on the Range
You can’t celebrate Cheyenne Frontier Days if you’re not in Wyoming, can you? No siree. But if you’re in Washington, D.C., you can substitute the Wyoming State Society’s 49th annual Cowpie at Eastern Market, 225 Seventh St. SE. Hundreds of Wyoming expats and Western enthusiasts will shake their boots, hats and belt buckles country dancing and riding a mechanical bull at this Equality State-themed event, on Friday, July 10, from 8 p.m. to midnight. Tickets are $28.52 ($55.20 with open bar) on Eventbrite.
Day at the Museum
Saturday, July 11, is Community Day at the Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum, 575 Third St. NW. From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., the entire museum will be free to the public, including the special exhibition “Blacklisted: An American Story,” which uses personal stories, rare artifacts and film clips to explore the Hollywood blacklist and the federal government’s loyalty investigations during the Red Scare of the late 1940s and 1950s.
If You Could Read My Mind
Magician and mentalist Brian Curry is The Good Liar, appearing on Saturday, July 11, at 8 p.m. as part of Live at the Capital Hilton, 1001 16th St. NW. The charming and devious Curry astounds audiences, reading thoughts and predicting choices in this entertaining, lie-packed show. Tickets are $57.60 on Eventbrite.
Gluing Stuff, in French
On Sunday, July 12, from noon to 4 p.m., Washington Printmakers Gallery, 1675 Wisconsin Ave. NW, hosts Beautiful Scraps, an all-levels (age 13+), no-experience-required collage workshop with Maryland-based printmaker Clare Winslow. Participants, who will leave with at least one finished piece, should bring “whatever inspires you — vintage maps, sheet music, decorative papers, magazine clippings, old drawings, unfinished artwork, wrapping paper, book pages.” Tuition is $100 plus a $15 materials fee.
Suggested Attire: Smock
Also on Sunday, July 12, from 1 to 4 p.m., mixed-media artist Sharon Robinson leads a Smithsonian Associates studio arts workshop, Tools of the Trade, at the S. Dillon Ripley Center, 1100 Jefferson Drive SW. Participants will explore paints, mediums, inks, adhesives and art-making equipment, learning how to get the most from their materials. Tickets are $85 ($70 for Smithsonian Associates members).
Train Your Trees
Stop putting off that bonsai garden you’ve always wanted. On Sunday, July 12, at 1 p.m., Cultivate the City, 2806 Channing St. NE, offers Bonsai Gardening for Beginners, a fun and interactive session with “no green thumb required!” Tickets are $30.23 on Eventbrite.
Where Do I Begin?
Even Mozart and Beethoven had to start somewhere. On Sunday, July 12, at 3 p.m., Jiannan Cheng, music director of Pennsylvania-based Orchestra Concordia, conducts Brilliant Beginnings, a Baltimore Symphony Orchestra program featuring each composer’s Symphony No. 1, at the Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane in North Bethesda, Maryland. In addition, Finnish pianist Juho Pohjonen will be the soloist for a performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 12. Tickets start at $35.