Dance Party

Activist Adam Kokesh has asked 1,000 people to march across the Potomac on July 4 carrying loaded rifles. He calls it a protest against "tyranny. " Suppose the D.C. police, as they have promised, block the marchers from crossing into Washington? How should they respond? "With Satyagraha, " Kokesh, 31, texted The Washington Post. That is a term used by Mahatma Gandhi to describe his strategy of nonviolent resistance to British rule in India. Invoking Gandhi while advocating the carrying of...

Every Tuesday, the Going Out Gurus highlight the week's best DJs, bands, dance nights and parties. Find a longer list of events at www.goingoutguide.com . Birreria Paradiso grand reopening The basement bar at Georgetown's Pizzeria Paradiso just received a facelift that added more tables and expanded the standing room next to the bar. The space is much more comfortable and less cramped — even on a Friday night. To celebrate the new look, the basement beer bar is offering three nights of grand reopening specials.

WHEN A BAND takes off 18 years between albums and then the members try to recapture in their 50s the magic they had in their 30s, the results are usually embarrassing. But "Boo!," the first Was (Not Was) album of new songs since 1990, is full of improbably catchy songs. Catchiest of all is "Crazy Water," the story of how "the senator's son and the president's daughter" went downtown to try the public baths and the after-midnight discos. The song works because Sweet Pea Atkinson's terrific R&B vocal and Don Was's funky bass groove could plausibly...

A little more than a decade ago, a nerdy, lanky black teenager from the Bronx stood in front of a mirror in his bedroom. He had come home from a dance party at a debate tournament and was duly embarrassed that, of all his friends, he had the least amount of rhythm. For two hours, he gazed into that mirror trying to learn a dance he had spotted in a hip-hop video with G. Dep and P. Diddy for the song, "Let's Get It. " He shuffled his shoulders; wiggling arms from side to side. Soon, he got it. And he vowed he would never be...

If it's a dance party you're looking for . . . well, that's never a problem around here. But this weekend, the Roots' (and, uh, Jimmy Fallon's trusty sidekick?) ?uestlove takes to the turntables at the 9:30 club, adding the luster of celebrity to the usual slate of dance-offs. ?uestlove and the rest of the Roots are legendary performers, but the drummer-cum-crate-digger has a rep for prodigious party-starting (he has spun hip-hop, '80s, new wave, soul and reggae all over the world, and he is known for, you know, not being one of...

After the recent glut of Michael Jackson tribute concerts, you may have felt all moonwalked out. But this chance to join in the "Thriller" dance has an added incentive: It benefits a local charity. Project Create, an organization that exposes at-risk D.C. kids to the arts, will transform the library room of Dupont's Darlington House back into its former incarnation as party central, complete with a disco ball. DJ Random will be spinning the hits, so expect a lot of "Smooth Criminal" and "Beat It," plus music from those...

The Going Out Gurus answered your questions in this week's Got Plans? discussion. Check out the highlights below, and go to goingoutguide.com to join in next week's chat, Thursday at 1 p.m. Evening boat tour? Do you know of any Saturday-evening boat cruises? I'd like to get a group of friends together to have drinks and see the city/monuments at night from the water; it doesn't have to be a full-out booze cruise, but I would rather not do dinner. Something leaving from the District would be great, but I'm not...

It might not seem like the spot for a dance party, but on Saturday, dozens of people shimmied, shook and even funky-walked inside the Jefferson Memorial in protest of a recent court ruling banning such behavior. About 200 people gathered on the steps to highlight their opposition to a U.S. Appeals Court decision handed down in May that banned dancing inside the memorial. More than 3,000 had signed up via Facebook to attend the event. But unlike last weekend, when five people were arrested and video posted to YouTube raised...

A little more than a decade ago, a nerdy, lanky black teenager from the Bronx stood in front of a mirror in his bedroom. He had come home from a dance party at a debate tournament and was duly embarrassed that, of all his friends, he had the least amount of rhythm. For two hours, he gazed into that mirror trying to learn a dance he had spotted in a hip-hop video with G. Dep and P. Diddy for the song, "Let's Get It. " He shuffled his shoulders; wiggling arms from side to side. Soon, he got it. And he vowed he...

The stage is only about eight inches high, so the psychic force field that normally separates artist from audience is really just a stair step. DJ Mafe and DJ Rat go up, down, up, down, up. Disappearing/reappearing DJs. It's an electric Thursday night at Tropicalia , the new U Street nightclub, and the duo is either working the turntables or working the floor. They dance to reggaeton with the woman in the snakeskin miniskirt, dance to cumbia with the guy in the MIGRANT T-shirt, dance to salsa...

Jason Moran is a specialist in the field of jazz abstraction. The pianist and leader of the trio Bandwagon has a rich knowledge of the music's history and context — part of the reason, no doubt, that he serves as the Kennedy Center's artistic adviser for jazz . But Moran rarely reads it straight: He prefers to dissect, fragment, distill and subvert it. That includes the music of pianist and composer Thomas "Fats" Waller , whose...

As President Obama's ceremonial swearing-in began at the Capitol on Monday, antiwar protesters forced a rolling roadblock for nearly a mile along 16th Street, north of the White House. With banners, bullhorns and a fleet of faux steel-gray drones, more than 150 protesters chanted: "Stop the war. That is what we're marching for. " "I wanted the out-of-towners to recognize that there are some of us who believe he has not lived up to his potential," Jim Schulman of CodePinkDC...

"Bah, humbug!" seems to sum up most local dance troupes' stance on the holiday season this year. The list of December performances includes a gender-bending flamenco festival and a modern dance tribute to space exploration. So it's refreshing, by contrast, to see the local hoofers of Step Afrika! engage in a little old fashioned holiday profiteering. Step Afrika!'s "Magical Musical Holiday Step Show" opened an 11-day run Wednesday at the...

Thursday, NOV. 22 Thanksgiving Day swing dance party, with swing dance lessons at 5 p.m. Music and dancing. 6-7:30 p.m., Kennedy Center, Millennium Stage, 2700 F St. NW. Free. 202-467-4600. Friday, NOV. 23 Daniel/Shaw Library resume help, librarian Paul Sweeney helps visitors create an effective resume; bring a list of potential places of employment to help create it. 11 a.m., Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Library, 945 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Free. 202-671-0265.

The stage is only about eight inches high, so the psychic force field that normally separates artist from audience is really just a stair step. DJ Mafe and DJ Rat go up, down, up, down, up. Disappearing/reappearing DJs. It's an electric Thursday night at Tropicalia , the new U Street nightclub, and the duo is either working the turntables or working the floor. They dance to reggaeton with the woman in the snakeskin miniskirt, dance to cumbia with the guy in the MIGRANT T-shirt, dance to salsa with the cyclist...

I was sitting in a staff meeting when the call came in. It was a 310 number, which is almost always more important than a 301 number, so I grabbed my BlackBerry and excused myself. Yes, BlackBerry. Don't you judge me. The person on the other end claimed to be the booker for "The Ellen DeGeneres Show. " She said that Ellen had seen me on "Last Comic Standing," that she was a big fan and wanted to fly me out to Los Angeles to be on the show. "Okay, but who is this really?" Because...

FESTIVALS Dance party In case you hadn't heard, some people believe that May 21 marks the end of the world. This has all been worked out according to some biblical math, and if it's all true, we recommend spending your final days with your loved ones — or dancing? VitaminWater Uncapped, a month-long festival that starts this weekend in an empty building downtown, is holding an end-of-the-world dance party Saturday, but we prefer the kickoff event Thursday night that features performances by Rye Rye and Wale.

If Luke Bryan is the guy at the party running around persuading everyone to take another shot, then Jason Aldean is the quiet, brooding cowboy in the corner ready to jump onstage and wow everyone with an unexpected rap. Both country singers delivered deafeningly entertaining shows to thousands at a sold-out concert at Merriweather Post Pavilion on Sunday. But the question remained: What would have happened if they combined their strengths? We may never know. Bryan kicked off the night,...

THU 06 "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo" Round House Theatre presents the local premiere of Rajiv Joseph's dark comedy (a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist) in which an Iraqi gardener, two Marines and a tiger walk the streets of Baghdad and consider life after war. Recommended for age 17 and older. Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m., Sunday at 3 p.m., Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. Through Sept. 30. Round House Theatre, 4545 East West Hwy., Bethesda.

If Luke Bryan is the guy at the party running around persuading everyone to take another shot, then Jason Aldean is the quiet, brooding cowboy in the corner ready to jump onstage and wow everyone with an unexpected rap. Both country singers delivered deafeningly entertaining shows to thousands at a sold-out concert at Merriweather Post Pavilion on Sunday. But the question remained: What would have happened if they combined their strengths? We may never know. Bryan kicked off the night,...