After nearly 20 years in existence, Downtown’s popular Arts on Foot festival is getting a makeover. The DowntownDC BID and the Pennsylvania Quarter Neighborhood Association (912 F Street), longtime producers of the annual fall festival that debuts the performing and visual arts season in Penn Quarter, recently announced a joint, one-year planning program to reconfigure and expand the four-day affair that was centered at 7th and F Streets in front of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery. Because of the upcoming change, Arts on Foot will take a break this year and return in 2013. Both the BID and the Penn Quarter Neighborhood Association will partner with performing and visual arts participants whose vision and imagination will bring unprecedented vitality and energy to this free event.
“We will be working with our colleagues at the museums, theaters, and other arts presenters – both large and small – to design an event that will leave no doubt about Downtown’s rich cultural resources available throughout the year,” said Richard H. Bradley, executive director of the DowntownDC BID. “Our goal” added Jo-Ann Neuhaus, executive director of the Penn Quarter Neighborhood Association, “is to again be innovators. Penn Quarter has matured and so have the arts that are now here.” Thus, another goal is to create a fall event that kicks off the arts and cultural season similar to the way that the National Cherry Blossom Festival signifies the arrival of spring.