August 14, 2024 Dress as Your Favorite Film Character, Participate in a Hip-Hop Jam Session and Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month During Live! At The Library in September

Series Features Conversation With Former U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, and Live Performance of “War Words”

Press Contact: Media Contact: Elaina Finkelstein, efinkelstein@loc.gov

Visitors are invited to an enchanting evening at the Library of Congress on Sept. 12 for a Film Costume Ball during Live! At The Library. Dress in your favorite film-inspired attire, participate in a costume contest and dance the night away to a DJ-curated soundtrack of iconic film scores – all while enjoying themed food and cocktails.

Guests will also be invited to explore a curated display of treasures from the Library’s world-renowned audiovisual and performing arts collections, featuring legendary films such as “The Wizard of Oz,” “Star Wars,” “Cinderella” and more.

Ticketing

For special events during Live! At The Library, please use the event registration ticketing link found next to the event below or at loc.gov/live. This ticket grants access to the special event as well as the Library’s exhibitions and the happy hour portion of the evening.

Programming Highlights for September

Sept. 5: Professor Mohamed Haji Mukhtar of Savannah State University takes visitors on a journey into a lesser-known chapter in the spread of Islam – its diffusion through the nomadic Somali-speaking clans of the Horn of Africa. Register for tickets.

Sept. 5: Join a special acoustic jam night with Grammy nominee Christylez Bacon. Visitors are encouraged to bring their own instruments such as guitars, percussion, and more to participate in this special jam session within the Library’s walls. Please note, all instruments must go through an x-ray security screening upon entering the Thomas Jefferson Building. Register for tickets.

Sept. 12: Get inspired by the Library's film collections and come dressed in your favorite film-inspired attire for a fun-filled evening at the Film Costume Ball! This event will include a DJ dance set, themed food and cocktails, a curated display of historic Library of Congress collections, photo opportunities throughout the building, and more. Register for a ticket lottery.

Sept. 19: Former U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera and award-winning poets Ruth Behar and Maria Kelson come to the Library of Congress for a special conversation led by Dan Vera. Register for tickets.

Sept. 26: Visitors are invited to celebrate the vibrant fiction and nonfiction being published in five Nordic nations: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. In collaboration with the embassies of those nations, the Library of Congress will host five dynamic writers who will come to Live! At The Library for a night of conversation together. Register for tickets.

Sept. 26: The Veterans History Project hosts a live performance of "War Words," a performance drawn from the funny, strange, heroic and heartbreaking stories of those sent to Iraq and Afghanistan, those brought home, and those left behind. Register for tickets.

Exhibitions On View

• The inaugural exhibition in the David M. Rubenstein Treasures Gallery draws from the Library’s rich Americana and international holdings in more than 450 languages and a variety of formats created across time and continents. “Collecting Memories” marks the ways and the means cultures preserve memory.

• “Not an Ostrich: And Other Images from America’s Library” represents a sampling of the more than 15 million photographs held by the Library, ranging from the early days of photography to today. Located in the Southwest Gallery of the Thomas Jefferson Building, visitors will see the “first selfie,” which is thought to be the earliest known American photographic self-portrait, and view important pictures of Harriet Tubman, the Wright brothers and more. 

• Take a trip through a re-created version of Thomas Jefferson’s Library, which assembles 6,487 volumes that founded the Library of Congress, and learn how one of America’s greatest thinkers was inspired through the world of books.

• Celebrating 30 Years of the Small Press Expo display highlights material from the annual comics and graphic arts festival. The Library has a long-standing partnership with SPX to collect and document the festival. This year, the SPX festival is being held in Bethesda, Maryland, on September 14 and 15. This display will be on view until October 17.

• Hispanic Heritage: Oscar Hijuelos display features a variety of materials from the Library’s newly acquired personal papers collection of the New York based Cubano author Oscar Hijuelos (1951–2013). Hijuelos was the first Hispanic American awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, in 1990, for his novel, Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love (1989). This display will be on view until October 30.

Live! At The Library is part of a broader effort to reimagine the visitor experience at the Library of Congress that invites visitors to enjoy the Library and its collections in new formats during extended evening hours on Thursday nights. The series regularly features special conversations, music, performances, films and workshops that showcase the broad range of holdings at the national library.

The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States — and extensive materials from around the world — both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov; access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov; and register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov.

 

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PR 24-065
2024-08-15
ISSN 0731-3527