A choreographer and former dancer with The Washington Ballet, Stephen Nakagawa, has been named the new head of the Kennedy Center’s dance programming, days after the entire staff of the renowned performing arts institution’s dance department was fired . Kennedy Center terminates dance programming team This is the latest shakeup since Trump took over the cultural center. “We will have an exciting announcement about the new direction for Dance programming soon,” said a Kennedy Center spokesperson. The Kennedy Center is one of the nation’s largest performing arts institutions, and earlier this year , it requested a large boost in its funding from Congress to more than $250 million. In Monday’s statement, Nakagawa said: “It is a tremendous honor to join the Kennedy Center at such a pivotal moment for the performing arts.