text:
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (officially known as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, and commonly referred to as the Kennedy Center) is the United States National Cultural Center, located on the eastern bank of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. It was named in 1964 as a memorial to assassinated President John F. Kennedy. Opened on September 8, 1971, the center hosts many different genres of performance art, such as theater, dance, orchestras, jazz, pop, psychedelic, and folk music.

Authorized by the 1958 National Cultural Center Act of Congress, which requires that its programming be sustained through private funds, the center represents a public–private partnership. Its activities include educational and outreach initiatives, almost entirely funded through ticket sales and gifts from individuals, corporations, and private foundations.

The original building, designed by architect Edward Durell Stone, was constructed by Philadelphia contractor John McShain, and is administered as a bureau of the Smithsonian Institution. An earlier design proposal called for a more curvy, spaceship-inspired building similar to how the Watergate complex appears today. An extension to the Durell Stone Building was designed by Steven Holl and opened in 2019. The center receives annual federal funding to pay for building maintenance and operation.

History
The idea for a national cultural center dates to 1933 when First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt discussed ideas for the Emergency Relief and Civil Works Administration to create employment for unemployed actors during the Great Depression. Congress held hearings in 1935 on plans to establish a Cabinet level Department of Science, Art and Literature, and to build a monumental theater and arts building on Capitol Hill near the Supreme Court building. A 1938 congressional resolution called for construction of a "public building which shall be known as the National Cultural Center" near Judiciary Square, but nothing materialized.

The idea for a national theater resurfaced in 1950, when U.S. Representative Arthur George Klein of New York introduced a bill to authorize funds to plan and build a cultural center. The bill included provisions that the center would prohibit any discrimination of cast or audience. In 1955, the Stanford Research Institute was commissioned to select a site and provide design suggestions for the center. From 1955 to 1958, Congress debated the idea amid much controversy. A bill was finally passed in Congress in the summer of 1958 and on September 4, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the National Cultural Center Act which provided momentum for the project.

This was the first time that the federal government helped finance a structure dedicated to the performing arts. The legislation required a portion of the costs, estimated at $10–25 million, to be raised within five years of the bill's passage. Edward Durell Stone was selected as architect for the project in June 1959. He presented preliminary designs to the President's Music Committee in October 1959, along with estimated costs of $50 million, double the original estimates of $25–30 million. By November 1959, estimated costs had escalated to $61 million. Despite this, Stone's design was well received in editorials in The Washington Post, Washington Star, and quickly approved by the United States Commission of Fine Arts, National Capital Planning Commission, and the National Park Service.

The National Cultural Center was renamed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1964, following the assassination of President Kennedy.

Fundraising
The National Cultural Center Board of Trustees, a group President Eisenhower established on January 29, 1959, led fundraising. Fundraising efforts were not successful, with only $13,425 raised in the first three years. President John F. Kennedy was interested in bringing culture to the nation's capital, and provided leadership and support for the project. In 1961, President Kennedy asked Roger L. Stevens to help develop the National Cultural Center, and serve as chairman of the Board of Trustees. Stevens recruited First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy as honorary chairman of the center, and former First Lady Mamie Eisenhower as co-chairman. In January 1961, Jarold A. Kieffer became the first Executive Director of the National Cultural Center, overseeing numerous fundraising efforts and assisting with the architectural plan.

The total cost of construction was $70 million. Congress allocated $43 million for construction costs, including $23 million as an outright grant and the other $20 million in bonds. Donations also comprised a significant portion of funding, including $5 million from the Ford Foundation, and approximately $500,000 from the Kennedy family. Other major donors included J. Willard Marriott, Marjorie Merriweather Post, John D. Rockefeller III, and Robert W. Woodruff, as well as many corporate donors. Foreign countries provided gifts to the Kennedy Center, including a gift of 3,700 tons of Carrara marble from Italy (worth $1.5 million) from the Italian government, which was used in the building's construction.

Construction

President Lyndon B. Johnson dug the ceremonial first-shovel of earth at the groundbreaking for the Kennedy Center December 2, 1964. However, debate continued for another year over the Foggy Bottom site, with some advocating for another location on Pennsylvania Avenue. Excavation of the site got underway on December 11, 1965, and the site was cleared by January 1967.

The first performance was September 5, 1971, with 2,200 members of the general public in attendance to see a premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass in the Opera House, while the center's official opening took place September 8, 1971, with a formal gala and premiere performance of the Bernstein Mass. The Concert Hall was inaugurated September 9, 1971, with a performance by the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Antal Doráti. Alberto Ginastera's opera, Beatrix Cenci premiered at the Kennedy Center Opera House September 10, 1971. The Eisenhower Theater was inaugurated October 18, 1971, with a performance of A Doll's House starring Claire Bloom.

Architecture
Architect Edward Durell Stone designed the Kennedy Center. Overall, the building is 100 ft high, 630 ft long, and 300 ft wide. The Kennedy Center features a 630 ft, 63 ft grand foyer, with 16 hand-blown Orrefors crystal chandeliers (a gift from Sweden) and red carpeting. The Hall of States and the Hall of Nations are both 250 ft, 63 ft corridors. The building has drawn criticism about its location (far away from Washington Metro stops), and for its scale and form, although it has also drawn praise for its acoustics, and its terrace overlooking the Potomac River. In her book On Architecture, Ada Louise Huxtable called it "gemütlich Speer."

Cyril M. Harris designed the Kennedy Center's auditoriums and their acoustics. A key consideration is that many aircraft fly along the Potomac River and over the Kennedy Center, as they take off and land at the nearby Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Helicopter traffic over the Kennedy Center is also fairly high. To keep out this noise, the Kennedy Center was designed as a box within a box, giving each auditorium an extra outer shell.

After the original structure was marked for expansion, a competition in 2013 selected Steven Holl Architects to undertake the design. The extension, called The REACH, opened in 2019.

Artwork
The plaza entrance of the Kennedy Center features two tableaus by German sculptor Jürgen Weber; created between 1965 and 1971, which were a gift to the Kennedy Center from the West German government. Near the north end of the plaza is a display of nude figures in scenes representing war and peace, called War or Peace. The piece, 8 ×, depicts five scenes showing the symbolism of war and peace: a war scene, murder, family, and creativity. At the south end is America which represents Weber's image of America (8 × 50 × 1.5 ft.). Four scenes are depicted representing threats to liberty, technology, foreign aid and survival, and free speech. It took the artist four years to sculpt the two reliefs in plaster, creating 200 castings, and another two years for the foundry in Berlin to cast the pieces. In 1994, the Smithsonian Institution's Save Outdoor Sculpture! program surveyed War or Peace and America and described them as being well maintained. Another sculpture Don Quixote by Aurelio Teno occupies a site near the northeast corner of the building. King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia of Spain gave the sculpture to the United States for its Bicentennial, June 3, 1976.

Venues

The Kennedy Center has three main theaters: the Concert Hall, the Opera House, and the Eisenhower Theater.

Concert Hall
The Concert Hall, located at the south end of the center, seats 2,465 including chorister seats and stage boxes, and has a seating arrangement similar to that used in many European halls such as Musikverein in Vienna. The Concert Hall is the largest performance space in the Kennedy Center and is the home of the National Symphony Orchestra. A 1997 renovation brought a high-tech acoustical canopy, handicap-accessible locations on every level, and new seating sections (onstage boxes, chorister seats, and parterre seats). The Hadeland crystal chandeliers, given by the Norwegian government, were repositioned to provide a clearer view. Canadian organbuilder Casavant Frères constructed and installed a new pipe organ in 2012.

Opera House
The Opera House, in the middle, has approximately 2,347 seats. Its interior features include walls covered in red velvet, a distinctive red and gold silk curtain, given by the Japanese government, and Lobmeyr crystal chandelier with matching pendants, a gift from the government of Austria. It is the major opera, ballet, and large-scale musical venue of the center, and closed during the 2003/2004 season for extensive renovations which provided a revised seating arrangement and redesigned entrances at the orchestra level. It is the home of the Washington National Opera and the annual Kennedy Center Honors.

Eisenhower Theater
The Eisenhower Theater, on the north side, seats about 1,161 and is named for President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who signed the National Cultural Center Act into law on September 2, 1958. It primarily hosts plays and musicals, smaller-scale operas, ballet, and contemporary dance. The theater contains an orchestra pit for up to 35 musicians that is convertible to a forestage or additional seating space. The venue reopened in October 2008, following a 16-month renovation which altered the color scheme and seating arrangements.

Other performance venues
Other performance venues in the center include:
 * Justice Forum is a 144 seat lecture hall located at The Reach. Intended for film screenings, presentations, and ensembles this space is equipped with projection screens and the seats have a table arm for note-taking,
 * Millennium Stage. with 235 seats. Part of the concept of "Performing Arts for Everyone" launched by Chairman James Johnson in the winter of 1997, the Millennium Stage provides free performances at 6:00 pm Wednesday through Saturday on two specially created stages at either end of the Grand Foyer. A Millennium Stage film is shown at 3:00 pm on Sundays. A broad range of art forms are featured on the Millennium Stage. These include performing artists and groups from all 50 states and an Artist-in-Residence program featuring artists performing several evenings in a month. Every show on the Millennium Stage is available as a simulcast of the live show at 6:00 pm, and is archived for later viewing via the Kennedy Center's website.
 * River Pavilion is a 268 capacity flexible interior space located at The Reach. Complete with a cafe this space offers brilliant views of the Potomac River.  A wall of windows allows for natural sunlight and views of the reflecting pools and the Presidential Grove of Ginkgo trees.
 * Room PT-109 is a meeting space at The Reach with a capacity for 85. Great for meetings, dinners and conference breakout sessions. This space overlooks the reflecting pool.
 * Skylight Pavilion Located at The Reach and with capacity for 425 this vaulted ceiling space offers expansive views of the river and hosts events, receptions and dinners under the multiple glass skylights.
 * Studio F is large multipurpose rehearsal room located at The Reach. This space is larger than Studio J with a capacity of 164. Equipped with ballet barres and mirrors this space can be a green room, rehearsal space, breakout room or used for a reception or dinner.
 * Studio J is a multipurpose rehearsal room located at The Reach. This space is complete with ballet barres mirrors.  Suitable for a green room, meeting space, reception, or dinner.  This space has a capacity of 50.
 * Studio K is the largest multipurpose room at The Reach. With a capacity of 350 this space contains a viewing balcony and can be used for a variety of events, performances, theater, or break-out sessions.  It is now home to the Kennedy Center Jazz Club.
 * The Family Theater, with 320 seats, opened December 9, 2005. It replaced the former American Film Institute Theater located adjacent to the Hall of States. Designed by the architectural firm Richter Cornbrooks Gribble, Inc. of Baltimore, the new theater incorporates a computerized rigging system; and a digital video projection system.
 * The Terrace Gallery. On March 12, 2003, the space formerly known as the Education Resource Center was officially designated the Terrace Gallery.
 * The Terrace Theater, with 490 seats, was constructed on the roof terrace level in the late 1970s as a Bicentennial gift from the people of Japan to the United States. It is used for chamber music, ballet and contemporary dance, and theater. The theater was renovated between 2015 and 2019 to update finishes, systems and make the venue ADA compliant.
 * The Theater Lab, with 399 seats, currently houses the whodunit Shear Madness which has been playing continuously since August 1987.

River and rooftop terraces
The Kennedy Center offers one of the few open-air rooftop terraces in Washington, D.C.; it is free of charge to the public from 10:00 a.m. until midnight each day, except when closed for private events. The wide terrace provides views in all four directions overlooking the Rosslyn skyline in Arlington County, Virginia, to the west; the Potomac River and National Airport to the south; the Washington Harbor and the Watergate complex to the north; and the Lincoln Memorial, Department of State buildings, George Washington University and the Saudi embassy to the east.

Dance
World premiere performances of Kennedy Center-commissioned works have been offered through a commissioning program for new ballet and dance works. These works have been created by America's foremost choreographers—Paul Taylor, Lar Lubovitch, and Merce Cunningham—for leading American dance companies including American Ballet Theatre, Ballet West, Houston Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, and the San Francisco Ballet. The Kennedy Center formerly supported and produced the Suzanne Farrell Ballet in performances at the center and on extended tours.

The center sponsors two annual dance residency programs for young people; Exploring Ballet with Suzanne Farrell and the Dance Theatre of Harlem Residency Program, both now in their second decade. The Kennedy Center's Contemporary Dance series offers a wide range of artistic perspectives, from the foremost masters of the genre to the art form's newest and most exciting artists. In the 2008/2009 series, the Kennedy Center recognized Modern Masters of American Dance, bringing Martha Graham Dance Company, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Limón Dance Company, Mark Morris Dance Group, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and Paul Taylor Dance Company.

The Center is known for its annual production of the ballet “The Nutcracker.” Over the years, it has been performed by various different companies throughout the United States. The Kansas City Ballet performed “The Nutcracker” at the Kennedy Center in November 2022.

Public education
In recent years the Kennedy Center has expanded its public education programs nationwide. The 2005 opening of the Family Theater has helped achieve this.

Performances for Young Audiences
The 2008–2009 season programming for Performances for Young Audiences reached more than 100 performances for young people and their families and over 110 performances for school audiences. The season included four Kennedy Center-commissioned world premieres: The Trumpet of the Swan, a musical adapted by Pulitzer Prize winner Marsha Norman from the book by E.B. White with music by Jason Robert Brown; Mermaids, Monsters, and the World Painted Purple, a new play by Marco Ramirez; ''Unleashed! The Secret Lives of White House Pets, a new play by Allyson Currin in collaboration with the White House Historical Association; and OMAN...O man!, a new dance production conceived and directed by Debbie Allen and is part of the center's Arab festival, Arabesque: Arts of the Arab World''. Theater for Young Audiences on Tour toured with two nationally touring productions of The Phantom Tollbooth and Blues Journey.
 * Theater for Young Audiences (TYA)

On June 8, 2016 it was announced that the Kennedy Center Theater for Young Audiences-commissioned musical Elephant & Piggie's We are in a Play!, with book and lyrics by Mo Willems and music by Deborah Wicks La Puma, transferred to the Off-Broadway New Victory Theater in January 2017.

Members of the National Symphony Orchestra will continue to present Teddy Bear Concerts throughout its seasons. During these concerts, children aged three to five bring their favorite stuffed animal to interactive musical programs featuring members of the NSO. Members of the NSO present NSO Ensemble Concerts, connecting music with various school subjects such as science and math, Kinderkonzerts, introducing kids to orchestral instruments and classical composers, as well as NSO Family Concerts.
 * National Symphony Orchestra Performances for Young Audiences

Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF)
Started in 1969 by Roger L. Stevens, the Kennedy Center's founding chairman, the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF) is a national theater program involving 18,000 students from colleges and universities nationwide which has served as a catalyst in improving the quality of college theater in the United States. The KCACTF has grown into a network of more than 600 academic institutions throughout the country, where theater departments and student artists showcase their work and receive outside assessment by KCACTF respondents. Since its establishment in 1969, KCACTF has reached more than 17.5 million theatergoing students and teachers nationwide.

Changing Education Through the Arts (CETA)
The Kennedy Center's CETA program's mission is make the arts a critical component in every child's education. CETA, which stands for Changing Education Through the Arts, creates professional development opportunities for teachers and school administrators. Each year over 700 teachers participate in approximately 60 courses that focus on ways to integrate the arts into their teaching. The Kennedy Center's CETA program also partners with sixteen schools in the Washington DC Metro area to develop long-range plan for arts integration at their school. Two of these schools, Kensington Parkwood Elementary School in Kensington, MD and Woodburn Elementary School for the Fine and Communicative Arts in Falls Church, Virginia serve as Research and Development schools for CETA.

Exploring Ballet with Suzanne Farrell (EBSF)
Exploring Ballet with Suzanne Farrell is a three-week summer ballet intensive for international pre-professional ballerinas ages 14–18. Suzanne Farrell, one of the most revered ballerinas of the 20th century, has been hosting this Balanchine-inspired intensive at the Kennedy Center since 1993. During their three weeks in Washington, D.C., Farrell's students practice technique and choreography during twice daily classes, six days per week. Outside of the classroom, excursions, activities and performance events are planned for EBSF students to fully immerse themselves in the culture of the nation's capital.

Art and Ideals : President John F. Kennedy
Opened in September 2022, Art and Ideals : President John F. Kennedy, is a permanent exhibit dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's relationship with art. The exhibit has four sections, each explaining the role art played in culture, democracy, social change, and the White House during Kennedy's presidency. The exhibit was designed by architectural firm KieranTimberlake, curator Ileen Gallahger, and a committee of five U.S. historians.

Festivals
The Kennedy Center presents festivals celebrating cities, countries, and regions of the world. The festivals are filled with a wide range of performing arts, visual arts, cuisine, and multi-media. In 2008, the center presented an exploration of the culture of Japan entitled ''Japan! culture + hyperculture''. The 2009 Arab festival was an unprecedented exploration of the culture of the 22 Arab countries in the League of Arab States, titled Arabesque: Arts of the Arab World. In 2011, the Kennedy Center presented maximum INDIA, a three-week-long celebration of the arts and culture of the sub-continent.

Jazz
Since its establishment in September 1971, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has showcased jazz in solo, various ensembles, and big band settings. In 1994, the Kennedy Center appointed Dr. Billy Taylor as Artistic Advisor for Jazz, and his first installation was his own radio show Billy Taylor's Jazz at the Kennedy Center. Featuring his trio and guest artists in performance and discussion, the series ran for seven seasons on NPR. Since Taylor's appointment in 1994, the center has initiated numerous performance programs to promote jazz on a national stage, featuring leading international artists and rising stars, including: the Art Tatum Piano Panorama, named after Dr. Taylor's mentor; the Louis Armstrong Legacy, highlighting vocalists; the Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival, the first festival by a major institution promoting outstanding female jazz artists; Beyond Category, featuring artists whose work transcends genre; the Platinum Series, with internationally acclaimed headliners; Jazz Ambassadors with the United States Department of State, sending musicians on worldwide goodwill tours (1998–2004); the KC Jazz Club, a highly praised intimate setting; and Discovery Artists in the KC Jazz Club, highlighting up-and-coming talent. Kennedy Center and NPR annually collaborated on the beloved holiday broadcast 'NPR's Piano Jazz Christmas', until the retirement of host Marian McPartland, and hence the show, in 2011. Since 2003, the center's jazz programs have been regularly broadcast on NPR's JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater. Recent highlights, produced by the center, have included Great Vibes, A Salute to Lionel Hampton (1995); Billy Taylor's 80th Birthday Celebration (2002); Nancy Wilson, A Career Celebration (2003); Michel Legrand with Patti Austin, part of the center's Festival of France (2004); A Tribute to Shirley Horn (2004); James Moody's 80th Birthday (2005); and Benny Golson at 80 (2009). In March 2007, the center hosted a once-in-a-lifetime celebration, Jazz in Our Time, which bestowed the center's Living Jazz Legend Award to over 30 revered artists. During Dr. Taylor's tenure, the center has created recognized educational initiatives, including national jazz satellite distance-learning programs; adult lecture series; master classes and workshops with national artists and local metropolitan Washington, D.C. students; and Betty Carter's Jazz Ahead—continuing the singer's legacy of identifying outstanding young talent. In 2015, Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett performed there as part of their Cheek to Cheek Tour.

National Symphony Orchestra (NSO)
The National Symphony Orchestra, the Kennedy Center's artistic affiliate since 1987, has commissioned dozens of new works, among them Stephen Albert's RiverRun, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Music; Morton Gould's Stringmusic, also a Pulitzer Prize-winner; William Bolcom's Sixth Symphony, Roger Reynolds's george WASHINGTON, and Michael Daugherty's UFO, a concerto for solo percussion and orchestra.

In addition to its regular season concerts, the National Symphony Orchestra presents outreach, education, and pops programs, as well as concerts at Wolf Trap each year. The annual American Residencies for the Kennedy Center is a program unique to the National Symphony Orchestra and the center. The center sends the Orchestra to a different state each year for an intensive period of performances and teaching encompassing full orchestral, chamber, and solo concerts, master classes and other teaching sessions. The Orchestra has given these residencies in 20 states so far: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North and South Carolina, Oklahoma, North and South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Nevada, and Wyoming/Montana.

The NSO recording of John Corigliano's Of Rage and Remembrance won a Grammy Award in 1996.

Performing Arts for Everyone (PAFE)
The Kennedy Center is the only U.S. institution that presents a free performance 365 days a year, daily at 6pm (12 noon on December 24). The Millennium Stage, created as part of the center's Performing Arts for Everyone initiative in 1997 and underwritten by James A. Johnson and Maxine Isaacs, features a broad spectrum of performing arts, from dance and jazz, to chamber music and folk, comedy, storytelling and theater. In the past twelve years, over three million people have attended Millennium Stage performances. The Millennium Stage has presented more than 42,000 artists, which includes over 4,000 international artists from more than 70 countries; performers representing all 50 states; and 20,000 Washington-area ensembles and solo artists. The Charlie Byrd Trio and the Billy Taylor Trio were the first artists to delight audiences with a free performance on March 1, 1997. In 1999, the center began web-casting each night's live performance, and continues to archive and maintain each event in a database of over 3,000 performances which may be accessed via the center's website. Performing Arts for Everyone initiatives also include low- and no-cost tickets available to performances on every stage of the Kennedy Center, and several outreach programs designed to increase access to Kennedy Center tickets and performances.

The Conservatory Project
An initiative of the Millennium Stage, the Conservatory Project is a semi-annual event occurring in February and May that is designed to present the best young musical artists in classical, jazz, musical theater, and opera from leading undergraduate and graduate conservatories, colleges and universities.

Artist Residencies
The Kennedy Center hosts residencies for artists to collaborate with the center's performing ensembles, programmers, and community initiatives. The center holds positions for Composer-in-Residence, Education Artist-in-Residence, and Culture Artist-in-Residence. The current artists-in-residence are The Roots, author Jacqueline Woodson, composer Carlos Simon, and pianist Robert Glasper.

Theater
The center has co-produced more than 300 new works of theater over the past 43 years, including Tony-winning shows ranging from Annie in 1977 to A Few Good Men, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, The King and I, Titanic, and the American premiere of Les Misérables. The center also produced the Sondheim Celebration (six Stephen Sondheim musicals) in 2002, Tennessee Williams Explored (three of Tennessee Williams' classic plays) in 2004, Mame starring Christine Baranski in 2006, Carnival! in 2007, August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle (Wilson's complete ten-play cycle performed as fully staged readings) and Broadway: Three Generations both in 2008, and a new production of Ragtime in 2009. The Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays has provided critical support in the development of 135 new theatrical works. In 2011, a new production of Follies starring Bernadette Peters opened at the Eisenhower Theater, and transferred to Broadway that fall.

Kennedy Center Honors

Since 1978, the Kennedy Center Honors have been awarded annually by the center's Board of Trustees. Each year, five artists or groups are honored for their lifetime contributions to American culture and the performing arts, including dance, music, theater, opera, film, and television.

Mark Twain Prize for American Humor
The Kennedy Center has awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor annually since 1998. Named after the 19th-century humorist Mark Twain, it is presented to individuals who have "had an impact on American society in ways similar to" Twain.

Local performing arts organizations
Many local arts organizations present (or have presented) their work at the Kennedy Center. Some of these include:

 * American Film Institute
 * The Washington Chorus
 * The Cathedral Choral Society of Washington
 * Choral Arts Society of Washington
 * Opera Lafayette
 * VSA arts
 * The Washington Ballet
 * Washington Concert Opera
 * Washington National Opera
 * Washington Performing Arts Society
 * Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
 * Young Concert Artists of Washington

Other events
The Kennedy Center regularly hosts special Inauguration Day events and galas during the start of each presidential term.

During the United States Bicentennial, the Kennedy Center hosted numerous special events throughout 1976, including six commissioned plays. The center hosted free performances by groups from each state. In December 1976, Mikhail Baryshnikov's version of The Nutcracker ballet played for two weeks.

In 1977, the Opera House hosted George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra with Rex Harrison and Elizabeth Ashley. The American Ballet Theatre has also frequently performed at the Kennedy Center. The troupe's 2004 production of Swan Lake, choreographed by Kevin McKenzie, was taped there, shown on PBS in June 2005, and released on DVD shortly after. Productions of The Lion King and Trevor Nunn's production of My Fair Lady (choreographed by Matthew Bourne) were presented in the 2007–2008 season, to name a few.

The Kennedy Center at 50, a concert to celebrate the center's 50th anniversary, was held on September 14, 2021, and aired on PBS on October 1, 2021. Audra McDonald hosted, and First lady Jill Biden gave opening remarks.

Millennium Stage Archives
The Kennedy Center stages free daily performances on its Millennium Stage in the Grand Foyer. Featured on the Millennium Stage are a range of art forms, including performing artists and groups.

The two theaters of The Millennium Stage are equipped with lights, sound systems, and cameras. Every free event performed at this stage is recorded and archived on the Kennedy Center's website. These archives have been available to the public for free since 2009.

VSA
VSA (formerly VSA arts) is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1974 by Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith to create a society where people with disabilities learn through, participate in, and enjoy the arts. VSA provides educators, parents, and artists with resources and the tools to support arts programming in schools and communities. VSA showcases the accomplishments of artists with disabilities and promotes increased access to the arts for people with disabilities. Each year 7 million people participate in VSA programs through a nationwide network of affiliates and in 54 countries around the world. Affiliated with the Kennedy Center since 2005, VSA was officially merged into the organization in 2011 to become part of the center's Department of VSA and Accessibility.

Renovations and expansion
On June 16, 1971, Congress authorized appropriations for one year to the Board of Trustees for operating and maintenance expenses. In following years, the appropriations were provided to the National Park Service for operations, maintenance, security, safety and other functions not directly related to the performing arts activities. The National Park Service and the Kennedy Center signed a cooperative agreement requiring each party to pay a portion of the operating and maintenance costs based on what proportion of time the building was to be used for performing arts functions. The agreement did not specify who was responsible for long-term capital improvement projects at the Kennedy Center, along with only periodic funding by Congress for one-time projects.

1990–2005
In fiscal years 1991 and 1992, Congress recommended that $27.7 million be allocated for capital improvement projects at the center, including $12 million for structural repairs to the garage and $15.7 million for structural and mechanical repairs, as well as projects for improving handicapped access. In 1994, Congress gave full responsibility to the Kennedy Center for capital improvement projects and facility management. From 1995 to 2005, over $200 million of federal funds were allocated to the Kennedy Center for long-term capital projects, repairs, and to bring the center into compliance with modern fire safety and accessibility codes. Improvements included renovation of the Concert Hall, Opera House, plaza-level public spaces, and a new fire alarm system. The renovations projects were completed 13 to 50 percent over budget, due to modifications of plans during the renovations resulting in overtime and other penalties. Renovations to the Eisenhower Theater were completed in 2008.

2013–present
Beginning in 2013, the center commenced with an 60,000 sqft expansion project on four acres in the center's South Plaza. The expansion adds classroom, rehearsal, and performance space and includes three pavilions (the Welcome Pavilion, the Skylight Pavilion, and the River Pavilion), reflecting pool, a tree grove, a sloping lawn to be used for outdoor performances, and a pedestrian bridge over Rock Creek Parkway. The architect is Steven Holl, with assistance from architectural firm BNIM. Edmund Hollander Landscape Architects is the landscape architect.

Plans for the project began after David M. Rubenstein donated $50 million to the center. A groundbreaking ceremony took place in December 2014. Originally estimated to cost $100 million, the cost of the project grew to $175 million, and design changes and a major D.C. sewer project significantly delayed construction. The expansion, entitled the REACH, opened on September 7, 2019 with an opening arts festival. The fundraising goal for the new REACH expansion grew to $250 million as the project progressed, and the target was achieved just two days before opening. Since its opening, the REACH has received several design awards, such as The Architect's Newspaper's Best of the Year Award in the Cultural category and an Honor Award in the 2020 AIA New York Design Awards.

Management
Prior to 1980, daily operations of the Kennedy Center were overseen by the chairman of the board of directors, and by the board itself. Aspects of the center's programming and operations were overseen by various other people. George London was the Kennedy Center's first executive director (often called "artistic director" by the press, although that was not the formal title), serving from 1968 to 1970, while William McCormick Blair, Jr. was its first administrative director. Julius Rudel took over as music director in 1971. In 1972, Martin Feinstein replaced London and held the position of artistic director until 1980. Marta Casals Istomin was named the first female artistic director in 1980, a position she held until 1990; she was also the first person to be formally invested with that title.

In 1991, the board created the position of chief operating officer to remove the day-to-day operations of the Kennedy Center from the chairman and board. Lawrence Wilker was hired to fill the position, which later was retitled president. The artistic director continued to oversee artistic programming, under the president's direction.

Michael Kaiser became president of the Kennedy Center in 2001. He left the organization when his contract expired in September 2014.

In September 2014, Deborah F. Rutter became its third president; she is the first woman to hold that post. Rutter had previously been president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, a position she held from 2003. In 2015 Rutter tapped renowned arts organizations executive Robert Van Leer to assist with leadership and expansions.

Board of Trustees
The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, formally known as the Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, maintains and administers the center and its site. David M. Rubenstein is the chairman of the board.

The honorary chair members of the board are the First Lady and her living predecessors. Members of the board are specified by 20 USC 76h and include ex officio members such as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Librarian of Congress, the Secretary of State (substituting for the director of the United States Information Agency after that agency was abolished), the chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts, the Mayor of the District of Columbia, the Superintendent of schools of the District of Columbia, the Director of the National Park Service, the Secretary of Education and the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, as well as 36 general trustees appointed by the president of the United States for six-year terms.


text:
Duntroon

Duntroon may refer to:
 * Royal Military College, Duntroon, in Canberra, Australia
 * Duntroon, Australian Capital Territory, Robert Campbell's property in the suburb of Campbell, Canberra
 * Duntroon, Ontario, Canada
 * Duntroon, New Zealand
 * Duntroon, Scotland
 * MV Duntroon, a passenger liner operated from 1935 to 1973, including wartime service as a troopship

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Duntroon


text:
Dazhbog

Dazhbog (Дажьбо́г, Дажбо́г), alternatively Daždźboh (Даждзьбог), Dazhboh (Дажбог), Dažbog, Dazhdbog, Dajbog, Daybog, Dabog, Dazibogu, or Dadźbóg, was one of the major gods of Slavic mythology, most likely a solar deity and possibly a cultural hero. He is one of several authentic Slavic gods, mentioned by a number of medieval manuscripts, and one of the few Slavic gods for which evidence of worship can be found in all Slavic tribes.

Dazhbog (or Dazhboh) is mentioned in the Primary Chronicle, a history of early Kievan Rus' as one of seven gods whose statues Prince Vladimir the Great erected in front of his palace in Kiev in 980, when he came to the throne. The name is also mentioned in the Hypatian Codex, as well as in the medieval Old East Slavic epic The Tale of Igor's Campaign .

Etymology
The Proto-Slavic reconstruction is *dadjьbogъ, and is composed of *dadjь, imperative of the verb *dati "to give", and the noun *bogъ "god". The original meaning of Dazhbog would thus, according to Dubenskij, Ognovskij and Niederle, be "giving god", "god-giver, "god-donor".

this word is an old compound, that is particularly interesting because it retains the old meaning of the Proto-Slavic *bogъ "earthly wealth/well-being; fortune", with a semantic shift to "dispenser of wealth/fortune" and finally "god". Due to the absence of convincing cognates in other Indo-European languages, Proto-Slavic *bogъ is often considered to be an Iranian borrowing, being related to Indo-Iranian Bhaga, or at least being semantically influenced by them; in both Slavic and Indo-Iranian cognate forms mean both "deity" and "wealth, share". Thus, translated literally, Dazhbog would be "giving god".

In other languages, Proto-Slavic: *Daďьbogъ; Church Slavic: Даждьбогъ; Old East Slavic: Дажьбогъ; Даждбог, Дажбог, or Дабог; Bulgarian, Ukrainian and Даждбог Дажбог, Дайбог, or Дабог; Dadźbóg, Dażbóg, Dabóg; Дажьбог, Дажбог, Дайбог, or Дабог; Serbo-Croatian: Daždbog / Даждбог, Dažbog / Дажбог, Dajbog / Дајбог, or Dabog / Дабог.

Characteristics
The most interesting passage about Dazhbog comes from the Hypatian Codex, a 15th-century compilation of several much older documents from the Ipatiev Monastery in Russia. The complete passage, reconstructed from several manuscripts, translates as follows:

"[Then] began his reign Feosta (Hephaestus), whom the Egyptians called Svarog ... during his rule, from the heavens fell the smith's prongs and weapons were forged for the first time; before that, [all] fought with clubs and stones. Feosta also commanded the women that they should have only a single husband ... and that is why Egyptians called him Svarog ... After him ruled his son; his name was the Sun, and they called him Dazhbog ... Sun tsar, son of Svarog. That is Dazhbog."

This is, in fact, a Slavic translation of an original Greek manuscript of Malalin from the 6th century. In the Greek text, the names of gods are Hephaestus and Helios. Apparently, the unknown Rus translator tried to re-tell the entire story (set in Egypt) by replacing the names of classical deities with those that were better known to his readers.

One can only hope that he indeed replaced the names of Greek gods with their fitting Slavic counterparts; however, at least one issue remains problematic: in all Slavic languages, the word for Sun, Suntse, is of neutral or feminine gender, never masculine (however, there is an Old East Slavic epic character "Vladimir Beautiful Sun" or "Vladimir Bright Sun" (ru) which has the same place as Arthur in English culture).

Also, in Baltic mythology, which is most akin to Slavic, Sun is a female deity, Saule, while the Moon is a male one. The same pattern can be observed in the folklore of many Slavic nations, where the Sun is most often identified with mother or a bride, and Moon with father or husband, their children being the stars. Where exactly this leaves Dazhbog as a possible male solar deity of Slavic pantheon remains questionable.

Furthermore, this passage has raised quite a few theories about family relations between Slavic gods. If we assume that indeed Svarog was believed to be Dazhbog's father, the question arises of his relation with Svarozhits, another deity who is mentioned as a god of fire and war in several other medieval documents describing the pagan beliefs of Slavs. Svarozhits is simply a diminutive of Svarog's name, i.e., "little Svarog", which implicates he was considered a child of Svarog. Vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov proposed a reconstruction of this mythical genealogy that Svarog, a deity of fire and forge similar to the Greek Hephaestus, had two sons; Dazhbog, who represented the fire in the sky (i.e., the Sun), and Svarozhits, who symbolised the flame on earth, in the forge.

Henryk Łowmiański, however, theorised that Svarog was a Slavic sky god and personification of daylight sky itself, possibly a continuation of Proto-Indo-European *Dyēus Ph2ter, while Svarozhits and solar Dazhbog were the same deity, though, he concluded, two other aspects of Svarozhits also existed: fiery Svarozhits, as in the Sun (mentioned in Old East Slavic medieval manuscripts), and lunar Svarozhits, associated with the Moon. Franjo Ledic, on the other hand, assumed that Svarog and Dazhbog are the same god.

Many mythologists also believe Dazhbog to be identical with another East Slavic deity with possible solar attributes, Khors. Osip Maximovich Bodjanskij based this theory on the following passage from Primary Chronicle:

"And Vladimir began his reign in Kiev alone and erected idols on the hill outside his palace with porch: Perun of wood with a head of silver and moustache of gold and Khors Dazhbog and Stribog and Simargl and Mokosh."

Note that the names Khors and Dazhbog are the only two not clearly separated by the word "and" in the text. This could be an indication of a compound deity, Khors Dazhbog. On this basis, Toporov assumed that Khors could be an Iranian (possibly Sarmatian or Scythian) name for this god, and Dazhbog a Slavic one. Boris Rybakov compared Khors and Dazhbog to Helios and Apollo, respectively, concluding that both of them were solar gods, but while Hors represented the Sun itself, Dazhbog, as deus dator, rather symbolised the life-giving power of the Sun. That Khors was indeed a solar deity was deduced from the following passage in the Tale of Igor's Campaign:

"Vseslav the prince judged men; as prince, he ruled towns; but at night he prowled in the guise of a wolf. From Kiev, prowling, he reached, before the cocks crew, Tmutorokan. The path of great Khors, as a wolf, prowling, he crossed."

In other words, prince Vseslav reached Tmutorokan before dawn, thus crossing the path of Khors, the Sun. In the mythical view of the world, the Sun has to pass through the underworld during the night to reach the eastern horizon by the dawn. This, and the fact that prince Vseslav is transformed into a wolf during the night, while "crossing the path of Khors", draws a parallel with the Serbian Dabog, who, as stated already, was believed to be a lame "wolf shepherd" who rules over the underworld.

Of particular interest is the fact that Serbian folk accounts describe him as being lame; lameness was a standing attribute of Greek Hephaestus, whom, as we have seen, the Hypatian Codex compared with Slavic smith-god Svarog, father of Dazhbog. (In fact, most of Indo-European smith-gods were lame; the reason for this was most likely arsenicosis, low levels of arsenic poisoning, resulting in lameness and skin cancers. Arsenic was added to bronze to harden it, and most smiths of the Bronze Age would have suffered from chronic workplace poisoning.)

Serbian Dabog, being lord of the underworld, was also associated with precious metals, and sometimes was said to have a silver beard. Veselin Čajkanović concluded that the chthonic character of Dabog in Serbian folklore fits very nicely with the solar Dazhbog mentioned in Old East Slavic sources, pointing out that in numerous mythologies, solar deities tend to have double aspects, one benevolent, associated with the Sun during the day, and the other malevolent, associated with night, when the Sun is trapped in the underworld.

In his studies of Serbian folklore, Čajkanović also concluded that many more benevolent aspects of Dazhbog were passed on to popular saints in folk Christianity, in particularly onto St. Sava, Serbian national saint, who, although undoubtedly was a real historical person, in folk tales often appears in the role of culture hero. The fact that in the Tale of Igor's Campaign, the Rus and their princes are being referred to as "Dazhbog's grandchildren", indicates that Dazhbog was considered as an ancestral deity, a common role of a culture hero archetype in mythologies.

Dazhbog is considered to be the husband of Zhiva, whose mother is Lada, the goddess  of conjugal love.

In modern culture
A sculpture of the god was erected in Hola Prystan, Ukraine early in 2001. Some days later, it was broken up due to the objections by the church.

On April 10, 2016, a Dazhdbog idol was installed by the Slavic pagans in a particularly revered place in the city of Astrakhan, Russia. On April 12, 2016, information about the desecration of idols and destruction all the adjacent territories had become known.

title: Dazhbog


text:
Devana

Devana (Dziewanna, Dzewana), Zevana (Ziewanna), less often Zievonya (Ziewonja, Zewonia) is the goddess of wild nature, forests, hunting and the moon worshiped by the Western Slavs. In the sources, she was first mentioned in the 15th century by Jan Długosz, who compared her to the Roman goddess Diana. Dziewanna is also a Polish name for Verbascum, and the etymology of the word is unclear. After strong criticism from Aleksander Brückner, researchers rejected her authenticity, but nowadays it is accepted by an increasing number of researchers. Sometimes, in folk rituals, she performs together with Morana.

Etymology
Proto-Slavic name for Verbascum is reconstructed as *divizna (cf. dziwizna, Czech and divizna, ), with secondary form as *divina (cf. dziewanna, дивина́). That word has a Proto-Balto-Slavic origin and appears in Lithuanian language as e.g. devynspė͂kė, devynjėgė. The only cognate from outside the Balto-Slavic group may be Dacian word διέσεμα/diésema (Dioscorides), which is being derived from *diu̯es-eu̯smn („burning sky”) and compared to German Himmelbrand (Verbascum; „burning heavens”), but exact etymology of Slavic word is unclear. Russian linguist and etymologist Aleksandr Anikin notes a similarity between the Lithuanian terms for Verbascum and the Lithuanian word devynì "nine".

There are several interpretations of Devana's name. The most obvious etymology are words such as dziewa, dziewka, "girl, young woman, maiden", and dziewica, "virgin", a word derived from the dziewa. This etymology can be supported by fact, that Diana (and Artemis – her greek equivalent) is usually depicted in myths as a virgin and has never had any offspring or a consort.

Another word, from which the name of the goddess may come from, may be the old Polish dziwy, "wild".

It was also proposed to combine Devana's name with the Proto-Indo-European god of heaven *Dyēus. Slavic folklore includes demons with a similar name, e.g. Polish and Czech dziwożona, Russian div, Bulgarian and Croatian samodiva ("rusalka, boginka, the magical creature"), etc. It is assumed that the feminine demons-divas derive from the Proto-Slavic word *diva, and this word is the feminine form of the word *divъ ("div (demon)"). *divъ is derived from the PIE. word *Dyēus ("god of heaven") through the intermediate *deywós ("heavenly") and its closest related word is Dievs – god of heaven in Baltic mythology. *Dyēus in the Slavs has acquired demonic characteristics as a result of cultural contacts with Iranian peoples, who have demonized the Iranian continuator of *Dyēus as a result of the Zoroastrianist reform. An argument for such an etymology is that Diana is also etymologically derived from *Dyēus. Anikin notes that Verbascum has sometimes been used to lighten hair, and combines the word with PIE. the root *dei-u̯- or *dī- ("to shine, to be bright"), from which also comes *Dyēus.

The suffix -ana, -anna, which occurs in the names of many goddesses, may be derived from the PIE. word *ansu meaning "lord, ruler, god".

Folklore
Devana, apart from the sources mentioned above, does not appear directly in folklore, but some legends may point to her. Devana may be indicated by the legend of Łysa Góra, which was presented as "Polish Olympus" in Polish culture. According to local legends, before the monastery was built there, on Łysa Góra in pre-Christian times stood a gord (Wielkopolska Chronicle) or a castle (Długosz). According to Długosz, the castle was to be built by giants, and in the folk version by the "Proud Lady", which was her seat. The Proud Lady, who was to defeat Alexander the Great, fell into pride and declared herself Diana. God did not bear it and destroyed the castle with lightning. Marek Derwich and Marek Cetwiński interpret The "Proud Lady" as Devana.

Later on, Devana is mentioned by the Scottish folklorist James G. Frazer in his The Golden Bough, who describes a Silesian custom where the figure of Death (Marzanna) is melted or destroyed. Then, the young people go to the forest, cut down a small fir, strip away the bark and then decorate it with festoons, paper roses, pisanki, etc. The tree is called May or Summer. Then the boys walk with this tree from house to house and sing songs: Frazer continues: "Sometimes they also bring from the forest a nicely assumed doll, which they call Summer, May or Fiancée. In Poland they call her the Devana, the goddess of spring". A similar practice is described by Marcin Kromer in De origine et rebus gestis Polonorum libri XXX. In Podlasie region, the Princess, a beautiful girl dressed in colorful robes, flowers and red beads was shown around, which may be related to the Silesian custom.

In Slavic folklore there are devony (dziewonie) – female mountain spirits or demons living in the caves, engaged in spinning, related to the forest fleece, who may be a demonized Devana. It can be similar with dziwożony.

Herb
in Polish, dziewanna (less often dziwizna) is also the name for verbascum, used for skin care and treatment of respiratory problems. Szyjewski notes, however, that the dziewanna was sometimes called the braid of the Virgin Mary, and Kolankiewicz that in medieval iconography the Blessed Virgin Mary was sometimes depicted with the verbascum in her hand, and marzanna (name for six plants), was also a synonym for the dziewanna in the 16th century.

Interpretations
The first studies on the "pantheon of Długosz" denied the existence of all or most of the gods he mentioned. The main critics were Aleksander Brückner and Stanisław Urbańczyk. After rejecting the hypercritical approach to "pantheon of Długosz" many researchers, such as Aleksander Gieysztor, Andrzej Szyjewski, Vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov, have been inclined to acknowledge the authenticity of at least some "Polish gods", including Devana.

In Greek mythology, Artemis' helpers are nymphs, whose closest Slavic equivalents are boginki, which are found in Western Slavs, mainly in Poland. Boginki are young girls dressed in white or naked, who inhabited the shores of reservoirs, forests and caves from which they come out at night, especially on summer moon nights. They took care of wild animals and were often hostile to people, especially men. The moon was their "god" – it ruled their activity. Boginki were also supposed to shoot from a bow. In the Ruthenian legends, the number of vilas (similar to boginki) which are sisters, is 27 ("three times nine") or, in another version, 30, and this may be related to the ecliptic division into 27 zodiacs (eg Nakshatra in Hinduism) and lunation. These features of boginki-nymphs may tie them to Devana-Artemis – goddess of forests and the moon.

Double goddess
Due to the multiple appearances of the pair Devana and Morana in the spring ceremonies, some researchers have suggested that both of these goddesses could be the two faces of one goddess of life and death. A similar motif occurs in Indo-European religions, e.g. the Scandinavian Hel ("one half of her face had a handsome and pleasant expression, the other half dead and hideous") or the Greek couple Persephone-Kora, who spent half a year underground and half a year on earth. According to Kolankiewicz, double goddess may be indicated by alleged connection of Devana with Proto-Slavic *diva ("female spirit, boginka") and Iranian deva ("demon"). The archaic nature of Devana and Morana may be indicated by a connection to vegetation, and that connects them to Mother Earth.

In Christianity
During the Christianization, Devana could have been replaced by Our Lady of Thunder Candle (Matka Boża Gromniczna). Polish legend says that she walks on February nights and protects fields from freezing. The iconography depicts her with the wolf (or wolves) she protected from death from the peasants, and whom she made her servant, with a basket or a nest of larks at her feet, whose squeal was to herald the imminent coming of spring. In her hands, she always holds a "thunder candle" (gromnica, from grom "thunder"), which was used for fortune-telling, protect the house from wolves, lightning or evil, and used to burn the hair of children to protect them from ear disease. Thunder candle often occurs in sayings about the coming of spring. In the past, thunder candle wicks were made of verbascum and sometimes was named knotnica (from knot "wick"), royal candle or braid of the Virgin Mary. Connecting the feast of Our Lady of Thunder Candle (Candlemas) with wild animals appears in other Slavic countries.

Legacy

 * 471143 Dziewanna – asteroid named after goddess
 * Halina Poświatowska – W słońcu południa
 * Małgorzata Hillar – Ballada o dziewannie
 * Bronisława Ostrowska – Dziewanna

title: Devana


text:
Punycode

Punycode is a representation of Unicode with the limited ASCII character subset used for Internet hostnames. Using Punycode, host names containing Unicode characters are transcoded to a subset of ASCII consisting of letters, digits, and hyphens, which is called the letter–digit–hyphen (LDH) subset. For example, München (German name for Munich) is encoded as Mnchen-3ya.

While the Domain Name System (DNS) technically supports arbitrary sequences of octets in domain name labels, the DNS standards recommend the use of the LDH subset of ASCII conventionally used for host names, and require that string comparisons between DNS domain names should be case-insensitive. The Punycode syntax is a method of encoding strings containing Unicode characters, such as internationalized domain names (IDNA), into the LDH subset of ASCII favored by DNS. It is specified in IETF Request for Comments 3492.

Description
As stated in RFC 3492, "Punycode is an instance of a more general algorithm called Bootstring, which allows strings composed from a small set of 'basic' code points to uniquely represent any string of code points drawn from a larger set." Punycode defines parameters for the general Bootstring algorithm to match the characteristics of Unicode text. This section demonstrates the procedure for Punycode encoding, using the example of the string "bücher" (Bücher is German for books), which is translated into the label "bcher-kva".

To make the encoding and decoding algorithms simple, no attempt has been made to prevent some encoded values from encoding inadmissible Unicode values: however, these should be checked for and detected during decoding.

Punycode is designed to work across all scripts, and to be self-optimizing by attempting to adapt to the character set ranges within the string as it operates. It is optimized for the case where the string is composed of zero or more ASCII characters and in addition characters from only one other script system, but will cope with any arbitrary Unicode string. Note that for DNS use, the domain name string is assumed to have been normalized using nameprep and (for top-level domains) filtered against an officially registered language table before being punycoded, and that the DNS protocol sets limits on the acceptable lengths of the output Punycode string.

Separation of ASCII characters
First, all ASCII characters in the string are copied from input to output, skipping over any other characters. For example, "bücher" is copied to "bcher". If any characters were copied, i.e. if there was at least one ASCII character in the input, an ASCII hyphen is appended to the output (e.g., "bücher" → "bcher-", but "ü" → "").

Note that hyphens are themselves ASCII characters. Thus, they can be present in the input and, if so, they will be copied to the output. This causes no ambiguity: if the output contains hyphens, the one that got added is always the last one. It marks the end of the ASCII characters.

Encoding the non-ASCII characters
The non-ASCII characters are sorted by Unicode value, lowest first (if a character occurs more than once they are sorted by position). Each is then encoded as a single number. This single number defines both the location to insert the character at and which character to insert.

$i$ is an index into the result to insert the code at, starting at 0 (for insertion at the start).

$n$ is the number of possible insertion points (current length of the result plus one).

$j$ is the Unicode code point to insert minus 127.

The encoded number is $n × j + i$. By dividing by $n$ and also getting the remainder, a decoder can determine $j$ and $i$.

There are six possible places to insert a character in the string "bcher" (including before the first character and after the last one). There are 124 code points between the last ASCII code point (127 = 0x7F, the end of ASCII) and "ü" (code point 252 = 0xFC, see Unicode's Latin-1 Supplement). The "ü" is inserted at position 1, after the "b". Thus the encoder will add the number $(6 × 124) + 1 = 745$, and the decoder can retrieve these by $⌊745 ÷ 6⌋ = 124$ and $745 mod 6 = 1$.

These numbers are strictly increasing. For the second and subsequent inserted characters, the difference between the number and the previous one is written.

The number is encoded using the letters "a" through "z" and the digits "0" through "9". It is not base-36 but a more complex scheme described below, which allows the numbers to be concatenated, with nothing separating them.

Variable-length number encoding
Punycode uses generalized variable-length integers to represent these values. For example, this is how "kva" is used to represent the code number 745:

A number system with little-endian ordering is used which allows variable-length codes without separate delimiters: a digit lower than a threshold value marks that it is the most-significant digit, hence the end of the number. The threshold value depends on the position in the number and also on previous insertions, to increase efficiency. Correspondingly the weights of the digits vary.

In this case a number system with 36 symbols is used, with the case-insensitive 'a' through 'z' equal to the decimal numbers 0 through 25, and '0' through '9' equal to the decimal numbers 26 through 35. Thus "kva", corresponds to the decimal number string "10 21 0".

To decode this string of symbols, a sequence of thresholds will be needed, in this case it's (1, 1, 26, 26, ...). The weight (or place value) of the least-significant digit is always 1: 'k' (=10) with a weight of 1 equals 10. After this, the weight of the next digit depends on the first threshold: generally, for any n, the weight of the (n+1)-th digit is w × (36 − t), where w is the previous weight and t is the threshold of the n-th digit. So in this case, the second symbol has a place value of 36 minus the previous threshold value of 1, which equals 35. Therefore, the sum of the first two symbols 'k' (=10) and 'v' (=21) is 10 × 1 + 21 × 35. Since the second symbol is not less than its threshold value of 1, there is more to come. However, since the third symbol in this example is 'a' (=0), we may ignore calculating its weight. Therefore, "kva" represents the decimal number (10 × 1) + (21 × 35) = 745.

Number 745 will be encoded as 10 + 21 × 35 + 0 (base 35 used for second digit, the most significant digit 0 needed as terminator), 10 → 'k', 21 → 'v', 0 → 'a', so "bücher" → "bcher-kva".

The thresholds themselves are determined for each successive encoded character by an algorithm keeping them between 1 and 26 inclusive. The case can then be used to provide information about the original case of the string.

Because special characters are sorted by their code points by encoding algorithm, for the insertion of a second special character in "bücher", the first possibility is "büücher" with code "bcher-kvaa", the second "bücüher" with code "bcher-kvab", etc. After "bücherü" with code "bcher-kvae" comes codes representing insertion of ý, the Unicode character following ü, starting with "ýbücher" with code "bcher-kvaf" (different from "übücher" coded "bcher-jvab"), etc.

ACE prefix for internationalized domain names
To prevent hyphens in non-international domain names from triggering a Punycode decoding, the string  is prepended to Punycode sequences in internationalized domain names. This is called ACE (ASCII Compatible Encoding).

Thus the domain name "bücher.tld" would be represented in a URL as "xn--bcher-kva.tld".

Examples
The following table shows examples of Punycode encodings for different types of input.

title: Punycode


text:
Henry Lawrence

Henry Lawrence may refer to:

 * Henry Lawrence (President of the Council) (1600–1664), English statesman who served as President of the English Council of State
 * Henry Lawrence (Indian Army officer) (1806–1857), British soldier and statesman
 * Henry F. Lawrence (1868–1950), American politician from Missouri
 * Henry Lawrence (American football) (born 1951), American former American football player
 * Henry Lawrence (rugby union) (1848–1902), English rugby union player
 * Henry Sherwood Lawrence (1916–2004), American immunologist
 * Henry Staveley Lawrence (1870–1949), governor of Bombay, 1926–1928
 * Henry Lawrence (footballer) (born 2001), English association footballer

title: Henry Lawrence


text:
Yarilo

Jarylo (Jarilo; Ярыла), alternatively Yaryla, Yarilo, Iarilo, Juraj, Jurij, or Gerovit, is an alleged East and South Slavic god of vegetation, fertility and springtime.

Etymology
The Proto-Slavic root *jarъ (jar), from Proto-Indo-European *yōr-, *yeh₁ro-, from *yeh₁r-, means "spring" or "summer", "strong", "furious", "imbued with youthful life-force". This youthful life-force was considered sacred in the Slavic pre-Christian religion and the god personifying this sacred force was thus called Jarovit, or hypocoristically Jarilo.

Myth
Radoslav Katičić and Vitomir Belaj attempted to reconstruct the mythology surrounding Jarilo. According to these authors, he was a fairly typical life-death-rebirth deity, believed to be (re)born and killed every year. His mythical life cycle mirrored that of the wheat crop, from its birth when sown through its flourishing youth to its sacrificial death at harvest time.

Jarilo was a son of the supreme Slavic god of thunder, Perun, his lost, missing, tenth son, born on the last night of February, the festival of Velja Noć (Great Night), the pagan Slavic celebration of the New Year. On the same night, however, Jarilo was stolen from his father and taken to the world of the dead, where he was adopted and raised by Veles, Perun's enemy, Slavic god of the underworld and cattle. The Slavs believed the underworld to be an ever-green world of eternal spring and wet, grassy plains, where Jarilo grew up guarding the cattle of his adoptive father. In the mythical geography of ancient Slavs, the land of the dead was assumed to lie across the sea, where migrating birds would fly every winter.

With the advent of spring, Jarilo returned from the underworld, that is, bringing spring and fertility to the land. Spring festivals of Jurjevo/Jarilo that survived in later folklore celebrated his return. Katičić identified a key phrase of ancient mythical texts which described this sacred return of vegetation and fertility as a rhyme hoditi/roditi (to walk/to give birth to), which survived in folk songs:
 * ...Gdje Jura/Jare/Jarilo hodit, tam vam polje rodit...
 * "...Where Jura/Jare/Jarilo walks, there your field gives birth..."

The first of the gods to notice Jarilo's return to the living world was Morana, a goddess of death and nature, and also a daughter of Perun and Jarilo's twin-sister. The two of them would fall in love and court each other through a series of traditional, established rituals, imitated in various Slavic courting or wedding customs. The divine wedding between brother and sister, two children of the supreme god, was celebrated in a festival of summer solstice, today variously known as Ivanje or Ivan Kupala in the various Slavic countries. This sacred union of Jarilo and Morana, deities of vegetation and of nature, assured abundance, fertility and blessing to the earth, and also brought temporary peace between two major Slavic gods, Perun and Veles, signifying heaven and underworld. Thus, all mythical prerequisites were met for a bountiful and blessed harvest that would come in late summer.

However, since Jarilo's life was ultimately tied to the vegetative cycle of the cereals, after the harvest (which was ritually seen as a murder of crops), Jarilo also met his death. The myth explained this by the fact that he was unfaithful to his wife, and so she (or their father Perun, or their brothers) kills him in retribution. This rather gruesome death is in fact a ritual sacrifice, and Morana uses parts of Jarilo's body to build herself a new house. This is a mythical metaphor which alludes to rejuvenation of the entire cosmos, a concept fairly similar to that of Scandinavian myth of Ymir, a giant from whose body the gods created the world.

Without her husband, however, Morana turns into a frustrated old hag, a terrible and dangerous goddess of death, frost and upcoming winter (like the Celtic Cailleach), and eventually dies by the end of the year. At the beginning of the next year, both she and Jarilo are born again, and the entire myth starts anew.

Description
As befitting an agricultural deity, Yarilo was associated with agricultural imagery, with grains and cereals: he wore a white cloak and a wheat wreath or a crown of flowers (wildflowers) on his head and carried a wheat sheaf in his right hand. He was also portrayed holding a human skull (or severed head) in his other hand. He is also said to be revered as "god of erotic sexuality".

Scholars Katičić and Belaj also suggested that the god had some equine characteristics, or, alternatively, was conceived of as a horse.

 * Folk accounts strongly emphasize the presence of a horse (in Belarusian festivals, for instance, Jarilo was symbolized by a girl dressed as a man and mounted on a horse), and also the fact Jarilo walked a long way and his feet are sore. Thus, he is a rider on a horse who also "walks".
 * In historic descriptions of West Slavic paganism, one often finds references to sacred horses held in temples, which were used for divination, and predictions were made on the basis of how the horse walked through rows of spears sticking from the ground.
 * In certain customs of some Baltic and Slavic wedding celebrations, a horse symbolizes a young husband.
 * In some Slavic folk songs, an angry young wife, apparently cheated upon by her husband, kills a horse or orders her brothers to kill it for her.
 * Jarilo's identification as a mischievous god may involve the ability of shapeshifting. This is seen in other mischievous pagan deities, such as Prometheus and Loki, who himself once took the form of a horse.

Comparison with other deities
From comparison to Baltic mythology and from Slavic folklore accounts, one can deduce that Jarilo was associated with the Moon. His somewhat mischievous nature, which ultimately results in his betrayal of his wife, was likened to the Moon's changing phases.

He has also been compared to other death and rebirth gods associated with agricultural fertility, like Greek Adonis and Olympian god Dionysus.

Identification with St. George
With the advent of Christianity, Jarilo became identified with St. George and St. John, because the festivals of these two saints fell within the period between first growth and harvest time in the great annual cycle of vegetation and fertility. This made them especially suited to assuming the functions of this god under the new, Christian dispensation.

title: Yarilo


text:
Lada (mythology)

Lada and Lado are alleged Slavic deities. Lada was first mentioned around 1405-1412 in the sermons of Lucas of Wielki Koźmin, which warned against worshipping Lada and other gods during spring ceremonies and folk performances. They owe their popularity to Jan Długosz, who in one of his sources recognized Lada as a goddess and in another as a god of war, the Polish equivalent of the Roman god Mars, to Aleksandr Faminstyn, who recognized the word Lada in Russian songs as the goddess of marriage, and to scholar Boris Rybakov, who insisted on recognizing her historicity. However, the vast majority of religious scholars and Slavists reject the historicity of these deities, believing that they owe their divine status to a misunderstanding of the song refrains by medieval scribes.

By some scholars of Baltic mythology, Lada was also worshipped by the Balts, but this view is also considered controversial.

Planetoid (2832) Lada was named after her.

Polish
The first source mentioning the theonym Lada is the Gniezno Sermons, which were written by Lucas of Wielki Koźmin around 1405-1412, without giving any description: "One should pay attention to those who say ungodly things today in dances or elsewhere in performances, consider unclean things in their hearts, shout out and mention the names of idols, and consider whether conversion to God the Father is possible. Certainly not. For it is forbidden to hear freely these holidays, which unfortunately celebrate according to what was left of the rites of the accursed pagans of our ancestors, unless for punishment, as once the shout of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah rose. For at this festival indecent exposure and other abominations, which the Apostle says should not even be named because of God the Father. However, due to the fact that preachers have arrived, such things cease, and in many places they have already ceased [...] There is no other name under heaven in which we can be saved. For a man is not saved in the name of Lado, Jassa, !Quia, Nyia, but in the name of Jesus Christ ... Not Lada, not Jassa, not Nija, which are the names of idols worshiped here in Poland, as some chronicles of Poles testify..."

- Lucas of Wielki Koźmin

Similar cautions, also without any description, are also found in: Statua provincialia breviter (1420-1422), Sermones per circulum anni Cunradi (1423), Postilla Husitae anonymi, and in glosses of Life of Adalbert of Prague.

The theonyms contained in the Gniezno Sermons were also repeated by Jan Długosz, who made an interpretatio romana and compared Lada to the Roman war god Mars: "Mars they called Lyada, whom the fictions of the poets proclaim the patron and god of war. To him they prayed for victory over their enemies and a fierce heart, and they sought his favour with the cruellest of cults."

- Jan Długosz

After Długosz the information about Lada was repeated by Maciej Miechowita, Marcin Kromer, Alexander Guagnini, Maciej Stryjkowski, Marcin and Joachim Bielski, and the priest Jakub Wujek. Maciej Miechowita, who copied information from Długosz, did not agree with him, however, on the function of Lada and corrected Długosz' information, comparing her to the Greek Leda and recognising her as the mother of Lel and Polel: "They worship Leda, the mother of Castor and Pollux, and twins born of a single egg, Castor and Pollux, which can be heard even today in the most ancient songs sung by Łada, Łada, Ileli and Leli Poleli with clapping and beating hands. Calling Lada – as I would venture to say according to the testimony of the living word – Leda, not Mars, Castor [is named] Leli, Poleli [is name of] Pollux."

- Maciej Miechowita

Outside the Annals, in Insignia seu clenodia Regis et Regni Poloniae, Długosz also mentions the female deity Lada, worshipped in the village of Łada near the river Łada, from which the Łada family took its name: "Łada took its name from the name of a Polish goddess who was worshipped in Mazovia in the town and village of Łada". She is also mentioned in the Powieść świętokrzyska: "there was a church of three idols, which were called Lada, Boda, Leli, to which the ordinary people went on the first of May to make prayers to them and to offer them.".

East Slavic
God Lado appears twice in Eastern sources. The first is the Hustyn Chronicle, written in Church Slavonic from the 17th century, with an uncertain exact date of composition and an uncertain author. This source recognizes Lado as the god of marriage and joy, and compares him to the Greek god Bacchus-Dionysus: "The fourth, Lado, was an infernal god; in him they believed that he was the god of weddings, joy and all prosperity, like the Hellenes in Bacchus. Those who were about to get married offered sacrifices to him, so that with his help the marriage would be good and loving. This Lado, the demon, is worshipped in some parts of the world at baptisms and weddings by singing some songs, and clapping hands on the table or on hands, Lado, Lado, interspersed with their songs, they repeat many times."

Similar informations are found in the Kievan Synopsis of 1674 by Innocent Gizel, which mentions Lado as a deity of happynest, to whom offerings were made during wedding preparations. Leli and Poleli, and their mother, were also supposed to be worshipped by singing "lado, lado, lado".

Genesis
Originally, the authenticity of the deity/deities was not denied and they appeared in the Slavic Romantics. Their authenticity was also assumed by early 18th and 19th century authors, such as Mikhail Popov, Mikhail Chulkov and Andrey Kaisarov, who assumed the authenticity of the Synopsis. The value of the Chronicle was also recognized by the Russian musicologist and composer Aleksandr Faminstyn in his 1884 work Bozhestva drevnikh slavyan. There he writes of a 17th century song from Croatia which notes "the holy god Lado" sung by girls dancing around a bonfire:

Additionally, he analyzed songs from all over the Slavdom, the existence of which was to prove the existence of the goddess Lada, wife of Lado.

Faminstyn believed that the theonyms should be translated as "consent", and connected them with the Roman goddess of concord and harmony Concordia, whose name also translates as "consent", and further with the goddess Bona Dea.

Starting in the 19th century, critical voices began to appear in the scientific community about the authenticity of the deities. One of the first and most influential was ethnographer and linguist Alexander Potebnja. After analyzing the source material, mainly song fragments, he came to the conclusion that lada appears in spring, summer and wedding songs, and that there are no grounds to consider this word as a remnant of the old goddess. This position was later upheld by linguists Gregor Kreka and Aleksander Brückner, as well as Max Vasmer and Oleg Trubachyov. Contemporary scholars overwhelmingly reject the authenticity of the deities Lada and Lado, believing, as in the case of Jesza, that the word lada, incomprehensible to the scribe, found in folk songs, was mistakenly considered a theonym, and then its attributes were added. This view is shared by scholars who consider at least part of Długosz's mythological account to be valuable, such as Aleksander Gieysztor, Andrzej Szyjewski, or Vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov.

The last influential scholar to insist on recognizing the historicity of Lada was Boris Rybakov. In his work, Yazychestvo drevnikh slavyan (1981), he hypothesized an Indo-European origin for the goddess Lada and compared her to the Greek Leda and Demeter. In addition, he considered another alleged goddess, Lelya (mythology), to be her daughter, and considered them both to be identical with the Rozhanitse, and to be important deities in the Slavic pantheon before the rise of the "Vladimir's pantheon". According to him, Lada and Lelya (mythology) ruled over spring nature and agricultural work, fertility, love and marriage. However, he negatively referred to the male god Lado claiming that lado is a vocative case from lada. The word lada means "wife, female lover, consort", and "husband, male lover, consort" – it is a two-gender noun and was used for women as well as men; in this respect Brückner compares it to the Polish word sługa. The word occurs, for example, in Old East Slavic as лада, lada "husband" (e.g. in The Tale of Igor's Campaign, the longing wife calls out: "bring my husband (lada) to me"), Czech lada "beloved" or "maiden, girl" (e.g. in Life of saint Catherine: "Oh, what a wonder has happened, Jesus Christ, over your beloved (lada)"), Ukrainian ла́до, lado "husband", ла́да, lada "wife", Serbo-Croatian ла̏да lada "wife", or Bulgarian ла́да, lada "the second daughter in the family who goes for water during the laduvane (ладу́ване – wedding tradition)". Słownik staropolski knows the Polish word łada only from sermons speaking about deity, so probably the word was no longer functioning in living language in the 15th century. The form Alado appearing in Postilla Husitae anonymi is probably the result of an attempt to adapt the word to Italian phonology. The form lado is not a separate word, but a vocative case from the word lada. From Slavic languages the word was borrowed into Baltic languages e.g. as lado, laduto etc.

Krzysztof Tomasz Witczak tried to read the Długosz's theonym Lyada differently from other researchers. According to him, the Latin Lyada corresponds to the Old Polish form *Lęda because the consonant ⟨l⟩ in medieval Latin in Poland was written as ly or li, and he considers that the reading *Łada is unjustified and represents a folk etymology. He believed that *Lęda was supposed to be a pagan theonym that had been demonized, and he refers here to the Russian dialectical words ляд, lyad, and ляда, lyada meaning "unclean spirit, devil". However, as Michał Łuczyński notes, the assumption that the ly notation corresponds to the vowel ⟨l⟩ justifies the reading of the Latin name as *Lada rather than *Lęda. In addition, an analysis of Długosz's personal spelling features shows that the ly notation also served him for the consonant ⟨ł⟩, e.g: Lyassza Gora "Łysa Góra", or Lyeba "Łeba". Therefore, it should be assumed that Długosz's Lyada corresponds to the old Polish form *Łada, as it is interpreted traditionally.

Further etymology
The Proto-Slavic form of lada is reconstructed as *lada. Further etymology is unclear; it is generally believed that *lada is etymologically related to the Proto-Slavic noun and root *ladъ (ład, лад) meaning "harmony, order". According to Brückner, the word derives from the verb ładzić "to concur, agree" (Proto-Slavic *laditi) → "concurring, agreeing couple" → "husband, wife" or "lovers". The etymology of the word *ladъ is also unclear, and an kinship with Gothic 𐌻𐌴𐍄𐌰𐌽 (letan "to let") has been suggested, or some relation to the word *lagoda "gentleness" – according to Brückner and Nikolay Shanskiy lad contains the decayed root la- "over" found in lagoda expanded with the suffix -d (cf. зад za d , под po d ). According to Shanskiy lad originally meant "top, peak", as opposed to pod "bottom, pit". He also points to the word сладить, sladit' "to win (over) someone" and suggests the following shift in meaning: "to win" → "to bring order" → *laditi "to live in harmony" → *ladъ "harmony, order".

Dida and Dido
Based on the Did-Lada refrain, uncritical and romantic old researchers, in addition to inventing Lada, also invented the god Dido and the goddess Dida.

Faminstyn considered these words as borrowed from the Baltic languages and pointed to the Lithuanian didis "big, great". However, the attested fragment from the Slovak songs Didi-Jane, Didi-Jene "o St. John" sung on Saint John day may indicate to the native origins of these words (Proto-Slavic *did- "big, great"). The Proto-Slavic form may be continued by the Polish *dzidzi, which is most likely found in another theonym mentioned by Długosz: Dzidzilela.

Lada as Baltic goddess
There is also a view among Baltic Romantics and some scholars that Lada was also worshipped by the Balts.

The word lada, and its various derivatives, appear in the refrains of sutartinės, Lithuanian polyphony songs, in various combinations, such as Lado tatato / Laduto, laduto / Loduta, loduta / Liadeli, liadeli / Ladutela, laduta, and others. Zenonas Slaviūnas grouped these songs as follows: workers' songs, wedding songs, military songs, family songs, dance songs, and songs about nature. Similarly, but more precisely, Vanda Misevičienė classified them, moving the songs about crane to the groups of rye-gathering songs and the songs about fir tree to the groups of family songs.

According to Norbertas Vėlius, although the songs belong to different groups, they all have much in common. For example, in the sutartinės about the conifer, the image about the maturation of young people is poetically represented by a conifer tree that outgrows all the trees in the forest. In another song, a crane is called upon to fly into the garden, pick flowers and make a wreath – this motif evokes the idea that a bride-to-be should start making a wreath to join the ranks of adults. In another sutartinės the shooter kills a crane, which is supposed to mean a girl taken by a boy, and in yet another song the crane is asked to feed "his children". The songs Kad mes buvom and Selagij viteli rikavo are openly wedding songs and tell of courtship. Also, the song Išjos brolis, which has a military character, is sung on behalf of a sister who talks about her feelings. Finally, the song Laduto, laduto tells about the bad relationship between daughter-in-law and father-in-law. According to Vėlius, all songs with these refrains refer to young people, especially girls who have reached adulthood. Thus, it should be considered that if the word Lado occurring in these refrains had any meaning, it should be associated primarily with young people.

In his search for the origin of these words, Vėlius points to Stryjowski's Chronicle, where he describes the custom of dancing and singing Lado, lado ir mano lado in honor of "Liada or Ladona – the mother of Castor and Pollux". In another place of his Chronicle dedicated to Lithuania and Samogitia, he writes that Lithuanians worshipped the god Dzidzis Lado, in whose honor they sang Lado, lado, lado didis mūsų dieve. He also mentions Kromer's Chronicle and the Kievan Synopsis. He notes, however, that the reliability of these sources is low and cites the opinions of Lithuanian researchers, such as Simonas Stanevičius, who believed that the god Lado was invented by Stryjkowski on the basis of a folk songs, Simonas Daukantas, who regarded the god Dzidzis Lado as a distorted form of Titis leido referring to Perkūnas, Mikalojus Akelaitis, according to whom Lado is a distorted form from laide or leide, and Brückner, according to whom Lado was borrowed into Lithuanian songs along with the Kupala night, and several other Lithuanian scholars who rejected the deity's authenticity. He also recalls that the Slavic deity Lada/Lado is regarded with distrust by Slavic scholars. He also mentions several Lithuanian and Slavic researchers who accepted the deity's authenticity, but notes that many of them were not mythologists but ethnographers who did not study the deity's authenticity.

However, according to him, an argument for the existence of the goddess could be the Bulgarian custom of laduvane, during which the second girl in the family who goes to fetch water is called "lada". The Greek dragon Ladon may also be an argument, assuming that the coincidence of the similarity of words is not accidental, and the Lithuanian words ladėti, laduti meaning "to reprimand, abuse", "to curse, damn", as well as the Latvian lādēt, and words from the semantic field "to curse", also often have a mythological meaning.

Bronislava Kerbelytė argues against the existence of the goddess Lada among the Balts. She states that the Slavic chant lada generally appears in wedding songs, and she reads the word did as "dziad, grandfather", which sometimes appears in the names of Slavic ritual objects around the winter solstice, such as dednik (or badnjak) or didukh, which are associated with the cult of fertility. In Russian, the wedding is sometimes called rukobitije ("crossing of arms"), from which the clapping while singing the refrains of the lada during children's songs may derive. She further points out the analogy between East Slavic songs with the refrain lada and songs during Līgo noted by Eduards Volters. Latvian līgt meaning "to employ," "to make peace," and līgums "to agree," along with Lithuanian lygti, sulygti "to consult, negotiate, agree," correspond to the Slavic word lad. She gives the example of a story about a Gypsy who forced a peasant to exchange horses by jokingly suggesting to the villager that they should go to an inn, shake hands, and shout liko. When they did so, the gypsy took the peasant's horse, taking advantage of the fact that the peasant had forgotten the meaning of shaking hands and the shouting. The symbol of crossed hands was also used during Lithuanian summer solstice celebrations, e.g. a couple would jump over the fire holding hands: if they let go while jumping, they would not get married.

Jan Łasicki (16-17th century) mentions god Tavalas in one of his works. Scholars have compared this name to a song written by Simonas Daukantas sung by boys dragging a log on Christmas Eve, which was supposed to prove the existence of the god Tabalas:

However, an analysis of the song and language shows that tabalai is derived from the verb tabaluoti "to dangle". The authenticity of other deities mentioned by Łasicki is also rejected, e.g.: alleged theonym Šluotražis is derived from the word šluotražis "broom" and was a magical and symbolic (related to healing) ritual object, to which it has already been explained by many scholars. Thus, according to Kerbelytė, there are no grounds to consider Tabalas or Lada as Lithuanian deities – these words were only magic words or objects used in rituals and ceremonies. The lado refrain is also considered a ritual vocabulary by Lithuanian ethnologist Rimantas Balsys, who blames the misunderstanding in the Baltic context on the uncritical use of 16th century sources and the activity of the Romantics, who considered the ritual ledų dienos ("day of ice") as proof of the existence of the winter goddess Lada. In the case of the historicity of the Slavic deity, he takes a neutral position.

title: Lada (mythology)