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Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Dec 11, 2000

December 3, 2000

Thank you very much. Thank you, Senator. [Laughter] I'm trying to get used to that. I want to--[laughter]--look, I've got to take every opportunity I can to practice here. [Laughter]

I want to welcome you all here, especially, of course, our honorees and other artists and former honorees; Members of Congress who are here--Senator and Mrs. Lott, welcome; we're glad to see you--and to all our other distinguished guests.

As Hillary said, it has been a profound honor for us and a great joy to do these Kennedy Center Honors for 8 years in a row now. We thank the people we honor tonight and their predecessors for lifting our spirits and broadening our horizons.

Thirty-eight years ago, President Kennedy wrote that "art means more than a resuscitation of the past. It means the free and unconfined search for new ways of expressing the experience of the present and the vision of the future." Each in their own way, tonight's honorees have brought to a venerable art form a spark of the new and unexpected. And each has left it more modern, more brilliant, and forever changed for the better. Now, let me present them.

Very few people visit the East Room, where we now are, and find themselves in danger of striking the 20-foot ceiling. [Laughter] But that is exactly what happened to Mikhail Baryshnikov when he arrived to rehearse for a White House performance in 1979. With a portable stage set up, even this stately ceiling was too low for his trademark soaring leaps. No ceiling or boundary, not even the Iron Curtain, has ever held him back for long.

His successful performance of that night was televised for millions of Americans as "Baryshnikov at the White House," another step towards cementing his reputation as the greatest male classical dancer of our time. With his daring leap to freedom in 1974, he also inspired millions with the idea of liberty, and he used his freedom to move beyond classical ballet to movies and to Broadway and, in 1976, to fulfill a lifelong dream by bounding onto the stage of American modem dance. And it has never been the same since.

From "Push Comes To Shove" to his path-breaking White Oak Dance Project, Mikhail Baryshnikov has pushed the boundaries of a challenging art form even as he has broadened its audience. He continues to give brilliant performances at an age when most of us are, frankly, being told to get our exercise in private. [Laughter]

So tonight America says, thank you, Mikhail Baryshnikov, for the heights to which you have lifted the art of dance and the heights to which you have lifted all of us. Thank you.

No less an authority than John Lennon once said, "If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry." [Laughter] The Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones all copied him, but Chuck Berry was the original. He fused country and blues into a new sound that was distinctly American and utterly new. And 40 years later, the Chuck Berry sound still blazes across our stages and from our radios.

He is, quite simply, one of the 20th century's most influential musicians. His guitar riffs were some of rock's first, and they're still some of its greatest. His stage moves, especially the duckwalk, which he invented, are often imitated, sometimes intentionally--[laughter]--but never equalled. His fresh and vivid lyrics captured American life, whether you're rich or poor, young or not so young, and they suggested the rhythms of a new and better day for black and white Americans alike. NASA even sent Chuck Berry's music on a space probe searching for intelligent life in outer space. [Laughter] Well, now, if they're out there, they're duckwalking. [Laughter]

It was my great honor to invite Chuck to play at both my inaugurals and my 25th reunion at Georgetown University, which we held here on the White House grounds. I, too, have loved him for more than 40 years. So we say, thank you, Chuck Berry, for making us laugh, making us shout, making us dance, and making us happy together. Thank you.

These days you hear a lot of people saying we need to change the tenor here in Washington. [Laughter] They are not talking about Placido Domingo. [Laughter] We are truly blessed to have him as artistic director, as a conductor, and still performing as one of the greatest operatic tenors of all time.

It is almost now impossible to imagine opera without him. He has performed 118 roles, probably more than any other tenor ever. He is still adding new ones. He has set new standards, and he has worked unceasingly to bring opera to a wider audience through movies, television, and live concerts, and of course, especially as one of the famed Three Tenors. Their concerts have brought operatic singing to an audience of one billion people across the globe. Think about it: one in six people has thrilled to the sound of this man's voice.

But he has always been more than a voice. As a young man, he prepared for later life in Washington as an amateur bullfighter. [Laughter] Now, instead of a cape, however, he waves the baton, which means that he is the only person in Washington who gets at least a finite group of people to do what he tells them to do. [Laughter]