The twins of politics and government are of course the BIGs for Washington, D.C., but participatory dance is strong, too. The Washington Post included learning to ballroom dance as one of 9 proposed resolutions for the New Year with a boost from a story about dance lessons at the French Embassy (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/12/24/ST2008122401447.html?hpid=features2&hpv=local).
And for participatory dancers (as compared to politico dancers for one of the new Presidents 10 Inaugural Balls), theres a non-partisan dance (http://ceimd.com/php/public.php) at the Glen Echo Park, a part of the National Park Service just over the D.C. line in to Maryland above the C&O Canal (http://www.glenechopark.org/) in its spacious, wood floored and historic Spanish Ballroom (see the park web site for a picture of a contra dance in the ballroom). Since the ballroom maintains its origin character of being without heat (and without A/C in the summer), the dress on the evening of January 20th will reflect a combination of style and provision for warmth, e.g., gowns complemented by ski cap, wool scarf and gloves, perhaps leggings, too.

These are just high lights of the time. There are extensive and varied ongoing dance opportunities (and lessons, before dances and by themselves) in the Washington, D.C. area that are well captured on DCDancenet.com (http://dcdancenet.com/index_msie.shtml.)