The Arts as Community

Last weekend I traveled to Chicago to see my granddaughter's first ballet recital at the Museum of Science and Industry in Hyde Park.  There is a performance space there called "The Purple Stairs", inside the museum.  Olive has been taking ballet for a year, and this was her very first time on stage in front of a large and exuberant audience.  She had her hair in the requisite tight bun, and her reddened lips and accentuated eyes for her performance.  Her number was called "The Ladybugs" and it was part of "Act Two".  There are three acts in this production, and each act is an hour and a half, so families know which act they need to commit to, as each one of the "acts" is a full performance in itself.  Some Ballet schools are more community oriented than others, but Hyde Park School of Dance wins for their approach to teaching and inclusion, supporting a community view, and also helping their students realize their dreams of dancing in a company.  They have a rich scholarship program and students, as they advance through the classes learn to choreograph dances, help with the younger students, and challenge themselves to do emotionally impacted, intense, raw material.  It is not just the classic tendues and battements and degages, there is African dance, hiphop, and modern ballet as well as folk dancing from other countries. 

What I noticed, more than anything else, was a sense of belonging for every one of those dancers.  All kinds of chaos might have been happening in their family of origin, but this place they have committed their afternoons and evenings to, this discipline that has gripped them for whatever reason, there is a sense of having a place to be, a group of people who have a shared vision,  a lifestyle, a creative outlet.  The world is a hard and scary and unfriendly place, and the arts make it better and more compassionate for all.  Ballet is a challenge even for the most talented, and a healthy challenge makes us feel both powerful and humble at the same time.  Olive beamed through the entire piece that she was in, I wept, her mother took a dynamic video, her sister called out her name over and over, so proud of her sister and wanting to be there on stage with her at the same time.  It was even more of an intense experience than when I used to dance in high school every day from 3:30- 6pm.  It was so clear to me that Olive has found her passion for this art form, at least for the moment, and all I can say is I celebrate it all, and it was a life-changing moment.  AH!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQXFGQxc_ao