 |
| Rebecca Dutton Home After a Stroke |
I love dance so I watched a mini-series called Big Ballet on the Ovation channel. The show is about large women and men learning to perform the ballet Swan Lake. My intuition told me watching overweight people struggle would help me with a dilemma in my stroke recovery. Professional dancers who initially pooh-poohed this venture conceded the audience connected with the cast's performance. The 1,500 people in the audience clapped enthusiastically.
Who made this project possible? Wayne Sheep choreographed the ballet. He is a 5 foot 2 inch man who refused to leave professional ballet because he was too small. Monica Loughman is a retired ballerina who trained the dancers. Many of the cast had previous dance experience. However, they had to work hard to gain strength, flexibility, and endurance, learn the steps in the ballet, and learn to express the emotions of characters in a classic story of love and betrayal. Watching a brave group of people triumph over fear of failure and rejection was thrilling because everyone has struggled with these emotions.
Wayne is right. Everyone deserves to dance or have a personal connection with some form of art.
I think art is powerful because it: 1) brings feelings to the surface, 2) tells stories about the human condition, and 3) creates community. Technology has propelled human civilization forward since someone discovered how to make fire. Yet art has stood the test of time because it addresses primal human needs.
