Lights! Camera! Action!

When it comes to enjoying artistic endeavors, I prefer to by-pass those things.  I like my artists up close and personal. Unscripted. Uncostumed.  Unlit.

I got lucky many years ago when I worked at the New England Conservatory of Music.  Most of the professors at the school were also members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.  An elite group of musicians, indeed.

But I knew them as just regular people who walked into the school every day.  Just like the rest of us.  They always stopped by the registrar’s office where I worked and chatted with us.   I attended their rehearsals every Thursday during my lunch hour and saw them at work.   No lights, no cameras.  Just a group of very talented people working together to make beautiful music.

Just recently, our son and daughter-in-law hosted the Hilton Head Dance Theater for a small event at our old house on the May River.  Prior to the performance, the young dancers mingled among the party-goers.  We watched them giggle and laugh and talk with their friends. We saw them in their shorts and t-shirts.  No make-up.  No glitzy costumes. 

Then, transformed into ballerinas, they emerged from the kitchen and onto the grassy lawn.  No stage door for them.  No fancy backdrop.  Just a beautiful, cloudless, afternoon of Ballet on the May.  

The audience was gathered on the porch, wine glasses in hand. Cell-phone cameras  quietly capturing the beauty of the afternoon.  Proud parents.  Happy ballet enthusiasts.

Just exactly the way I like it.