Art in the Digital Age

 Dear John,

Of all of the extra things your dad and I do for you (beyond the feeding and clothing), I think one of the most important is the way we try to expose you and your sister to the arts.  The creation of art is one of the things that signifies a developed society to me.  The only way artists are free to create and perform is if the rest of the society is willing and able to support their art.  I think our lives are enriched by the beauty around us and if we don't stop to attend to it then we are the ones lacking.

Media, computers, the internet, television, all of it makes our world so much smaller, so much more accessible, and I think it waters down the experience of the artistic, sometimes.  If I want to see a musical, I can download it, get on Netflicks, look on cable, or just stream it on a phone.  But none of those compare to the experience of seeing it on stage.  I think of the future as seen on Wall-E where all of humanity is limited not only to simply watching virtual reproductions of performances, but physically unable to reproduce the kinds of amazing acts of physical beauty that we see in ballet, in gymnastics and in sports.

The digital age can give us so much, but it cannot provide the power of a live performance and the world can be at our fingertips but a live stage performance is always as far away as the closest company.  With all of that in mind, supporting the arts in Austin and making sure you and your sister get to have as much exposure as possible, is very important to me and your dad.

Which is why on Sunday we went to the Ballet Austin's second kids' performance.  We had gone to Peter and the Wolf in the fall and we all loved it, so we felt pretty sure that we would like this one as well.

The show took the right sorts of liberties with the very grim Grimm's fairy tale.  In this version, the loving parents don't actually send the children away.  Instead, the father gives the mother a vacuum cleaner (no one knows why) which she loves (also for unknown reasons) and Hansel and Gretel play with it (of course) and then break it (no surprise) and run away from to avoid being in trouble.  You and your sister laughed and laughed as the children broke that vacuum cleaner!

The whole show was done with eight dancers and was far more focused on German polka music and movement than it was the tale of Hansel and Gretel.  They also had these two narrow tables and did a lot of cool movements involving dancers going under and over the tables, dancing with them and around them.  In the end, the witch is tied to one and then pushed off stage.

The grand finale, though, wasn't the victory over the witch, or even the children's homecoming.  It was the father repairing the vacuum cleaner.

Very funny.  Very silly.  Very German.  And very kid friendly.

I am so glad we took you to see it and I'm glad I got to see it.  What a great city we live in to have such wonderful kid productions so available.

Love,
Mom