Forget Mapplethorpe, who gained prominence and disdain for one federally funded work of art. Before and since then the conservative sorts have already cut all art and music from our schools, and have sought to cut budgets for symphonies, ballets, opera and other art forms.
My brother leads a ballet company. His significant other was a prima ballerina in a major ballet company and now is artistic director. They do excellent work, and travel the world to gather the best dancers.
I talked to my brother tonight and he says that ballet is very popular, I wouldn’t have thought as much as I was just a kid when I was taught basic, toe and tap. I was built like my father, look like him. He was head of a major ballet company. He never danced, I never had the body or talent of a dancer or a gymnast, who I tried to become. I ended up captain of the team, a great one but not a dancer or a gymnast.
Now my brother jokes that everyone said he looked like tiny Mom. He looks just like Dad, who died over a year ago. I almost lost him at Rockefeller Center over the holidays a decade ago going through a crowd by the ice rink. My husband is a foot taller than me and all I asked of him was to look for someone who looked like Dad. We found him and continued on our way.
Music and art are how I got through grade school. Also private lessons in ballet, piano and violin. They teach kids so much, intellectually and instinctively and mathematically. The fact that they are gone from public schools now is a travesty. Art and music are not throw-aways. They are building blocks for children to learn.
Now both parents must have jobs and there is little time for the kids. Perhaps a bedtime story. We pay taxes. Heck, we pay school taxes and only have a dog! Mozart started composing at age five. It was mathematics. His brain was only wired better than mine or most others, and his ear was better. How do you think Beethoven’s Ninth was born of a deaf man?
Music, dance, opera are necessary to let children and adults know what is out there, artistically. Please attend and support artistic endeavors. Thank you and Zoe is telling me to lift her to bed. Now! Dee
Cooking with Dee 