We received re-
sponses from readers this month commenting about trash and littering around the city. I was pleased to see that so many people support my contention that we need to create urgency about the condition of our streets. Apparently many of you have clean-up teams going strong in your own neighborhoods and I loved hearing from you about this and hope more of you will contact me with your thoughts.
This May Issue has an annual focus about Arts for Kids and the importance of introducing children early in life to any or all branches of the arts. There is no doubt that exposure and participation in music, theater, dance, or fine art helps imaginations soar, enhances the child’s academic performance and contributes strongly to the future growth of a well rounded person.
Having been myself, both a performer and teacher of performance, married to a musician, the daughter of a singer and a designer, my personal exposure came from the beginning. Other children may have been sung to sleep with a lullaby but for me it was a Verdi aria.
Music was and is a constant in our home. My daughter has grown up with classical music, jazz, opera, world music, R & B, and classic rock from the beginning. Being exposed to it always, she has come to appreciate all of it and I fully believe that someday as a mature adult, she will choose of her own volition to turn on Bach or Puccini, or listen to Ravi Shankar or Flamenco. We have always gone to museums and the walls of our home are adorned with art and photographs and we regularly go to plays and concerts.
I signed her up for dance when she was little and she went on to do it happily for years. The love of the arts is there, deep and solid and there is great respect for those who make art and are thus enhancing our experience here on our planet earth through their work.
Art is universal and there is no culture that doesn’t do art of some kind, although there are cultures where it is so natural a part of everyone’s reality that they have no word for it. It is just what everyone does. When visiting the island of Bali, for example, one finds this surprising but charming truth.
We are brought together through these truths and whether making music together, or creating a mural, or watching a film in a foreign language from a cultural reality far away, we discover the links of a chain that binds our humanity and takes away the strange part of being strangers.
Make sure you and your kids are involved. Dance together and sing and make sure they are given a chance to express their unique inner selves.
Thanks for reading.
