Irish poet William Butler Yeats wrote telling lines in a love poem that could apply to all human relationships:
"I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."
Composer Eric Whitacre is acclaimed for creating music performed by assembling the video clips of 5,000+ singers from around the world into virtual choirs. On November 9, he led The Florida Orchestra and The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay in three of his works.
For his Deep Field, the audience watched NASA footage as the group performed in what must be one of Whitacre's dreams. It was his musical interpretation of the Hubble Telescope's initial blurred view and the fix that made it possible for astrophysicists to discover 3,000 galaxies beyond our Milky Way.
Before the performance, Whitacre said he wrote Lux Arumque (commissioned by Master Chorale of Tampa Bay) in the year 2000, now, "a gift my younger self gave to my older self." More works followed, such as the animated Fly to Paradise. The five-minute choral performance ends with the names of his 5,000+ singers scrolling on the screen.
We Are Born Into More Than a Family
British TED Talk speaker and creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson PhD., author with Lou Aronica of The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything refers to finding "your tribe." That this musical tribe is possible on a global scale was unimaginable before the technological advances of a geek tribe. Such a tribe can be found anywhere creative minds are going about their business.
I've encountered my tribe when, as a solitary writer, I collaborated with a magazine's art department about accompanying artwork and photos and, as a staff writer, I settled into a Gannett daily newsroom and on a Corporate Communications team, I found my contribution added to its synergy to conceptualize a project, and more recently, in Keep St. Pete Lit writers' workshops. In such places, I operate full throttle in what Robinson calls "being in your element.”
Yeah, But What About ...
Level-headed realists argue it is cruel to encourage the young to develop their creativity only to have dreams dashed by an indifferent job market. True, the performing arts - music, theater, dance, film - do exact a toll on their adherents, and the world yawns. But, what a bleak existence this would be without the derring do of 5,000+ humans making orchestrated cell phone videos around the world.
And, creativity itself is fit for the tool belt of a working life: architecture, business, education, health care and the STEMs (science, technology, engineering and math). The future will hum with industries yet to be imagined. Since exposure to music, art, theater and literature opens minds to the creative process, children deserve to be immersed in it and assured their creativity is as valuable as the skills they acquire in academia. It will be in the world as it is - a matter of constant creation.
Vincent Mancuso creating his pastel of "The Thanksgiving Table"