Why Won't They Go?

“Everybody loves a [piano, ballet, voice...you name it] recital.” Not. Who goes to those things? Parents and grandparents. Why? For the most part, love. Love of the student, and sometimes love of the art. So if you’re not a close family member, why are you getting invited to shows at Talents Unleashed? Because our shows are different. Yeah, right.

But they are! Take Aureus, for instance. As we go into our second (and final) weekend of shows, we find we have invited and begged and coerced everyone we know to come out and see what we’ve done together. There are no “stars” in this group. Some good singing and acting - and a LOT of entertainment that comes from every individual in this group contributing some of their own individual gifts and ideas, sanding out conflicting opinions, and practicing together to get it right.

What do you get out of it? An interactive, entertaining evening with your family and friends in an intimate environment where the performers are up close and personal. There are always surprises. What’s one of the biggest surprises for people who have never had this experience? Fun and joy. For two hours, you get to put aside some of the cares of the day - but not to just forget reality - but to bring balance to the realities of life with something good and wholesome. Yes, wholesome - does that sound as unappealing as processed meat? Then you need to do a self-check. Laughter does good like a medicine!

These people are just like you. And they have something to share. We use our God-given gifts and talents and we put together something new. You’re invited because we want to share the fun with you. It’s not a story you’ve ever heard before, and not something you’ve ever seen before. Why not find out what all the fuss is about?

Rehearsal pics - this is what it looks like...hard work and a lot of confusion!

The Airplanes

We just had my precious first grandson for a visit here in Miami. As with many visitors, we ended up taking a run down to “Robert is Here” - a pretty cool touristy place with lots of exotic fruit, local honey, smoothies, a kind of “petting zoo” and more.

Now Leo is three and so his interests can come and go pretty quickly and his tastes are sometimes unpredictable. Seeing the fruit stand was pretty cool. He LOVES fruit. He ran here and there and saw things we pointed out, and was pretty happy with the honey samples, too. We decided it was time to go see the animals so we headed through toward the back end of the property. To get there, we passed through a work area of sorts where fruit is sorted, cut and prepared for the vending area. At the end of the counter, right at 3-year-old eye level - was a toy airplane. It was big enough to take two hands to hold and bright and shiny and new. It wasn’t the kind of thing they would sell there, so I suppose some poor child had left it behind and was maybe even still somewhere in the vicinity. Those details would be unfathomable to this child. He just saw it - and wanted it. You would think in his mind that it was the biggest, most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

We could even imagine he had set his mind on such a toy long ago and finally found what he’d been waiting for all of his little life. So incapable of reason (although we did try), the only thing his daddy could do was scoop him up and take him kicking and screaming in the direction we had been trying to head before the distraction. We stopped to see a really cool toucan - but he could not see it or enjoy it because his little mind was on that airplane. I thought the entire day was ruined and that his life would never be the same without that airplane.

Now, if you’ve been to “Robert is Here” in any recent years, you may already know what’s coming. But he didn’t. We carried on past the animals - and then he saw - the planes! REAL planes. You could climb in them. They were just shells of what used to be real flying machines. You could move levers and buttons and push on pedals. The former little toy plane that he wanted so badly was completely forgotten - because he had found a whole new level of interactive joy. I’ve no doubt he could have stayed there for hours. And he discovered something else - even though he’s not conscious of it yet - he loves mechanical things. How does it move? How does it work? Let’s try each and every button and lever and gear and see what happens.

But then what happened? Those cute little blue eyes spied a bunch of toy cars - the kind you could ride in - when you’re a toddler. He barely fit inside. He ran over and crammed himself in one after another, forgetting for a time the joy of the much more complex planes. He was finally convinced to spend a little time with the animals - and then he remembered how much he loved the planes, and we revisited the joy. And then - tractors! He had to sit on each one - and try all the levers and gears.

It was very hard to convince him to go back to the car. But the toy airplane that meant so much to him at first was never mentioned again. His father’s insistence in tearing him away from his “toy joy” had opened his eyes to such great things. And were they so great? Well, not to diminish “Robert” and his lovely place, but there is even more out there - there are real planes and real tractors that really fly and run and work. He just saw a glimpse - a shell of the real thing. Will we follow up this story one day with tales of a boy who became a pilot? I have no idea.

I do know this, however. I see myself all over this little story. I have again been thinking lately about how often we have our sights set on something that is “good.” We want it. We ask for it. We pray for it. We claim it. And God says, “no.” And we wonder what we did wrong. It wasn’t a bad desire. It wasn’t evil. “Why does God always punish me by not giving me what I desire?” Maybe, just maybe - we have to get pulled away from something “good” to see something “better.” And then - is “better” all there is? Maybe - or maybe not. Do we find something better only to be pulled away by some toy we’ve outgrown? Do we appreciate the gifts that may have awakened in the discovery process? Will the experience teach us to accept a “no” and appreciate more?

What toy airplanes might be in our lives that keep us from moving forward, or have us looking backward at what we thought we missed? Looking forward to a new year and (gulp) all that the loving, heavenly Father may want to show us!

Why Do We Perform?

There are, of course, many reasons that performers perform. When I was growing up, my dear mother invested much time and money on piano and dance (and yes, even a little bit of violin and voice). So when people came over to visit, she naturally wanted me to play piano for them. I would resist and put up a big fuss - I REALLY did not want to play for anyone. But once I was finally pressed into duty, my audience would give me the obligatory compliments and I would respond by telling them everything that was wrong about what they just heard. What a joy that must have been for everyone!

In high school, I ended up in choirs and performing groups. We were unstoppable, singing everywhere we went. We’d line the aisle at McDonalds and do our choreography, and walk the mall singing all our songs.

Much of the differences in attitude and experience can be attributed, at least in my case, to the group versus individual performing experience. As a pianist in the living room, all eyes were on me. As a singer on stage or on the street, I was part of a group experience and it was about “us.” Now as a teacher, of course I have a different “perspective” (nod to the Vessels of GOLD theme for 18-19). For my individual students, I don’t want to emphasize that it’s about “making dad proud” or “showing off” or “getting attention.” Instead, I believe it’s important to give what you have and share what you’ve learned. Think of the “little drummer boy.” He shared what he had. He played the best he could. He gave all of it back to the One who gifted the boy in the first place.

As a group, it’s more complex because it involves all of the above, but you’re working as a team. From what I see in the movies, it’s not that different from the football or mighty ducks or baseball team. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and they practice together to the point that they know a lot about each other. They know how to work together, and when the pressure’s on, they know what needs to be said and done to get the job done.

But again, why? Why perform? Certainly, to show what you’ve learned together, what you’ve accomplished after all those hours in rehearsal. What else? To entertain. Laughter is good like medicine. Entertainment (without debauchery) is healthy for the soul. Sometimes a “performance” reaches another level as music or a story will sometimes shock us with its impact by discovering some buried treasure of thought or emotion. There are stories to be told. We learn from stories. From historic accounts to parables to a personal story about the stray dog we encountered, we share our stories and our world is broadened and enriched.

As an individual performer, we stand exposed. That’s not a bad thing. Here I am. Just me. And I have something to “say.” In a group, it certainly feels safer, but it’s not necessarily easier. You can control yourself, but not a group. If you mess up, you let the whole group down. If someone else messes up, they let you down.

It’s like life! How often do we say, or at least think, that life would be a whole lot easier if everyone would just do it the way I do it and think the way I think? So rehearsing and then performing together, we learn that people mess up and do things differently. How are we going to handle it?

So these random bits and pieces float around out there as part of the overall experience of “performing.” But we haven’t really gotten to the root. As a director of performing groups, I feel like I’m constantly trying to convince people (through ads, social media, pictures, video, etc.) to come and see what we’re doing. Why? Because I want them to see how good we are so we can get more people and build more programs and become famous? God forbid. Does pride ever sneak in? Absolutely. But that’s a temptation that any performer will need to struggle with at least occasionally.

But, keeping our eyes on the goal - why do we want to invite and perform? Because we want to share. It goes back to why we sang in the mall and everywhere we went. We want to share something that brings joy to us. You don’t hide a light under a bucket (Deb’s book of paraphrases). You turn on a light because you want light! You practice and learn so that you can share the joy and experience with others.

As parents, do you invite because you want someone to see your talented son or daughter? That is definitely a tempting factor (says the parent of four talented children...let me tell you...oops, I digress). But maybe we have a hard time (sometimes) finding venues and coercing people to come because they are not as interested in your children as you are. They assume (wrongly) that time and money is best spent seeing professionals tell a slick and edited story on a movie screen than seeing a “bunch of amateurs try to emulate them.” But that’s not what we’re about. We tell our own stories in our own way. Our shows become a unique contribution to the stories of life because we have worked together to form and tell them.

We’re not “professionals” and we’re not about trying to make movie and Broadway stars. We’re not a talent agency. We are about “Growth Opportunities for Learning and Development.” GOLD. Gold in life is searched for, treasured, refined, shaped and set aside for special purposes. Each individual that comes through our doors comes with gifts and talents that can be found, treasured, refined and shaped - and then NOT hidden under a bucket. We share what we have. We practice. We do our best. We share our stories and our songs. We share with our families and our community and anyone that will listen. And we hope many will listen and learn and grow.

So “performing” is “sharing.” We should do it graciously, thankful for the opportunity. It is not so the spotlight will be on us, but it is for us to turn on the light and let it shine into darkness.

When we finish sharing what we’ve done, we hope our audience will say thank you from their hearts (usually indicated with applause), and we teach that our bows are a simple indication of “you’re welcome.”