The graduation ceremony was held at Walt Disney Concert Hall, a glorious architectural affair, with incredible acoustics and a pipe organ that takes your breath away. The long afternoon was spent celebrating the innumerable talents of these amazing young musicians, actors, artists, dancers, singers, and filmmakers. For nearly four hours, we watched them perform before us, presenting us with the pinnacle of their talents as they hover on the cusp of their next great adventure... college, professional life, travel... the world as expansive as it will ever possibly get in their lifetimes.
The hall was incredible. The lighting was deeply saturated and endlessly delicious. The magnificent organ was incorporated into one of the orchestral offerings ... stunning us with its vibrancy and power. Using the binoculars, I watched the alcoves housing the pipes opening and closing, to adjust the volume and acoustics of the sound. The lighting in these recesses was an exquisite teal, offset by the rich ambers used to light the carved wooden pipes in front. Incredibly beautiful, ornate and fascinating.
The performances were inspiring: the youth and strength of the dancers' bodies reminded me of how explosively healthy the human body can be; the sensitivity and boundless creativity of the visual artists humbled me; the intimacy of the jazz musicians with their guitars and basses and saxophones made me long to master a musical instrument and know it as well as these kids knew theirs.
And it was a major day for me. I wore a bit of makeup for the first time in over two months. I dressed up and (thanks to my new stress and chemo induced weight loss program) looked like something approaching good. (I was also probably the only one in that theatre... although maybe not... who spent multiple moments just being deeply grateful that my hair was still attached to my head.)
Most of all, I spent the day in the company of hundreds of people enjoying art, and not talking about blood cell counts and prognoses and side effects. Instead, I gave the day over to commemorating a rite of passage, watching this group of very amazing kids shimmy and shake and take selfies as they crossed the stage, heading off into a future full of possibility and opportunity and obstacles and challenges.
It was a brutally long day, don't get me wrong; but it was great to be out in the world, saturated in music and visuals and the creative spirit.
And as I watched this long pageant unfold before me, I came up with the following message I would like to send out to this group of brilliant and beautifulyoung men and women who have spent the last four years together:
To the LACHSA class of 2014...
As I watched you today I wondered where your paths would take you. I wondered where you were going and when you were coming back. I wondered what you have been through to get to this moment, and whether you will look back on this day as a high point, or just another springboard to the future glories you have already earned.
I thought about life and all its rituals and changes. Your faces are so beautiful. Each and every one. Your eyes are bright, your bodies thrumming with energy. I beg of you to not take that for granted. Be good to those bodies you strut through the world today. Take care of them. They will serve you well.
Hold your friends close. You guys are a great bunch... funny, loving, incredibly caring towards one another. The LACHSA experience makes you very lucky; you are able to go out into the world with your tribe already fully formed, possibly the first of many such tribes. Keep the tribe intact. You guys are good together; you will never find anyone who knows you as well as you know each other, and time will only deepen and enrich that. The early tribes are the most precious.
As you go forward, you will find challenges and grace, moments of both pain and sublime joy. Because you have your art, you have a way to navigate through all that. You can create your music or painting or inhabit a character or make a film to understand how this thing called reality works for you. You can use your art to interpret yourself to the world, and also to make sense of the world back. You can use your art as a metaphor, a conduit, a litmus test, an emotional dowsing rod.
The art you have just spent four years perfecting will see you through the rest of your life, if you let it -- it will be your constant friend, lover, ally, opponent, nag, bitch, guilt tripper, therapist, and antagonist. It will change and grow as you do. It will give you a place to go that is uniquely and wonderfully and blissfully your own.
Art, whether visual, musical, dramatic, verbal, or martial, is the glue that holds this thing all together. Without art in your life, life is a series of wakings and retirings, with precious little in between to add any spice or resonance or meaning. But you are all lucky enough to have an art, and it will give you a way to be that will be radically different from the way normal people operate.
Keep in touch with that thing inside you that creates and sees the world a little differently. It will set you apart, in a good way if you can accept that, and it will be the thing that always brings you back.
Congratulations for seeing it through. At the end of the ceremony we in the audience gave you graduates a standing ovation, and you gave us one back. Remember that moment. All your friends and family showering you with respect and honor, while you showered us back with your thanks and enthusiasm. Hold on to that... because we will be standing and supporting you forever.
Go kick some ass in the world. Go dare to know yourselves. Go challenge yourselves creatively, and find friends to keep you grounded. Don't go terribly berserk the first time out on your own. Just a little bit will take you a long way.
But go, now.
Go forth and shine.
No comments:
Post a Comment