I Hope I Won't Hate Myself For This.

I'm old enough.  And I have known, without any doubt, for my whole life, that there's no such thing as "god."  But tonight, I started to have uneasy thoughts.

I saw a show put on by Dance Now! Miami (DNM), and two of the four pieces were choreographed and danced by their Italian visiting company, Compagnia Opus Ballet (COB).  A third piece was choreographed by a revered local choreographer, Daniel Lewis, and the last piece was choreographed by DNM's founders and artistic directors, Diego Salterini (OK, he's Italian, too) and Hannah Baumgarten.

The two pieces created and danced by COB were way off the charts.  They were the cause of my uneasy thoughts.  The Lewis piece was wonderful.  The music for all three was delightful.  The range included The Beatles, Mancini, Gershwin, Pachelbel, Berlioz, Monteverdi, Pergolesi, and others.  It was a pretty wide range of music.  My companion tonight, who's 83 and Cuban, was singing the Beatles song along with me.  Totally captivating.

And I know what you'll say to me.  You'll say to me what I'd say to you: "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it, too?"  (That was Douglas Adams' question, and I agree.)  But how good can something be before you start wondering if there are, in fact, fairies at the bottom of it?  Or "god?"  This was that good.

The fourth piece provided a little bit of cold water, which was a relief.  I can't stand Christmas and Christmas music, and the fourth piece had an extensive array of music which most assuredly included Christmas music.  And some Tchaikovsky.  And it was too long, and not as coherent as the other pieces.  "'Clara' [that was the name of this piece, which was a world premiere] charts the journey of a young woman, on Christmas eve, who is puzzled by the contradictions in her seemingly ordinary life.  She begins seeking new truths, embarking on a journey where she experiences the exotic, the unknown, the frightening and the forbidden, ultimately finding love, identity and self-determination for herself and her community."  I guess that's what Salterini and Baumgarten intended to try to illustrate, but I lost a meaningful sense of the story.  The dancing sure was top shelf, though.

So, I won't have any trouble reassuring myself that there's no such thing as "god," or fairies at the bottoms of beautiful gardens, and I won't think I've overlooked anything all my life.  I won't hate myself for that.

But I might hate myself for harping.  Miami is overflowing with great art and culture.  It really, really is.  Just today, I bought all the tickets I wanted for shows of interest at South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center.  It was a lot of shows, as it is every year.  And SMDCAC is not close to here.  It's at SW 211th St and 109th Ave.  That's about 28 miles from here, as the crow flies (I-95, then US 1).  Sometimes, I'll be there days in a row.  Scheduling was unclear for one show, and it's possible I'll see two shows in the same day on one day.  And that's just SMDCAC.  One of the shows I chose will be presented on a day I already have something else.  But I can move the something else at GableStage.  There are some things I can't move.  Then, I just have a choice to make.

The DNM show was presented at the Miami Theater Center on NE 2nd Ave at about 98th St.  If you felt like it, you could walk there.  Do you want to know if anything like that will happen again?  Saturday, March 4.  They have a show on Miami Beach on Sunday, April 9, and one in Coral Gables on Saturday, April 22.  You can check them out at dancenowmiami.org.

And they're not the only spectacular modern dance/ballet organization in town.  There's Dimensions Dance Theater of Miami, too, and I try never to miss their shows, either.  Not to mention Miami City Ballet, if you like pure ballet.  And tons of other presentations of many kinds.  If you like flamenco, you can keep yourself busy attending those shows, too.  And orchestral music (Orchestra Miami and Miami Symphony Orchestra), and jazz, and an endless range of culture.

But I'm not going to hate myself for pointing out what's around, and urging you to patronize.  I'm going to hate myself, maybe, for reminding you that bizarrely enough, these magnificent, often top flight, performers, and the organizations that present these shows, not uncommonly do it on a shoestring.  Or less.  And nobody -- nobody in the world (except groups like the Rolling Stones or someone) -- can keep up with their expenses by selling tickets to performances.  So...if you like them, you have to patronize them, subscribe to series, and... donate.  We just talked about this regarding Give Miami Day, but it's true all the time.

I promise you you'll like these presentations, and they'll enrich your life, and they're worth a little extra ($) effort from you.  And you don't have to wait until DNM's 3/4/23 show to find out if you agree with me.  There's stuff really all the time, and in a lot of places.  If you're willing to drive to SMDCAC, the next show for which I just today bought tickets is 1/14/23.  It's someone's rendition of Pink Floyd songs.  I'll be back there the next day for the L'viv Philharmonic Orchestra from the Ukraine.  That one, for who knows what insane reason, is free.  I was going to go back on 1/18/23 for someone's rendition of Seger, but I thought it was Pete Seeger.  It's Bob Seger, who's of less interest (mercifully).  So I won't have to go back down there until 1/20/23.  That's how it gets.  And the great news about SMDCAC, and Sandrell Rivers Theater at NW 62nd St and 7th Ave, is that they're the county, they're super easy to negotiate, ticket prices are very low for most things, parking is free, and you couldn't donate if you wanted to.

So I hope these words to the wise will be sufficient.  As best I know, we all have only one life.  We might as well get the most we can out of it.