Another Good Show for Our Town...

I had a thought the other day. Probably not really original but something I picked up along the way while thinking about divisiveness in the world. I thought that every person in the world is in a room. Sometimes the rooms are full of people that think like you, look like you and have the same concerns you do. That's a pretty small room. There are bigger rooms though where the people don't all look alike, rooms where people might be concerned about people that they don't even know or situations that don't directly effect them.  

These thoughts were brought back to my mind after seeing the Bella Gaia performance brought to Lufkin and the Temple Theater by the Angelina Arts Alliance. Bella Gaia (Beautiful Earth) is a multi media show documenting the thoughts of astronauts on the interconnectedness of everything after viewing the Earth from space.       

The group, directed by the violinist and composer Kenji Williams combines NASA satellite imagery with his delayed violin sounds, soaring wordless vocals and keyboard by Kristin Hoffman, a 20 string Japanese harp called the koto played by Yumi Kurosawa, prerecorded music loops with percussion sounds, Sufi twirling and belly dancing. Anything with belly dancing is a hit with me. Extra points for ancient Egypt, the pyramids and India.     

If you have been gripping about the price of gas lately this is probably not the show for you. If you live in a big room and realize that what you do makes a difference and that you should care about things and people even though you might not have a horse it a particular race I think you will like this 

The video presentation includes space scenes and quotes by the astronauts about how viewing our blue green planet changed the way they thought about it and the people living there. On the big screen there were computer generated patterns of wind, water, air travel and smoke movements around the world. Many say it aint so but things are connected in ways we don't even understand well. The presentation mentioned that many species have gone extinct but man is the only one that can voluntary choose not to.      

Thanks again to the Angelina Arts Alliance for a great show. This is big world/big room stuff and it came to our hometown for the price of $11 a ticket.