It is Saturday and I am dividing my day between piano practicing and finalizing the itinerary for upcoming concerts. I have taken care of the airfare and hotel reservations for Musical Bridges guest artists; scheduled rehearsal times; arranged meals; coordinated the delivery and pick up of dancing floors; scheduled the moving and tuning of pianos; finalized the program book and made sure that everyone will be happy.
At some point I asked myself… “Is this the way to spend a Saturday evening?” Most of my friends are out Salsa dancing or attending galas, or traveling to new places. The San Antonio cultural scene has a lot to offer these days on any given Saturday night, so why am I not taking advantage of it?! Where are those years where we would go to some cultural or otherwise intellectually stimulating event… to see others, to show off ourselves?
Elena Kunikova is sewing the costume for the upcoming ballet Fables to premier in San Antonio next weekendAnd by the time I started to feel sorry for myself, the phone rang. It was Elena Kunikova from New York – the world famous choreographer. Elena is the creative force of our upcoming world premier of the ballet Fables on December 11th. She wanted to let me know that her husband had just turned on the chainsaw (mind you, on Saturday night) and was going to make a hammer and other stage props out of particle board for the upcoming ballet…and she sounded so excited and happy about it! I did not sense any “feeling sorry for herself” intonations in her voice at all!
Believe it or not, this call made me feel a lot more at ease – I am not alone! There are other crazy artists who would rather stay home and work on endless details for an upcoming production than go out and have fun. We both have all the choices in the world to get dressed, to pretty up and go out and enjoy the work of other artists – and we very often do. But there is nothing wrong with staying home on the occasional Saturday night to work on our own creative endeavors, even when it comes down to utilitarian things like stage props and itineraries. We see the overall picture and we know the importance of every detail.
We do not count the hours, we give as much as it takes and this is what makes us the lucky ones; for the work for us is a labor of pure love.