The Circle of Life

So last Wednesday Jakey and I were lucky enough to go see "The Lion King" which is definitely one of the best professional theater shows I have ever seen. I was amazed by the level of creativity in the show, from the costumes, to the way the story was told, and bringing a live audience into a show about animals. Jake was absolutely amazed, he could barely stay in his seat because there was so much going on and so much to look at, in fact his loud exclamation so "that is so awesome" and "wow mom did you see that" amused all the people around us (well they acted amused, I think like me they loved to see that level of enthusiasm in the young guy). My favorite part was actually watching Jake, he saw Cats a few years ago from a professional company, but this show was really visually stunning in a way that Cats isn't. He was amazed from the second we sat down until, well 2 days later after he had told all his friends about the show.

I love the "Lion King", I love the message of it, and the exploration of culture, esp. African culture as that has always been something I'm interested in. They really stepped up the South African music for the show, and as my only real exposure to South African music was Paul Simon, and later Lady Smith Black Mamabaza because I liked the sound of "Graceland" so much, it was great to hear it as the focal point of this show. While we were there I picked up the CD of the music (must have all shows we see to listen to in the car), and it had a DVD of the making of the show for the 10th anniversary. It is amazing to see the level of commitment, symbolism, and detail that is in the show. We were blessed enough to get really good seats (thanks Jen!), so we could see quite a few details where we were (including hearing the fact that the conductor like to sing along with the ensemble at a few points) there, but now I want to go back and see it again to catch some more.

My favorite part is the symbolism of the circle of life concept, the idea of a circle is a pretty eternal symbol, but really thinking about how interconnected we all our, with all the things around just is such a lovely and inspiring thought. One of the things that was mentioned on the DVD was all the circles used throughout the show when the antelope come out they are driven on a circle machine, the birds fly circles around your head, but my favorite (that I didn't even notice) was that Mufasa's lion mask was a circle, whereas Scars was mishapen, which pretty much explained the way they saw the world. I think we all get busy in our lives and forget the big circles that we are part of (like how many degrees of seperation there are between us and Kevin Bacon) and it's nice to be reminded of that.

I'm so thankful I can share all of this with Jake, I love muscial theater, general theater (I was questioning this year if Jake was ready to see Hamlet and Pioneed theater company is doing it thait year, but I think we might hold off on that one), Opera, and so many other fabulous ways to enjoy the arts. I hope he is interested at some point in being a participating part of that, but it is also so rewarding to see him experience the true talent of other people, that are able to for just a few hours, take us out of our lives and into theirs, their view of the world, the songs they hear, the music they create, the pieces they paint. It's so easy sometimes to get so caught up in our own world and duties in it, that we forget to get out and celebrate the hard work and talent of other people. There are so many great community experiences in this, but it's really nice to take Jake to see real professional that aren't on T.V. Nothing is really close to that live theater experience, I bought tickets to the Broadway Across America version of "Wizard of Oz" for us as a Christmas activity (it's in early December), and Jake is getting Les Miz tickets for Christmas (don't tell him, he picked out that show when I gave him a list of other shows they are doing this year), so I'm excited to see that. I hope a trip to New York will be in our future at some point before he gets tired of hanging out with mom.

Not to monopolize Jake with my passion though, I got a good deal on Groupon and this weekend we are going to see the BMX and skateboard finals in the "Dew Tour". Yes that is right I'm actually going to go see something called the "Dew Tour" which I'm assuming has something do do with Mountaion Dew, not the stuff you see in your grass in the morning. Jake has lately gotten into scateboarding (and is appropriately impressed that it's a lot harder than he thought). So despite that fact that I've always said I would never be caught dead at one of these expositions (and truly there is no way in hell I'm getting in to NASCAR no matter how much Jake my like it), I'm going to see it. Apparently Shaun White is going to be there doing his skateboard (as opposed to snowboard) thing. I'm just impressed I actually knew before I bought tickets who Shaun White was.

We are getting a good dose of the hard work of other people to bring us into their worlds and passions, and I'm going to try really hard to be sufficiently impressed with bike riders, you never know where passion will take you.