Last week, LOC comedian Cate Smit had the good fortune to run one of our “Leveraging Levity” workshops for The Count Basie Center for the Arts. That, my friends, is what is known as good timing. Every day the sentence we are hearing most is, “Who couldn’t use a laugh?”
Using the Count Basie Theater as her playground, within two hours Cate had this group fully engaged, telling stories, and laughing together. Even just looking at the pictures of these people smiling in this hundred year old space gives “this too shall pass” vibes about the current state of the world.
Speaking of which, it’s more important than ever to be “intentional” about our use of the arts. I put that word in quotes intentionally. Ba dum bum. Being “intentional” about everything from what we eat to how we use language to skincare, it’s become a bit of a cliche. Despite this, it is one word instead of four. As in, make this a priority. Which here refers to art. Seek it out, enjoy it, support it, create it. Expressing how we feel through dance, music, painting or writing is a form of resistance. And most of the time you don’t get jailed for it. See Lenny Bruce.
To not make this effort we run the risk of going in the opposite direction of levity. Doom, gloom, panic, and not getting out of bed. Or worse.
This is what makes places like the Basie Center for the Arts feel like a life raft. Knowing its mission of creating community through arts education has endured for 99 years, and a lot of Presidents. Seeing it in action motivated me to put together an easy list of directories for museums, theaters and music. We could do this with a few keystrokes now, but I put it right here, to use right now.
