I remember my first trip to the Philadelphia Art Museum. It was a chilly November morning in 2002. I wrapped my tiny hand into my aunt’s palm as we toured the colossal museum. It was that moment that I first fell in love with art, and the awe-inspiring power it contains.
Art comes in many packages. It is more than the stroke of a brush on a canvas. It is the symphony of clashing metal, the concordance of pitch and tune. It is the whim of a sculptor’s hand, and the curve of the human body. Art allowed man kind to express the rawest emotions before the words for such emotions could be found. It produces a sense of wildness and stirs the soul.
“Koresh”, a dance performance hosted at Stockton’s Performing Art’s Center on October 16, 2012, was an exquisite example of art in its most magnificent form. It was wild, untamed, and captivating. It forced the audience to connect with the primitive self that society condemns, spurring a surge of pure and raw emotion.
The costume designer of Koresh rarely ventured from the realm of a neutral pallet. This color choice ensured that extravagant patterns and hues would not detract from the beauty and movement of the human body itself. Little props were utilized, nor were they needed. The simplicity of Koresh and its composition is what made it so powerful. It forced its audience to connect to the primitive, ancestral roots that are often ignored in a continuously advancing civilization.
The moment that art is first discovered by a human being is inarguably one of the most magnificent discoveries in life. It is an outlet of emotional release that man otherwise finds difficulty expressing. Koresh brought me back to that nine year old self, craving more of the beauty that art eternally captures. It is in these moments of discovery-these moments of pure bliss- that we are reborn.