Chicago this last weekend with my wife and daughter. We went to the Ravinia Festival to see Bill T Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Companies world premier of Fondly Do We Hope/Fervently Do We Pray… My daughter got to dance Sunday morning at the Joffrey Ballet School too. We attended the gala dinner prior to the concert and the champagne reception for the company after the concert.
My daughter Alana Rose Smith is almost 18. She’s danced all her life. We had the chance at the reception to talk with Lamichael Leonard who now dances with Bill T’s company, but had been with Martha Graham’s company prior to coming to Bill’s company in 2007. So, there we were standing and talking to a dancer who said he was 29 years old. Just eleven years older than Alana and suddenly the distance between where she actually was and where she could actually be was right there in front of her. Getting to where you want to go in your life requires many things, and of all those things we need to help is get to where we are going, the secret that matters most in my view is to realize that it isn’t something impossible whatsoever, that it is quite literally right there in front of you, all you have to do is be willing to see where you are going, and then work to that end, give it everything you’ve got, doesn’t mean you’ll get there, but it does mean you know how to aim and you know how to sustain your effort. That matters…
I’m trying to sort out my recording devices and get some of my book on MP3’s/podcasts and then I’ll put some of my book on my website for downloading if……..if you’ll leave me your email address. I’m working on that…it will happen soon enough…free samples of some of the first part of the book, and if you like that we’ll provide you a way to download the whole thing for a fee. And if you’ll play that game you’ll love a copy of the first edition… That’s one way to go from nowhere to somewhere… not the only way, there are many ways… remember the magic is in the effort! And the pizza too….
