Art explores, reflects nearly every aspect of life
It’s all around us: murals on walls, sculptures on street corners, signs. Here in Las Vegas, it greets visitors as they make their way through McCarran International Airport. Downtown, it competes for space on Fremont Street in the form of kiosks and, coming soon, special circles to contain the artists known as “buskers.”
When I’ve uttered the word “art” in conversation and asked people what the word meant to them, the response is typically “paintings, sculptures, you know, ‘The Mona Lisa,’ van Gogh’s ‘Water Lillies’ or ‘Starry, Starry Night,’ Michelangelo’s ‘David,’ “or some other piece of sculpture they’re particularly fond of.
If I suggest performing as art, I may see a quirky smile or an expression of complete confoundedness break across a face. It happens time and time again. Yet, performance arts (notice the use of the plural there) are filled with a variety of disciplines of artistic work.
Stringing the written word together is art. Poetry, novels, essays … screen or stage plays, even the articles you read right here in this newspaper. It’s all art.
The design of buildings in architecture, and room decoration is art; both begin with sketches. Now think of a set on a stage. Costumes also typically begin on a pad of paper, even if the resultant clothing is picked up at the local thrift store. There’s art in those things.
Contemplate the light and shadow you find in paintings, the use of warm and cold hues that enhance the overall effect for the viewer. A lighting designer considers place, time of day, textures used in both set and costumes, then must fuse those into mood. That’s art, too.
Blocking paints a picture. That moving around the actors do isn’t all organic. Much like choreography in a musical, some of it is mulled over and planned (at least initially) by the director specifically to provide clarity and to heighten the senses of the audience during the experience.
Speaking of musicals, the music and lyrics of scores are written and rewritten. The picking up of an instrument as part of the symphony orchestra or backstage band, or sitting down at a grand piano, to play that art is art in itself. Conducting those musicians is art. Dancing, singing and acting are all artistic endeavors.
Bottom line is that, like opera or film, live theater is the ultimate art. Because it combines the individual disciplines — collectively known as “the arts” — from visual, like paintings one hangs on a wall, architecture and written word to music, dance and acting, all into one great big, tasty stew.
Being hungry for the arts and culture is a very human condition. Most companies, when considering relocating from one city to another, want to know the community will offer a certain quality of life for their employees. Sure, much like Elon Musk and the multi-acre Tesla facility under construction (think of the art it took to plan that!), investors look for tax incentives. But the No. 2 concern is the ability to attract a certain quality of employee. Topnotch, skilled workers want to know they’ll have good schools, parks and playgrounds, and entertainment. Entertainment is art.
With a new season under way, there’s no better place to get a hearty, well-rounded diet of art than the theater. You can gorge on it without guilt; it’s calorie-free. To borrow a statement from Asylum Theatre Artistic Director Sarah O’Connell: “Eat more art!” —Paul Atreides is one of the theater critics at the Las Vegas Review-Journal. His Offstage column appears on the first Thursday of the month.