Imagine the desert —(please pause for dramatic effect, close your eyes and what do you imagine?)
You may think the desert is one big beige brown drab color but it isn’t.
Now, imagine three hundred sixty degrees of mountain’s sharp pointy peaks surrounding a flat desert valley. Violent purple, creamsicle orange and a dusky brown, warmth… those are the initial colors. Purple peaked mountains, yes the purple mountains’ majesty - this is where ‘that’ is found. Have you ever seen a purple mountain? No? Come to Phoenix, until you have seen it, it is unimaginable. Orange skyline against a dusky brown with cacti and hills silhouetting…And cue music… no actually cue the sun setting, the sky darkening to a darker dull blueish color, and a breeze. A warm dry breeze that kicks your hair gently from your forehead; flips your skirt from your knees, tugs at your shirt collar, and brushes your naked toes….
The horizon is lighter but the sky fades to a darker slate blue until the lights on the stage are the only lights visible… and then… then is Eroica set to Beethoven’s third symphony. Beautiful athletic bodies, set to beautiful athletic music, and the stars are out and the breeze is pulling and the music is calling… and I am spellbound as heroines and heroes are caught up and cast down and the masses move through the upheavals, and always there is another force to come next…this is the Eroica I experienced at the Desert Botanical Gardens…go if you can…it’s soul catching and heart freeing experience.
