Marc Bamuthi Joseph is spitting poetry, and Wendy Whelan is doing things with her body that make you question every lazy decision you’ve ever made. Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals. Because when everything’s burning down, when the whole damn country is doom-scrolling itself into oblivion, when families aren’t talking and everyone’s pre-unfriending half their social media contacts, this is when we gather in a concert hall to watch swans and elephants and kangaroos rendered in flesh and verse.
The irony isn’t lost on me. It never is.
I’m trying to capture something. Something that might matter when we look back at this moment, this strange liminal space between one version of America and whatever fresh hell or hope was coming next. I’m watching bodies communicate what words had long since failed to convey. Grace under pressure. Discipline. The small miracle of humans doing something difficult and beautiful just because they can.
Stanford’s intelligentsia filling the seats, stealing an hour or so from their electoral anxiety to watch art do what art does, remind us we’re more than our worst impulses, our Twitter feeds, our red-or-blue team jerseys.
The performers don’t mention the elephant in the room. They embody elephants instead. Smart. Honest. The only sane response, really.
Carnival of the Animals
Wendy Whelan, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, and Francesca Harper
October 27, 202
Stanford Live
Bing Concert Hall