World Oceans Arts

    Warning: This is a thread of a composer's rambling thoughts......if I make generalizations about people who create music and other arts, it is usually because I learned the hard way that some generalized behaviors are self-defeating. People cannot perform the arts if people do not create the arts. One of my favorite lines in an old movie is from All About Eve: 'When will the piano learn that it did not write the concerto?'      I have always been energized and proud that I could write music and also play the piano and sing. I seem to do everything in multiples: not being satisfied with a film and theatre production entity called World Oceans Arts, my friends and I also created AcquaTroupe. We gave AT the mission of bringing the arts into live performance.The late great composer Karel Husa once told me I was most fortunate in being able to perform my own music. Many composers sing badly and cannot play any instruments. This does not mean they cannot compose...

                               ALL PEOPLE, ALL THE TIME, NO EXCEPTIONS      If we were required to state one theme that World Oceans Arts and I would raise on our banner for 2019, I think it would be Respect for the Dignity of All People. Most organized religions on our planet proclaim that the Supreme Being(s) will always insist that people choose kindness over cruelty, life over death, respect over mockery, help over dismissal, generosity over selfishness, peace over violence. Even most people who claim to have no spiritual beliefs would echo these choices, at least in theory. Unfortunately, we as a world society often forget these choices and exhibit the wrong behavior towards one another.      As I heard Greg Cole state recently, non-violence must be an action of both the body and the soul or spirit. We cannot proclaim to love others if our physical actions proclaim hatr...

                                                              COOL CONNECTIONS At World Oceans Arts we have been talking for some time about getting into circus arts, physical theatre, and blending dance with gymnastics and acrobatics. It is all part of our objective of performing hybrid arts, and breaking some boundaries while maintaining traditions. We are a step closer to that with an invitation to Natalie Fields to collaborate with us. This weekend, those of you in Georgia have an opportunity to see some of her excellent work in aerial arts at The Sky Gym in Sandy Springs. On Friday and Saturday the 14th & 15th at 8 pm, their show "Introspection" will be performed! This could be the most exciting event of your holiday season! The show is at 6780 Roswell Rd NE, Studio D100, Sandy Springs 30328. More information is at theskygy...

    As a creative artist, I love to create anything new, or help others form a new venture or project or plan. I fondly remember making the insane decision to compose an opera based on one of Shakespeare's least known and most difficult plays; the impulse that told me I should find ways to incorporate my varied interests into every piece of original music; and the realization that if I wanted to depict one of the most important years in modern history (1969) -- which was coincidentally one of the more significant years of my life -- I should simply make a movie about it.     Such grand artistic gestures are not for the faint-hearted or the weak. I do not recommend making such gestures unless you are absolutely sure of what you want to achieve. But one of the greatest feelings we can experience is the launching of a huge project which feels right, sounds right, looks right and is in tune with what we have dreamed all along.      As a composer of cla...

It is truly amazing to watch something you would love and dream of doing, come to life. As you guys already know, World Oceans Arts released a PSA this past Friday, May 18 th highlighting a rare disease that desperately needs more attention and research. As a Behcets disease sufferer, who waited 8+ years for a diagnosis and didn’t know that Behcets existed until the day I was diagnosed, this is something that is in my face on a daily basis. The process we went through to create this PSA taught me so much. We loosely started planning to do the PSA years ago, but then officially started to put it together Fall of 2017. We filmed it in late March, and that experience was amazing in and of itself. Being one of the leaders of the project, including the writer, plus being the lead actress in it caused me to be in this awe that we had so many people there working super hard to produce an amazing product. Then when we actually had an edited version, it was surreal! When we re...

    They stand out in bold print......we admire their ability to do what seems impossible, to do what we cannot or will not do. There are many heroes, and we derive inspiration and moral guidance from them. But I wonder if perhaps we often relax in the knowledge that they exist. Do we sometimes fail to follow through with our own little bits of heroic action?  With a huge number of heroes from whom to choose, I would like to single out just a handful. It is my hope that at World Oceans Arts, we will use our special talents and opportunities to take the baton from them and help show the way to the world:      LUKE TERRY  is a Tennessee teen who plays baseball, using only the one arm he has. He follows in the footsteps of major league players of the past including Jim Abbott and Pete Gray. They proved that a major disability, which affects everything a person does in life, does not have to make their greatest passion an impossibility.     ...

The Alps are among the most spectacularly beautiful features of our planet...I will never forget the moment I first saw them. My mind goes to the many ways in which we people must climb mountains to achieve what should be automatic and universal. Several dozen of us at World Oceans Arts are about to go into production of a feature film, 1969. As a person who was alive in the 1960s, I have a flood of memories of peace and war, violence, protest and the rights of people. This morning the mountaintops of our society are crowded with thousands of brave and mentally brilliant young students and others, who will march through our streets today to remind us that the preservation of life and dignity and freedom must always be at the top of our summit of goals. I salute the many students in Florida and elsewhere who have woken us up to what our priorities must be. At WOA we are also just days away from production of a public service video about Behcet's disease. One thing I learned in t...