Tableaux Vivant

Yesterday my husband and I celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary with a trip to Laguna Beach to take in The Festival of Arts and its centerpiece, The Pageant of the Masters. The Pageant is a unique display of paintings and performance art, in which masterpieces in various media are recreated as "living pictures." The show takes place nightly from July through September at the Irvine Bowl, a large canyonside amphitheater where the stage is framed by mountain ridges void of development, save a few hilltop homes that very few of us could afford.

It is a hard setting and show to describe, but describe I must since cameras are not allowed. It's understandable since no one wants their intellectual property stolen or duplicated.

Tickets are hard to come by if you don't act as soon as sales are announced in January, which is when my friend Suzanne contacted me. She's very good at keeping tabs on those sort of things, thank goodness. We elected opening weekend since it corresponded with our anniversary.

After dinner at a great Mexican restaurant called Avila's El Ranchito in Lake Forest, we followed as Suzanne and her husband Jeff drove down El Toro to Laguna Canyon Road, where we wisely pulled into satellite parking and took a trolley bus to the Festival entrance. While waiting for the show to begin we walked a juried art show that helps confirm Laguna Beach's rightful spot as an enthusiastic supporter of the arts. Even elementary schoolchildren's impressive work was showcased (and admired) as people sipped chardonney and listened to a live band playing to growing masses as showtime drew near. I made a collage of some of the artists' postcards above to give a sample of the work on display.

I've also pulled a couple of photos from the Pageant program to give you a sense of what I'm talking about when I refer to living pictures. While a live orchestra plays, a different work of art "comes to life" on the main stage or one of the side stages surrounded by ivy walls and other lush greenery. From our vantage point, you truly could not tell what was live and what was an inanimate part of the set. I'm glad I brought binnoculars to get a different perspective and a whole new level of appreciation. Watching even small children stand perfectly still -- sometimes in awkward positions -- made me realize how powerful yoga can be. That, we decided, is how they managed to hold the poses for an entire song.

Despite severe thunderstorms north of us in central LA, we had perfect summer conditions. Below is a contemporary sculpture that was showcased. It is amazing how closely the physiques of the models matched this work of art (which is what you see below.) It was an amazing evening altogether.