Searching For Community
Wherever we can find it!
Last week I was listening to an interview with the acclaimed filmmaker Steven Spielberg. He spoke about many things, but what particularly caught my ear was him pointing out the obvious: Watching a movie on a big screen surrounded by other humans was totally different from streaming a film on your laptop or television set. The people in the room with us make a difference.
Post-pandemic I haven’t seen a lot of movies in theaters, but I have attended live performances. And if, like me, you live in a World Cup host city, you can’t escape the barrage of news stories about fans who gather together to watch soccer matches in bars, on a barge, at screens set up at venues large and small. Oh, and 67 thousand people turned out to watch the U.S. men’s team beat Australia at the wonderfully renamed Seattle Stadium. (I know it reverts to Lumen Field when the big hoo-ha is over, but Lumen take note how happy we are not to have your corporate branding, even temporarily!)
Okay, I confess that I have no affinity for soccer. I did try playing back in the dark ages of my teen years, when a group of Australian and Mexican soccer fans were in residence at my summer camp. It served as my intro to the sport. (In those days, the Detroit suburbs were definitely not a soccer hotbed.) I haven’t paid it much attention since then.
So much running! So much sweat! But I’ve been loving the legions of aficionados who’ve descended on Seattle to cheer on their favorite teams. And I don’t watch World Cup games online; I savor videos of their die-hard fans. I love that the Norwegians appear in large hordes to simulate rowing those Viking barges.
Team Egypt’s cheering squad wore the kind of headdresses you’d see on posters advertising King Tut’s tomb. And the Scots with their kilts and bagpipes at Boston’s Fenway Park serenading the Red Sox and guzzling beer with great joy. And raising money for local charities? That’s something Americans should emulate.
Fans fill our streets as they march together to watch a match, singing, accompanied by drum lines and happiness and yes, joy. Even New Yorkers, not well-known for affability, celebrated the NBA victory of their beloved Knickerbockers with song, dance and good will to their fellow urbanites.
This all takes me back to Spielberg. And to the communal joy we crave and celebrate with the most basic of art forms: dancing and singing with one another.
Our prehistoric ancestors didn’t make movies, but they did share stories around a campfire, or an outdoor amphitheater. Or maybe a meal. And they danced and sang those stories to one another, eventually developing the skills to preserve them in writing.
Sorrow and happiness are amplified when we share them. Laughter is contagious. (So is yawning according to the research results I’ve read.) I’ve seen the power of celebrating great artists at a symphony concert, or a gathering at one of my city’s fine outdoor stages. And you only have to check out the video recording of Stevie Wonder, John Legend, Common, Bruce Springsteen, Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Vedder serenading Barack and Michelle Obama, three other former U.S. presidents and invited guests at the opening of Chicago’s Barack Obama Presidential Center on June 18. Art is where it’s at baby!
Maybe some prefer to celebrate auspicious occasions with bloodlust fights; think of jousting or Roman gladiatorial encounters. I believe art is a far more lasting tribute, whether it’s Shakespeare or Homer, the primal beats of a drum line, or the amazing American Sign Language interpreters keeping pace with Common’s fast rap in Chicago.
To me the real beauty of soccer — the world’s “beautiful sport”— lies in the fan fervor. The fact that we get to enjoy the Norwegians clad in horned helmets, like Wagnerian Valkyries. Or residents of the Congo dancing through the airport to a catchy tune they unveiled just for the World Cup. Or Eddie Vedder’s song written with and for a young group of musicians to honor the new Obama Center.
I don’t think I will like soccer — fútbol — any better after the World Cup ends. But I have been so uplifted by people’s eagerness to gather with friends, family and complete strangers to reclaim our status as social animals who yearn to share their emotions with one another.
The pandemic isolation was difficult and many of us are still leery about big crowds and germs, worsened by the decimation of our long-held programs designed to protect public health. Many of us remember how we sequestered ourselves in the name of safety. And now we yearn for both the physical and emotional togetherness that were hard to come by in those COVID years.
There’s a joy in community, in watching a movie with a hundred other people in a darkened theater, or celebrating a basketball win with a giant impromptu street dance, or just taking part in a moment of shared humanity.
I find my moments at live performances, but I revel in the celebration of our universal human experiences on the streets of World Cup host cities, or the streets of New York in the wake of a basketball championship. People who watched clips of the June 18 Obama Center ceremony with its cast of A-list stars say they were moved to tears, even if their access point was social media.
In this chaotic era many of us yearn for the return to a time of possibility — at least the hope of a brighter future — one that allows us to dream beyond greed and grift, fistfights and verbal denigrations. When people come together to celebrate, to tell stories, to represent in the streets, onscreen or on stages, we all remember the audacity of hope. Yes we can.