Getting Caught Up (pun intended!)

This week's Weekly Inspiration Blog Post was written a few days early by our oboe player Crystal.  Just like the rest of Chicago, a lot of us had to take a snow day yesterday from teaching, babysitting, or other outside of our home activities and stay home (and maybe, ahem, catch up on emails).  During Crystal's snow day, she reflected on the experience of being caught, and its connection to our series this year.  And you have another chance to get Caught this week!  On Saturday, March 9, at 7:30pm, 5HE makes its Museum of Contemporary Art debut here in Chicago with Caught: The Wide Open, and we are absolutely over the moon excited!  You can reserve your tickets online, and we hope to see as many people as possible on Saturday night at the MCA!  

So by now, if you're reading our blog, you know that Saturday is our big performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown Chicago, and that the show is called Caught: The Wide Open.  I've been meditating on what it means to be caught, and caught up, as I've been in rehearsals for this show.  As a very busy artist, teacher, wife, and mother, I never feel like I'm caught up, but I always feel like I'm caught--between worlds, between reeds, between obligations, in traffic.  In my mind, this particular show has a sort of contradiction built into the title--how can you be caught in the wide open?  And then today it hit me--as I took a forced snow day, I was unintentionally suspended from my daily rush and made to just be at home with my family.  I looked at the snow. I made dinner. I listened to rehearsal recordings and watched an old performance video. I had time with my thoughts.  And I realized, upon reflection, that perhaps being caught is not negative after all.  I fully anticipate that if you come to our performance and experience Caleb Burhans' piece Excelsior, along with the other two works on the program, you will have a similar sense of being caught, transfixed, and suspended, if only for a short 90 minutes.

Please excuse the poor quality of this photo; it was taken with a phone today in rehearsal.  This morning marks our first rehearsal at the MCA this week in preparation for Saturday's performance.  For more candid rehearsal shots, check out our Facebook page.