Dancing Perfectly Free

The music of American composer Philip Glass, who is known for “music with repetitive structures”, is frequently used for dance.  In fact, some of my favorite works include a Glass score, such as Jerome Robbins’ Glass Pieces and Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room.  However, my first exposure to Glass was not at a dance performance, nor was it while watching one of the many feature films accompanied by an original Glass score.  My first encounter with Glass was on “Sesame Street”.  Before I even knew who Glass was, I heard his music in an animation series called “Geometry of Circles”, which first appeared on “Sesame Street” in 1979 and continued throughout the 80s – when I was watching.  Glass created the short vocal and instrumental pieces specifically for the children’s television show. To this day, I find the combination of bright colors, geometric shapes, and repetitive sound to be pretty mesmerizing.  By now, “Sesame Street” has probably (and unfortunately) replaced “Geometry of Circles” with more high-tech features to teach children about colors, circles, and music.   I consider myself lucky to have first heard Glass while still wearing diapers.