Inspiration in the Desert

Have you heard of Marta Becket?  It's a kind of amazing story.  She started her career on Broadway as a dancer but she always wanted to dance her own shows, with her own costumes and choreography.  And in 1967 she was in California with her husband and they got a flat tire.  The closest town to get it fixed was Death Valley Junction.  So while her husband was getting the car fixed, she was wandering around and came upon this abandoned theatre.  And she knew, seeing that little space that was long forgotten, she was home.  She never left.  She rented the space, fixed it up and started dancing.  She had a show Friday, Saturday and Monday nights.  Sometimes there would be a few people in the audience.  Sometimes there would be no one.  But the show went on.  And she danced.  She even painted an elaborate mural in the theatre of kings and queens and dukes and townspeople - she created her own audience.  It took four years to paint the walls and two years to paint the ceiling.  And every weekend she danced.  For over forty years, she danced.

Marta is in her eighties now and continued to do her show as scheduled until last fall when she broke her hip.  But the show goes on.  Sandy Scheller dances Marta's dance as, she hopes, an extension of Marta.  As Marta says, "I am grateful to have found the place where I can fulfill my dreams and share them with the passing scene...for as long as I can."

You have to go over to her theatre's website and read more about her.  And here are two good articles I found online about Marta, written more recently. This one in 2008 and this one earlier this year. There was a documentary made back in 2000 about her and she has an autobiography out - I really want to get my hands on both.  It makes me smile to think of this woman, who says, "If you have a drive and a passion for your art, make it your life."

She created something out of nothing and there would be days no one was there to see what she was doing - but she danced because it was all she ever wanted.  And now people travel from all over just to see her.  She is proof that you make your dreams come true.