Swan Lake, Seven Chandeliers, One Career Connected by Art and Diplomatic Gifts

An empty stage facing hundreds of iconic red velvet seats. In that moment over 20 years ago, I had the stage of The Kennedy Center all to myself. It was the eve of the premiere of Swan Lake, and I had the nervous jitters of a company member placed at the very front of the stage, directly before the audience. Writing this today I still feel that nervous energy. I was practicing the choreography because there was no room for error. Then came a moment when I calmed my nerves, looked out at the empty opera house, and realized how extraordinary it was to have this entire historic stage to myself. I thought about its meaning, its history, the performers who came before me.

Twenty years later, the meaning runs so much deeper. That stage held a clue to a future I couldn't have foreseen.

Over the weekend, drawn in by the magic of having performed there, I was reading an article about The Kennedy Center. One line provoked me to pause: the chandeliers were a gift from the Norwegians. Really? A diplomatic gift, in the building where I danced two decades ago?

So I researched it. And what I found astounded me. The Kennedy Center is built of diplomatic gifts, given by foreign nations in commemoration of JFK and in support of the arts. Italy gave 3,700 tons of Carrara marble for the walls. Norway gave the Concert Hall's marquee seven crystal chandeliers, the glass made at Hadeland, its historic glassworks. Austria gave the Opera House chandelier (where I performed), 50 feet across, nearly 2,000 lights, suspended above those red velvet seats. Canada gave stage curtains. Japan gave an entire theater. Ghana gave a sculpture mourning the fallen president. Nation after nation placed an object inside America's national stage, and every audience since 1971 has been sitting among these diplomatic gifts while experiencing the arts.

The connection and coincidence were so unbelievable. I performed inside a proverbial diplomatic gift ledger. Then life brought me full circle: from that stage, to serving as a Diplomatic Gifts Officer designing gifts from U.S. Presidents to heads of state, to founding Grand Unveiling, where I apply that same strategic discipline for Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies.

The nations that placed those gifts at the center have had their stories told to the audience since 1971, by the docents, by stopping to admire them during intermission, by being surrounded by them during extraordinary performances.

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