How profound, beautiful and creative could a human’s life be? Lisa Dancing-Light’s new album release is a testament of the wonders such an existence invites.
With more than seven decades of piano playing and showcasing original compositions, “Just a Moment in Time” is Dancing-
Light’s seventh album and sole piano solo release.
Dancing-Light will highlight the album with a piano solo this Saturday, Nov. 14, at the Third Street Center from 4 to 5:30pm. It will be a retrospective of the last 46 years of her life as a professional musician.
“The intention of the concert is to show people what you can do when you carry a passion for something throughout your life, in this case through the expression of music,” Dancing-Light told The Sun.
Her passion for nature is integral as well.
Her love for nature and music began at a very early age. Originally from Kansas City, Missouri, she first visited Colorado on a trip with her family to Grand Lake when she was just 6 years old, then again at 8
— the age she started learning piano. After those two visits, she wanted to make a life in Colorado.
Starting her formal musical training while still in high school at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory — an academic institution for music, theater and dance — she underwent intensive artistic instruction and ensemble and stage performance. She went on to graduate with a music education degree from the University of Kansas.
Dancing-Light is among Carbondale’s group of elders who made their way to the Roaring Fork Valley, first landing in Aspen, back in the 1970s, working all sorts of trades and being part of one big family-like community, “where everyone took care of each other,” she said.
Her records demonstrate her connection to Native American wisdom, as well as worldly spirituality.
“‘Just a Moment in Time’ invites the listener on a delicious, sonic journey through time, inviting deep relaxation and healing,” Dancing-Light said.
Her ability to tap into “divine inspiration,” as she described it, came as a “mysterious process of receiving music and [was] utterly undefined for me when it began,” she explained. “It isn’t about sitting and writing like I learned in music school …This has happened many different times throughout my life.” One of the pieces in her new album came through while in Paris a day after the Notre Dame burned.
The French connection, and inspiration therefrom, is prevalent in the album. Traversing the “French Camino,” along the Le Chemin de St. Jacques, in 2019 was a life-changing pilgrimage for her and inspired several pieces.
Influences of the “two Claudes,” one being the first impressionist composer Claude Debussy, Dancing-Light’s favorite composer, and the other the founder of impressionism in art, Claude Monet, are imprinted in this record as well.
Visiting the Musee de l’Orangerie in Paris and seeing the oblique display of Monet’s largest Water Lily pieces, was the culmination of a love spell that Lisa fell under as a young second grader on a school field trip to the Nelson Art Gallery, when for the first time she saw one of Monet’s Water Lilies.
The process of recording “Just a Moment in Time” was quite a monumental experience, according to Dancing-Light. The album has been in the works for about 10 to 15 years and has roots as far back as the 1980s — such as the piece “Watercolors,” which she composed and played on the piano during a performance with Aspen Dance Connection at the Wheeler Opera House in 1988.
During the pandemic, when everything was closed down, it was recommended that she contact local musician Mark Johnson when she was feeling the impulse to record a solo piano album, which she had never done before.
“Mark agreed to come to my home with his recording equipment to document this piano music for me on my Kawai grand piano. After completing the recording sessions, I would question if [the] sound was good enough, and Mark would respond with: ‘Lisa, this is just a moment in time. This is where you are today,’” she recalled.
“I waited several years in angst, wondering if this was indeed ‘good enough,’” she continued. “One evening, I saw Mark playing at Heather’s Restaurant and told him I was finally ready to complete this project. Tragically, Mark was killed in an accident a week later. Coupled with the loss of Casey Piscura a week before, I was plunged into the depths of the grieving process.”
Johnson not only left the sound files in the proper format to later master with the professional support of JD Martin at Slipstream Studios, but also the name of the album.
During the concert, a projection of images of Dancing-Light’s own photography will visually depict the story of each piece. Friends of hers will enrich the artistic offering: Pam Rosenthal with her singing bowls, Jason Kannon joining in for the song “Zen Master,” local dancer Mellie Test moving to “Watercolors” and Sarah Graf, Ross Kribbs and Delaney Meyers playing string instruments along to “The Song of Love.”
The album is dedicated to the memory of Johnson as well as to Judy Colaneri, who guided Lisa on the French Camino pilgrimage.
In a nutshell
What: “Just a Moment in Time” album release
Who: Lisa Dancing-Light and friends
Where: Third Street Center
When: Nov. 14, 4 to 5:30pm
Tickets: At the door or lisadancinglight.com