My Superbowl half-time show would feature Yo-Yo Ma, a chair, his cello, and that is all. No lasers, no drones, not even a stage, just Ma seated at the 50 yard line.
[ANNOUNCER] LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, YO-YO MA.
The house lights fade to black as twenty spotlights follow a solitary, slender figure walking through applause to the center of the field. He bows, sits, and begins to play. What has he selected for us? The notes of J.S. Bach, perhaps will resonate from Ma’s strings and spruce top board. They fill the stadium, the air waves, and our hearts. At one tender and particularly exposed passage, the spotlights, too go out as one simple line of melody continues out into the night. The darkness now is pierced with pinholes of staccato camera flashes and of distant stars whose planets on some future starry night like this will many years from now receive a broadcast emanating from the Earth.
One by one, the lights return as the music crescendos, building in complexity of rhythm. Finally, Ma stands to thunderous applause. He deeply bows. Exiting the spotlight, the bow-wielding artist leaves only an empty chair and cello, shining like the Sun.
TheGuern 