BESTSELF™ ICEBREAKER | Dreams 14

WHAT HISTORICAL EVENT DO YOU WISH YOU'D EXPERIENCED FIRST-HAND?

This had me stumped for a couple of days. I didn’t want to choose anything political or dangerous. The events of the last few months have me overly sensitive to significant historical experiences.

Maybe it’s the influence of watching my dad’s favourite movie, Chariots of Fire, on repeat as a younger person, but the historical event that I’d most have liked to witness first-hand was the first Olympic Games of the modern era in 1896. So very different from the games of today (on every level), there were 280 participants from 12 nations, competing in 43 events. (NOTE: Chariots of Fire occurred at the 1936 Olympic Games in Paris.) While I loathe what the Olympics has devolved into over the decades, I’d love to be swept up in the excitement of the initial idealism and promise.

Second choice?

Not that it’s a recorded historical event, I’d like to have been present for the first Shakespeare production (with an opportunity to talk to the man himself). This would have been sometime in the 1590s, likely starting with a performance of Henry VI, Part II.

Third choice?

Even though it was a failure, with most of those in attendance there to scoff at the works on display (and the newspaper critics of the time were hostile), I’d like to have attended The First Impressionist Exhibition which took place in April-May 1874 in a gallery on Rue du Capucines in Paris. It was organized by Monet, Pissarro, Degas, Renoir, Sisley, and Berthe Morisot. The 165 works by 30 artists included Monet’s Impression Sunrise, the painting which was responsible for coining the term ‘impressionism’.