Dear Jimmy and Sally,
I used to be a frequent visitor of the YES website. The YES movie, the forum "Talk to Sally" and Sally's blogs were all very inspiring and I always found visiting the website a comforting experience. The website helped me reflect further on YES as well as connect, virtually and silently, to a community of anxious and questioning people who could find comfort and reassurances in Sally's work. I vividly remember Sally's thoughtful and generous responses and felt thankful for them. I also remember how people would just confide their anxieties, their life events, or simply, like the man who wanted to learn ballet and dance with pointed shoes, their dreams. I also found much pleasure in visiting a beautifully colourful website while the music, with its soothing, meditative, yet joyous, quality, felt like a call to immerse oneself into the thoughts of questioning fellows. In our troubled times, Sally's work and her sharing thoughts with us through the YES website provided something like a prop and a very special, comforting space.
By contrast, I find the black background of the new website cold and intimidating. I am sure that more people will come and visit the website as soon as Sally's production of Carmen starts. The new website is doing a very good job at providing information on Sally's overall work and I thank you for that. But somehow, by closing the YES website, the thread of thoughts and communion was broken. A new one needs to be restarted, this time around the themes of Carmen. I am looking forward to seeing the discussion start in earnest and I hope it will have the same quality as for YES.
In short, the new website is very efficiently done, all the information can be found easily. But it has a coldness to it that does not entice one to confide. But we will get used to it, for what is more important is what Sally, you and the rest of the team are trying to achieve with the interactivity of the website. Also, the new website offers so much more of Sally's work. As I understand it, there will be the possibility to discuss about Carmen (although that might be limited to people who will be able to see Carmen in London), and all other thoughts triggered by the SP-ARK project. But, since I am of a nostalgic kind, may be colours and background music could be used to create 'atmospheres' in the different sections of the website, so that it would feel like coming to a place that is familiar, a bit like for the Yes website?
All heartfelt good wishes to you, Sally, for this wonderful initiative, your ideas and passions, and many thanks to the web team.
Thi Minh
