So much great art is dependent on the need for ensemble. The great orchestras and dance companies are great not simply because of the agglomeration of talented artists but also because of the amount of time these artists have worked together to create an aesthetic.

If there were any purists muttering to themselves during Act IV at Thursday night's performance of Swan Lake by the Mariinsky Ballet, they were lost amid the hootin' and hollerin'.

There is truly no Eastern art or Western art or Asian art, etc. There is only art. And great art has the power to move us because great artists speak to us no matter what the language.

Do not be surprised if a decade from now some of the most interesting arts projects in the world are emanating from a nation that many of us could not identify on the map.