Life Is - STEVEN R. TABOR

Life Is

The song "Life is" is from the musical "Zorba the Greek". The lyics were written by Fred Ebb and John Kande and the song was set to the music of the acclaimed composer Mikis Theodorakis. The musical Zorba was my favorite Broadway Play when I was a teenager. I was fortunate to see the 1983 revival version of it on Broadway with Anthony Quinn and Chita Rivera. That was a thrill I'll never forget.

Zorba the Greek is a dark, love story, and tells the tale of an English writer and intellectual who tries to escape his conventional life with the help of a mysterious, bustling and boisterous man, called Alexis Zorbas. The film adaptation was shot on Crete, where Antony Quinn dances his famous sirtaki dance at the beach of Stavros in the Akrotiri peninsula in Crete.

For this series, the images that I've selected to illustrate the feelings that the song conveys are those of a half-Greek model Zoi, who has a house not far from the beach in Crete where the Zorba film was shot. Not intending to dance, Zoi seems to sway in the wind, getting blown about on the sand, much like Zorba as he was swept madly from one great love to the next, while fiercely defending his freedom.

If you'd like to see the full series, download the PDF catalog here.