It's the world I want," she told The Associated Press 2001.
She spent six years drawing and painted imaginary fans on the opera house's walls and painted the ceiling with a blue sky, dancing cherubs, clouds and doves. She danced every Monday, Friday and Saturday whether the house was full or empty - as if thousands were watching. "It was the spirit of the pieces that I think was so moving in her work, and I think that had a lot to do with where it was and how you discovered it," Kavouras said.īecket wrote songs, dialogue, sewed costumes and painted sets. The nearest town is 23 miles away from the opera house, but audiences filled its 114 theater seats so many times over the years that extra chairs sometimes had to be brought in. In the beginning, her only patrons were the three Mormon families who lived in the isolated town. "She said at the time she was probably the oldest person who could still do that in her ballet slippers," Walker said.īecket and her husband rented the building, and Marta Becket made her debut in 1968 at the renamed Amargosa Opera House. He described Becket as a kind, memorable woman, then in her 70s, who talked with him and his wife for 45 minutes after the show and performed for them again on pointe. Tom Walker, a city councilman in North Cowichan, British Columbia, said he and his wife stumbled upon Becket's act about 15 years ago during a winter RV trip. She gave a final performance in February 2012, before turning the theater over to a nonprofit group. She continued flitting across the stage in her iconic performances well into her 80s, although health problems slowed her in later years. "It was magic," Kavouras said, "like the hot desert wind flowing across the desert sand." He was mystified when he saw Becket in 1992, then in her late 60s, rise to her toes and float across the stage in a difficult, shuffling ballet move known as a pas de bourrée.
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