At the ballet

This past year has been about dance and movement….now if I could just learn how to dance myself!

It’s funny, I love music, I love all kinds of music, and I especially enjoy getting “into the groove” but the one thing that I dislike most in this world is dancing.  I always feel like the biggest dork in the whole wide world when I “attempt” to dance.  I dislike it so much I think that I dance even worse so people ask me to please stop.  My favorite way to dance (so that people will ask me to stop) is the Elaine Dance from Seinfeld….you know the one I’m talking about.

This weekend The Boyfriend went out to San Francisco for the WGI Power Regional and I was at home on my own.  My friend Art sent out an email a few weeks ago asking if anyone wanted to go to the Hubbard Street Ballet, I said sure.  As you may recall, just recently we went to see the Gay Swan Lake and last April we went to see the Alvin Ailey Dancers.  Alvin Ailey was very cool, a little difficult to “get.”  Swan Lake was very interesting sort of like the Nutcracker on Speed, so I didn’t know what to expect.

I was sort of excited because the show is at the Harris Theater, which is a new theater that was designed specifically for dance and music.  The theater is very interesting because when you enter at “street level” you’re actually at the top of the theater.  To get to our seats which were in the Orchestra Section, we had to walk down three flights of stairs.  It’s very interesting because it’s the complete opposite of the way you expect a theater to be.

I didn’t realize it, but my friend set me up on a Blind Date, with a GIRL!  No, not really, but there it was all couples except for J and I, so it was almost like a blind date.  

While we waited for the show to begin with did our normal scanning of the program to pick out the hottie dancers we were going to try and scope out during the show.  It was then that I realized my blind date was not going to work out, we both thought the same guys were cute.  You’ll be sad to know that I didn’t get to first base, and I still have my virtue.

The show started, and as I said, I didn’t know what to expect, I think I was sort of thinking stodgy ballet since this is an actual ballet company.  What I expected and what I saw were the complete opposite.  I don’t know how to explain it, but it truly was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.  The music, the movement, it was all so beautiful.

There were four dances (2 dances – intermission – 1 dance – intermission – 1 dance).  The best part of the first dance were these “dress forms” that had wheels on them, and the girls used them to dance around the stage so it looked like they were floating.  

The second dance was very good, I called it the Rise & Fall of Nick and Jessica!  That’s what it reminded of I’m sorry!
Intermission and next dance were ok, but not even halfway through the second intermission this one guy came out on stage and started dancing.  The house lights were up and people were milling about, but this one guy was just up there dancing to this jazzy/latin music, it was very strange.  Then the last dance started where they did this repetitive motion thing that ended up with them taking off all of their clothes except for their shirts and shorts.  The next part of the dance they came out to the audience and picked people to take up on stage.  They did this whole scene where they danced with/around/for the people they brought from the audience.

There was on this one lady, who had to have been in her late 70’s.  She was totally grey haired, dressed very nicely and danced like there was no tomorrow.  She was the best part of the whole show, in fact at one point I leaned over and said “she’s a plant this is too perfect” but she wasn’t.  I can only think that she must have been a dancer when she was younger because the things she was doing at her age were amazing.

I’m sorry that The Boyfriend wasn’t able to make this show because I know he would have truly loved it, I have a totally new found respect for ballet dancers and non-traditional ballet companies.

I did figure one thing out though today.  I figured out why all of the sculptures that came from ancient time were always of beautiful chiseled young men.  It’s because they were dancers….dancers have the most beautiful bodies I have ever seen, and the wonderful thing about it is it all looks natural unlike these over pumped boys people that are out there.  Plus usually ballet boys go both ways and wouldn’t mind sassying up to Leonardo to let him sculpt him.

I’m truly inspired to go out and buy The Company by Robert Altman after watching this performance today.