Nothing is more awesome than a cheatin' ballerambo
So finals are over. Yea. :) And yet I am still peeved. Stupid general education health class final--that is a joke of a class if I ever took one. I was in the testing center, editing the questions because they were so badly written and wondering why they were asking me about irrelevant statistics instead of testing me on the important (albeit common sense) topics. I mean, who cares what disease the kid in the video had? The point of the video and the lecture was that he was still able to lead a happy and fulfilling life--not his disease. So does it matter if I remember that he had spina bifida or cerebral palsy? No! Stupid class, and that's just one aspect of the idiotic class.
But finals are over! And I got a good grade on my Jane Austen research paper--the only comments the teacher had were that I should stop using so many dashes (I've been told that before; someone told me my writing looked like Emily Dickinson's would, if she wrote prose) and that my sources should be a bit more current. Not too bad for a paper that I wrote and never edited or read again! :) And now if the weather and the snow cooperate and don't delay my flights, I should be home tomorrow night! :)
So yesterday, after I took my final I went and browsed in our local used bookshop and found lots of stuff! I got three books by Georgette Heyer (The Unfinished Clue, Behold Here's Poison, and Royal Escape), two collections of stories that have Alfred Hitchcock's seal of approval (which guarantees their quality), The Complete Phantom of the Opera (about the making of the musical), and Jack Finney's Time and Again, which I misremembered as being the book that "Somewhere in Time" was based on (it's actually Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson). It was exciting.
And then later that night my roommate and I went to see the local "professional" (their word, not mine) ballet company perform The Nutcracker. It was the most unintentionally hilarious thing ever. :) Actually, the costumes were fantastic, and on the whole, the choreography was pretty good (there were some really odd parts, and some parts that just didn't work, but on the whole, it was good). But there were many more just bizarre parts. The choreography for the Christmas party wasn't too hot, and there were altogether too many little children who really had no clue what they were doing... The effect for the part where the Nutcracker grows big/everybody shrinks was pretty cool--simple, but effective. The backdrop just keeps rising and the painted tree grows bigger and bigger and voila, fills the whole back. The confusing part though was that before the show started, some dude in a suit (I assume he works at the theatre) came out and did the whole "we need money" spiel and he said that tonight's (or last night's) donations would all go to pay for their new growing Christmas tree, because their old one finally bit the dust--all the needles fell off and everything. So Amy and I figure the backdrop must have been the new Christmas tree, but how much does a painted backdrop cost? And really, how does it wear out--it's painted on and doesn't have needles and stuff! I mean, it's not like the backdrop itself has any moving parts--and they aren't throwing ballerinas through it or anything. At least, they didn't at last night's production. :)
And then, during the whole snowflakes/snow queen/snow king dance at the end of Act 1 (which was...interesting choreography), the guy running the fog machine had way too much fun. The fog was so thick that it went up to the armpits of the ballerina and went over the pit and covered the first 4 or 5 rows in fog. Lots of coughing during that dance! And then after that dance, when it's intermission, all of a sudden, the snow queen and king, and the snowflake ballerinas, all got a curtain call! Like complete with flowers for the snow queen and everything. That was surreal--I have never before seen a curtain call at intermission....
Act 2 was interesting--we were introduced to the cheatin' ballerambo. Apparently they cast the same guy as Clara's Nutcracker Prince, and as the Sugar Plum Fairy's prince, which makes for some odd scenes. Clara is sent offstage for whatever reason (a costume change, but I'm not sure the reason in the story), and the Nutcracker Prince is all emoting all over the place saying goodbye, and then as soon as she's in the wings, he immediately turns to the Sugar Plum Fairy and starts dancing. And then Clara comes back, she is put on the Sugar Plum Fairy's throne, and basically abandoned. She's up there all alone (I think generally the Nutcracker Prince is supposed to stay with her, and maybe the Sugar Plum Fairy as well, until it's time for the SPF to dance?), and looks rather forlorn, actually. :) And then at the end, when everybody's onstage and Clara comes off the throne, the poor Nutcracker Prince looks torn between the two, like he's not sure where he's supposed to go--is he the Nutcracker Prince or the Sugar Plum Fairy prince? Identity crisis! And Amy felt the same way before we even discussed it--there was really odd choreography that totally played this up. The Prince is a playa! A cheatin' ballerambo!
And we won't even mention (ok, yes we will, because it really needs to be mentioned) the horrible tendency of the audiences here (and yes that's a generalization, but it's only happened here!) to clap all the time! And not even for the right things! Someone twirls twice and the audience erupts into applause, but someone does awesome en pointe balancing and fast spins and there is silence. *grr* It happened constantly during the second act--at least twice for every dance (which was impressive during the dances that are only about 2 minutes long). During the finale, the audience apparently thought it was a curtain call, so we couldn't hear the (absolutely gorgeous!) finale music for all the stupid applause! And then we had the normal curtain call afterwards--I was so ticked at the audience--stop clapping! If you like it that much, give them a standing ovation or clap that much louder at the end of the dance. *glares menacingly*
And did I mention that one of the advertising things mentioned on all the posters and flyers was that this was going to be performed with a "live orchestra"? Apparently that is a novelty... *eye roll* But the orchestra was really good, and pretty full. That was nice. I mean, for a "professional ballet company" I wasn't that impressed, but it was lots of fun. I mean, you got a cheatin' ballerambo--how could that not be awesome?
But finals are over! And I got a good grade on my Jane Austen research paper--the only comments the teacher had were that I should stop using so many dashes (I've been told that before; someone told me my writing looked like Emily Dickinson's would, if she wrote prose) and that my sources should be a bit more current. Not too bad for a paper that I wrote and never edited or read again! :) And now if the weather and the snow cooperate and don't delay my flights, I should be home tomorrow night! :)
So yesterday, after I took my final I went and browsed in our local used bookshop and found lots of stuff! I got three books by Georgette Heyer (The Unfinished Clue, Behold Here's Poison, and Royal Escape), two collections of stories that have Alfred Hitchcock's seal of approval (which guarantees their quality), The Complete Phantom of the Opera (about the making of the musical), and Jack Finney's Time and Again, which I misremembered as being the book that "Somewhere in Time" was based on (it's actually Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson). It was exciting.
And then later that night my roommate and I went to see the local "professional" (their word, not mine) ballet company perform The Nutcracker. It was the most unintentionally hilarious thing ever. :) Actually, the costumes were fantastic, and on the whole, the choreography was pretty good (there were some really odd parts, and some parts that just didn't work, but on the whole, it was good). But there were many more just bizarre parts. The choreography for the Christmas party wasn't too hot, and there were altogether too many little children who really had no clue what they were doing... The effect for the part where the Nutcracker grows big/everybody shrinks was pretty cool--simple, but effective. The backdrop just keeps rising and the painted tree grows bigger and bigger and voila, fills the whole back. The confusing part though was that before the show started, some dude in a suit (I assume he works at the theatre) came out and did the whole "we need money" spiel and he said that tonight's (or last night's) donations would all go to pay for their new growing Christmas tree, because their old one finally bit the dust--all the needles fell off and everything. So Amy and I figure the backdrop must have been the new Christmas tree, but how much does a painted backdrop cost? And really, how does it wear out--it's painted on and doesn't have needles and stuff! I mean, it's not like the backdrop itself has any moving parts--and they aren't throwing ballerinas through it or anything. At least, they didn't at last night's production. :)
And then, during the whole snowflakes/snow queen/snow king dance at the end of Act 1 (which was...interesting choreography), the guy running the fog machine had way too much fun. The fog was so thick that it went up to the armpits of the ballerina and went over the pit and covered the first 4 or 5 rows in fog. Lots of coughing during that dance! And then after that dance, when it's intermission, all of a sudden, the snow queen and king, and the snowflake ballerinas, all got a curtain call! Like complete with flowers for the snow queen and everything. That was surreal--I have never before seen a curtain call at intermission....
Act 2 was interesting--we were introduced to the cheatin' ballerambo. Apparently they cast the same guy as Clara's Nutcracker Prince, and as the Sugar Plum Fairy's prince, which makes for some odd scenes. Clara is sent offstage for whatever reason (a costume change, but I'm not sure the reason in the story), and the Nutcracker Prince is all emoting all over the place saying goodbye, and then as soon as she's in the wings, he immediately turns to the Sugar Plum Fairy and starts dancing. And then Clara comes back, she is put on the Sugar Plum Fairy's throne, and basically abandoned. She's up there all alone (I think generally the Nutcracker Prince is supposed to stay with her, and maybe the Sugar Plum Fairy as well, until it's time for the SPF to dance?), and looks rather forlorn, actually. :) And then at the end, when everybody's onstage and Clara comes off the throne, the poor Nutcracker Prince looks torn between the two, like he's not sure where he's supposed to go--is he the Nutcracker Prince or the Sugar Plum Fairy prince? Identity crisis! And Amy felt the same way before we even discussed it--there was really odd choreography that totally played this up. The Prince is a playa! A cheatin' ballerambo!
And we won't even mention (ok, yes we will, because it really needs to be mentioned) the horrible tendency of the audiences here (and yes that's a generalization, but it's only happened here!) to clap all the time! And not even for the right things! Someone twirls twice and the audience erupts into applause, but someone does awesome en pointe balancing and fast spins and there is silence. *grr* It happened constantly during the second act--at least twice for every dance (which was impressive during the dances that are only about 2 minutes long). During the finale, the audience apparently thought it was a curtain call, so we couldn't hear the (absolutely gorgeous!) finale music for all the stupid applause! And then we had the normal curtain call afterwards--I was so ticked at the audience--stop clapping! If you like it that much, give them a standing ovation or clap that much louder at the end of the dance. *glares menacingly*
And did I mention that one of the advertising things mentioned on all the posters and flyers was that this was going to be performed with a "live orchestra"? Apparently that is a novelty... *eye roll* But the orchestra was really good, and pretty full. That was nice. I mean, for a "professional ballet company" I wasn't that impressed, but it was lots of fun. I mean, you got a cheatin' ballerambo--how could that not be awesome?