The Steadfast Tin Soldier; Walpurgisnacht Ballet; Namouna
The Steadfast Tin Soldier- eeh, i've never liked the original story this is from, i've always preferred The Happy Prince for stories where the toy/statue melts in a fire and only his heart is left. but it was good dancing, the movement style toy-soldier-y and doll-like and all, quite believable as not-dancers if not to my taste.
Walpurgisnacht- Very very purple. In a pretty, and successfully summer-like, way. I need to stop wanting to tear up whenever I see them doing the kind of dance I'd be especially suited to and enjoy. Nice big symphony stuff going on in the music. Thought I might know some of the choreography; turns out I know something different (non-Balanchine) though this version was definitely inspired by the one I know.
no good photos online, it seems.
video (a different ballet company, the last 3 minutes are probably best)
The other version, that this wasn't. (In Balanchine's to the same music, it starts with a solo but then two more dancers come on, and it ends quite differently.) Love this variation, and the dancer (old video!), Bacchante from Faust:
Click to viewNamouna- Funny crazy new thing. The visual aesthetic is like Sylvie Guillem and Busby Berkeley on a russian-american's view of a french sea-shore resort.
Some of their costumes - leotards with buttons along one hip, and slightly stiff one-layer skirts - i wish they would make and sell. They'd be cute and practical for class.
There's quite a lot of this ballet and seperate parts/music aren't listed anywhere, so I'm forgetting loads...
There were about five times before the real end when the audience thought it was over in part because it's so long, but- the structure of this thing's all over the place. in a good way. i think.
In the middle there's this whole section of cigarette ballet, one girl and then three and then the whole corps, all parodies of, like, that untouchable girl sitting there smoking at you. oh and then the girl who started it passes out or dies of it or something (this ballet has stuff obviously happening, but there is nothing like a concrete plot). though she revives.
Daniel Ulbricht had a role created in this, i still have a crush on him after like six years, but so does everyone else... anyway he's an amazing dancer omg. jumps. turns. clean footwork. eeeeee <3
And there's kind of a love story or three in it, sort of... almost like a second seperate ballet, how it's structured, but anyway the ballet ends with a kiss, and as it's a newly choreographed ballet it's not an air-kiss but real, and... ok may i just say that real ballet kisses are weird. because it's not obviously fake like old-fashioned air kisses, but it would seem improper to be up on stage like actively making out, so they just, like, kiss and stand in their pose and don't move anything at all and it's so weirdly frozen until the curtain's down. and. it felt weird to observe.
not sure about these hats, but leotards are cute,the skirts stay (buttons on the side you can't see):
misc. links:
haha it's so true: they come here, share with over ten dancers per house, and like only one of them will know how to drive never mind have a car
i never noticed how linguistically awful 'petit allegro' was, but it so is.
This was/is not a great week to be here. Dog got sick again; fortunately did not end up as scary and awful as the time a few weeks ago. Aside from the ballets I've not left my parents' house for 3+days, to watch and take care of him.
Reading a book that makes me ridiculously homesick. Dumb of me to read, knew it would do this since it's an autobiography of this girl who grew up in the rainforest and then went to school in Europe, but whatever.
Gackt concerts are on, one conveniently in London or one in Barcelona where it'd have been nice to go since Iceland's volcano cancelled when I meant to go there a couple weeks in the spring. Though my cousin (also in north america..somewhere, idk... now) is taking it much worse; her brother's in London and has absolutely no interest, she feels it's a terribly wasted opportunity.
There's some Bollywood movie filming all across Scotland; currently they're in Edinburgh based out of my dance studio. They're looking for dancers this week, 8 for ballet and 12 couples for viennese waltz- it's paid work, too. I'm technically a bit young, especially for waltz ( though i love it, so much), but they sent me a note like 'haven't seen you around lately but if you're in town, ignore the age, they'll like you for the ballet'... bit heartbreaking to read that and be on the wrong continent sitting in the audience of the ballet company I'd have joined if I'd managed a career in that. Oh well; so stuff didn't work out; that's not new.
(This week is the end of the ballet's season here, so I'll stop spamming it in a couple days.)