Musings on ballet, classical music, the violin, and life
Musings of a former ballet dancer who’s returned, years later, to the studio as a student.
It’s time once again for my annual trek to Vajrapani for a three-day silent retreat. Last year, upon my return, I penned an article for Dance Advantage about how my meditation practice paralleled, oddly, my experience in taking ballet classes. Rereading it now, I’m grateful for the wisdom I’d accrued last year and utterly, wholly … Read more
All right, readers, opinions, please. Which way do you see the dancer turning? This psychological study fascinates me. My first reaction to seeing this, years back, had me thinking, oh, clockwise. Without question. I felt like surely it was a trick question. And, further, suggestions that I could make it go the other way seemed just as … Read more
Interested in my ballet fiction? Check out the Ballet Theatre Chronicles (Off Balance, Outside the Limelight, Ballet Orphans) and the curiously connected A Dancer’s Guide to Africa. Just click on their titles! I hated Black Swan. Successful film that it was, I hated many things about it, mostly the way it depicted ballet dancers in a way … Read more
The choreography is old-fashioned, but as Rusakov circles the stage doing high, perfect coupés jetés en tournant, his technique is not fusty but pure. His movements are quick but unhurried, impossible in their clarity and difficulty and extraordinary in how they seem to burst from nowhere, without any apparent effort or preparation. But the beauty … Read more
There they are, the dancers, so fine and gracious, with make-up and dressed in elf clothing and troll fur, beetle wings and rococo wigs. It’s an enchanting sight. I carefully take the camera from my bag. I do not dare to press too hard on the release button or stand too close. I feel like a … Read more