For anyone who wants to join in, simply choose five pieces of music and post them for other bloggers to enjoy. Then check out the set posted by the other 5 on Friday blogger -- you can sign in over at Golch Central's Rambling Stuff.
Yesterday, October 1st was the second annual World Ballet Day, bringing ballet lovers from all over the world together online as we were invited to take part in the daily class and rehearsal periods of five major companies.
For a ballet freak like me, World Ballet Day is like being a kid and waking up on Christmas morning, with all of your presents waiting for you, all of your family gathering around, and an endless feast going on for hours and hours and hours, with none of it ever ending.
It was like heaven.
For this week's 5 on Friday, may I introduce the five companies who shared their lives with us yesterday.
Tonight, after an extremely challenging week at work, I had a dress rehearsal for tomorrow's choir concert. It went the way dress rehearsals generally should go - not so super fabulous that we won't be paying close attention to all the spots that sounded shaky tonight. It's a strange-but-true thing - a really great dress rehearsal usually results in a flat performance.
Tomorrow morning I'll be hopping on the bus and heading for Spring Garden Road, to have an afternoon at the ballet courtesy of Empire Theatres and Opus Arte Ballet in HD.
I've had this picture as my screen saver at work all month, waiting until tomorrow:
It's the Kingdom of the Shades sequence from La Bayadere, where the entire corps shows us what its made of.
"The shades (usually thirty two of them) enter down a zigzag ramp coming down the back of the stage. They take two steps into an arabesque in plié, then two steps to pose in tendue derriere (the pose shown.) This short phrase of movement brings all of the shades on stage in single file. They zigzag down the ramp, then continue down the stage. The lead dancer has to repeat the phrase an incredible number of times, with the same leg every time." - Ballet Encyclopedia
"Like a patient drillmaster, original choreographer Marius Petipa opens the piece with a single, two-phrase theme in adagio tempo, repeated over and over until all the dancers have filed onto the stage. Petipa gives it a long time to creep under our skins. The choreography is considered to be the first expression of grand scale symphonism in dance. The subject of The Kingdom of the Shades is not really death, although everybody in this scene except the hero is dead. It's Elysian bliss, and its setting is eternity. The long slow repeated-arabesque sequence creates the impression of a grand crescendo that seems to annihilate all time." - Wikipedia
Ooo! I can't wait! Especially since Cuban wonder Carlos Acosta will be dancing, as well as Marianela Nuñez and Tamara Rojo.
After the ballet, it's hurry-scurry home, get changed and drive my husband and me to my choir concert, where he'll watch from the audience.
This was taken at the last concert in February, by my cousin's wife, Heather. Saturday's performance starts at 7:30 at Grace United Church, 70 King Street, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
And then Sunday I'll head out to have lunch with the writers, and afterwards I'll be giving the workshop at our monthly Romance Writers of Atlantic Canada meeting. It's called A Date With Creativity.
So what are you up to this weekend?
Nikki says Hey! I hope your choir concert goes really well! Hope you enjoy the Ballet too!
Akelamalu says Wow Julia, you have got a busy weekend ahead and an exciting one to boot!
Dorte H says Good luck to you with concert and everything - and remember to take care of yourself.
Welcome to the second posting of my new arts feature, Through the Opera Glasses. Today I have a review for the HD broadcast of La Fille Mal Gardee, a comic ballet performed by the Royal Ballet of England and shown at select Empire Cinemas across Canada, for one matinee only.
I am eternally grateful to Empire Theatres for starting this program. Having had the pinch-me-am-I-dreaming pleasure of working at a performing arts theatre in Toronto for eight years, I miss the access I once had to world-class ballet and opera.
And since I am a confessed ballet freak, it was a very, very long eight years after I left that job until Empire Theatres offered this fine arts program.
My mom remembered seeing La Fille Mal Gardee on one of her trips to see my sister and me when we lived in Toronto, so she joined me this past Saturday for the matinee. The ballet tells the story of young lovers Lise and Colas, who determine to outwit her mother. She plans to marry her daughter to the son of the local vinyard owner, but the townsfolk conspire with the lovers to ensure that true happiness wins out over a financial match.
Colas is danced by Cuban sensation Carlos Acosta. In the dance world, national companies are filled with residents from all over the world. Exquisite talent does not recognize borders. The particular style of each company attracts specific dancers who embody that style, and Carlos Acosta's magnificent technique fits beautifully into England's Royal Ballet Company.
Here's a variation from Act I that showcases his breathtaking virility, height and flawless technique.
The theme of 'ties' abounds in Sir Frederick Ashton's charming choreography. Ribbons are used to great effect to join the many relationships in this rural setting: family ties, romantic ties and the ties of the townsfolk to one another.
In the first act pas de deux (or dance for two, one of the main choreographic forms used in ballet,) Lise and Colas entwine themselves in the ribbon she left for him as a love token. They end up creating a cat's cradle after several intricate steps.
Osbert Lancaster’s original 1960 designs echoed the ties theme, mirroring the crisscrosses of the cat's cradle by having front-lacing bodices for Lise in all three costumes. The windows of Lise's home also have an X design, and the townsfolk gather in Act II to form a maypole dance.
Here's the first act pas de deux with the lovers delighting in their irresistable connection to one another.
Lise is danced by Argentinian marvel Marianela Nunez. She has a lively, flirtatious rapport with Carlos Acosta, and matches his bravura dancing with strength and fireworks of her own. Yet she never loses a delicacy that is somehow never at odds with her power.
She absolutely shines in this wedding pas de deux from Act III.
If you live in or near one of these Canadian cities, I invite you to join me later this month for Manon:
Bolton, Ontario - Empire 7 Cinemas
Burlington, Ontario - Empire Showcase 6 Cinemas
Calgary, Alberta - Empire Studio 10 Macleod Trail
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island - Empire Studio 8
Edmonton, Alberta - Empire City Centre 9 Cinemas
Fredericton, New Brunswick - Empire Studio 10 Regent Mall
Halifax, Nova Scotia - Empire 8 Park Lane
Kingston, Ontario - Empire Capitol 7 Cinemas
Kitchner, Ontario - Empire Studio 12 Gateway Park
London, Ontario - Empire Wellington 8 Cinemas
Mississauga, Ontario - Empire Studio 10 at Square One
Moncton, New Brunswick - Empire 8 Trinity Drive
North Vancouver, British Columbia - Empire Esplanade 6 Cinemas
North York, Ontario - Empire Empress Walk 10 Cinemas
Ottawa, Ontario - Empire 7 Cinema
Richmond Hill, Ontario - Empire Elgin Mills 10 Cinemas
Saint John, New Brunswick - Empire Studio 10
St. Catharines, Ontario - Empire Studio 8 Pen Centre
St. John's, Newfoundland - Empire Studio 12
Sydney, Nova Scotia - Empire Studio 10
Vancouver, British Columbia - Empire Granville 7 Cinemas
Victoria, British Columbia - Empire Capitol 6 Cinemas
Winnipeg, Manitoba - Empire Grant Park 8 Cinemas
Painting - In the Box - Mary Cassatt
Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness has suggested the following change-ups for those of us participating in her year-long challenge:
"1 - A Link Post - share a series of links your readers might find interesting * Here's a list of sitesI frequent on the web. * 2 - A Short Post - less than 200 words * This redirect postpointing the way to my missmakeamovie post clocks in at 19 words. * 3 - A List Post - simple as it sounds, a list of some sort * My list of tins picturesfor Dorte H fits this one. * * A second list post: My Favorite Female Film Characters From the Past Ten Years * 4 - An Opinion Post - take an event, news, or another blog post and share your opinion on it 5 - A Poll or Question Post - post a poll or ask your readers a specific question for feedback 6 - A How-To Post - You’re an expert in something; big or small, share how to do it 7 - A Long Post - more than 700 words 8 - A Review Post - self-explanatory, I think. * Scroll back up to the top of this post for a review of the HD broadcast of the balletLa Fille Mal Gardeeat Empire Theatres across Canada, this past Jan. 31st. * 9 - A Definition Post - show your expertise about a topic related to your blog 10 - FREE SPACE - a type of post of your choice (that is not the same as one of the previous posts)" * MySecond Blogiversary postis a once-a-year extravaganza, so I'll count that as my free space. *
We've got a two-week time frame to give these posts a try. The gauntlet has been thrown. I shall meet you at dawn.
Once again, there is no poem more perfect than the wordless poetry of dance.
On Saturday I had the great joy of watching The Royal Ballet's performance of Giselle in High Definition broadcast at Park Lane Cinemas in Halifax. Having worked as an usher for eight years at the Hummingbird Centre in Toronto, the former home of the National Ballet of Canada, you'd think I'd have seen enough performances of Giselle to last a lifetime. But au contraire.
No true ballet freak can ever get enough. Ever.
And the Opus Arte series of broadcasts from Empire Theatres gives me a chance to see the greatest dancers from the stages of the world when there is not the merest hope in heaven for me to fly to their home cities to see them in person. As you can tell, I'm beyond grateful to the people who came up with this blessed, blessed idea.
I'd already had the absolute pleasure of seeing Alina Cojocaru in an earlier broadcast of Sleeping Beauty, and couldn't wait to see her dance Giselle. To say that she was born to dance this role is not overstating the case. Her technique is ethereal, perfect for the second act when Giselle has become a spirit.
And her acting is true and heart wrenching, most especially in the Mad Scene which ends act one.
I have watched my share of Mad Scenes by ballerinas who cannot act. I would say that watching the 10-minute Mad Scene danced by a ballerina who can't act should be registered with the UN Convention as a form of torture. Really. I can't even conceive of watching three of those back-to-back. I'd invent stuff to get them to stop.
The marvellous Alina Cojocaru gave us a Mad Scene that punches us in the gut - in a good way. She reaches in and wrings our hearts - but we want her to! See for yourself. This is the end of the Mad Scene where her lover Albrecht is discovered to be a nobleman, and not the peasant he claimed to be. Not only that, but he's promised in marriage to a noblewoman, though he's asked Giselle to marry him.
Alina's Albrecht is played by Johan Kobborg, her real life partner:
I had the immense pleasure of seeing Johan Kobborg dance at my old theatre when he was a guest artist with the National Ballet of Canada in the 1990's.
I was very sad on my own account when he joined the Royal Ballet in England, but very, very happy for him.
Click here to see their pas de deux from act one where Albrecht courts Giselle.
Here is their breathtaking pas de deux from act two, where Giselle's spirit appears to Albrecht when he visits her unconsecrated grave deep in the forest. They are surrounded by the Wilis, the spirits of jilted women who died before their wedding day. The wilis capture any man they come across and force him to dance until he drops dead. In this scene, Giselle and Albrecht share their love, longing and forgiveness with one another before the Queen of the Wilis begins her fatal command for Albrecht to dance.
Here the dancers speak about their roles in Giselle.
I hope you enjoyed this little peek into my heart. Because if you could look inside, there would be a darkening theatre, an orchestra tuning, an audience applauding as the conductor stands at the podium - and as the curtain rises on the ballet, you would see my heart glowing with an indescribable joy.
I was so happy to have a day all to myself on Saturday. I headed across the bridge to Halifax to catch the HD broadcast of the Royal Ballet's Romeo and Juliet, and it was total bliss.
Photo by Tristram Kenton
I'd heard of Tamara Rojo before (Juliet) but had never seen her dance until today. She's a Spaniard dancing for the English Royal Ballet company. She brought me to tears about four times, just her, her performance. Her technique is flawless and her acting is so true and passionate. Total bliss.
Photo by Bernardo Doral
But wait - it gets better. Her Romeo was Carlos Acosta, a Cuban dancing with the Royal Ballet. If you'd ever wondered to yourself whether male ballet dancers could be straight - and I assure you a great many are - one look at this panther/shapeshifter/man will cure you of that cliche. I heard quite a few women in the lobby saying, "Wasn't he something?" And he was. Strength, control, musicality, very passionate acting. He was something, all right.
So my post for the Poetry Train is the section of Shakespeare's play that closes the balcony scene. I've included a link to a segment of the performance I watched, along with the dancers talking about their roles as Romeo and Juliet. Enjoy!
From the Balcony Scene of Romeo and Juliet
JULIET This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. Good night, good night! as sweet repose and rest Come to thy heart as that within my breast!
ROMEO O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?
JULIET What satisfaction canst thou have to-night?
ROMEO The exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.
JULIET I gave thee mine before thou didst request it: And yet I would it were to give again.
ROMEO Wouldst thou withdraw it? for what purpose, love?
JULIET But to be frank, and give it thee again. And yet I wish but for the thing I have: My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite.
Nurse calls within
I hear some noise within; dear love, adieu! Anon, good nurse! Sweet Montague, be true. Stay but a little, I will come again.
Exit, above
ROMEO O blessed, blessed night! I am afeard. Being in night, all this is but a dream, Too flattering-sweet to be substantial.
Champion of the Arts - I write historical and paranormal fiction, as well as poetry. I love to showcase creative works by artists of all stripes. Blogging from Nova Scotia, Canada
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