2005.05.06
1. The show was more poorly attended than I would have guessed... I'm not sure if that's because it was opening night, and a Thursday, or if ballet is just losing out in popularity, but the place was half empty, and we were easily able to upgrade our seats on the mezzanine.
2. For all its strength and gracefulness (and I'm sure I'm badly underestimating how difficult of most of it) ballet has a large amount of somewhat clunky looking moments and poses to set up the graceful ones.
3. A few times one of the ballerinas had serious problems with squeaky shoes. That made me giggle. Plus, there were times when the clatter of feet of a group of dancers sounded like a stampede.
4. Ballet is kind of funny, it's such a set ritual and tradition...I should look into the history of it. I can see why so many little girls aspire to it, how the whole places focuses on the one lady in the lovely outfit as she dances gracefully, but I also get the sense it's a hell of a tough calling. (At my mom's old job, they split a cafeteria with a ballet school...it was kind of weird seeing all those ballerinas-in-training, with that distinctive look and styled hair, en masse. I didn't notice if their eating habits were notably light.)
Anyway, I made a joke that I thought was really funny, but pretty obscure, and unfortunately the photo of the mural that sets it up is too tough to see...but I tried to figure out who the rightmost figure reminded me of, an athletic body in an oddly modern-sports-gear looking outfit, but with a 40s/50s woman's "power haircut"...and I realized...my gosh, this is a mural from the Church of Ayn Rand!Ha ha, get it? Ayn Rand? See, like so idealized, but with that hair...ha!
Sigh. I guess you have to see it for yourself...it's above the left side of the mezzanine of The Wang Theater.
(Incidentally, The Wang Theater is just a goofy name on two levels, the obvious sexual joke, and it's such a modern name for a place with almost over-the-top gilded columns and artwork.)