Ballet

I was watching the Nutcracker at Burnsville's Performing Arts Center tonight, and during one dance I found myself wondering, "When do they create a new signature ballet move?"  Was there a day when a ballerina was on her tiptoes, and started shimmying her legs, and the trainer yelled, "YES, YES! You're on your toes, and your legs should look all stiff because you're on those tiny little points, but you're shimmying them and they look loose!  It's a visual oxymoron! That is the SHIZNIT!  Do more of that!  Much more!"  Or something similar, but probably in Russian because all ballerinas used to be Russian.  At least as far as I know.  Although shiznit translates to shiznit.  At least according to this online translator.  So at least part of the excitement was palpable in any culture.

Ballerina

Eryn has been practicing her form. Here she is outside of Ring Mountain. She looks very sleepy. I think three days a week of ballet and the new gifted school are putting a strain on her, in a good way. And I apologize for those of you who are subjected to my wife stealing my photos and posting them on Facebook. That's simply out of my control.

Spring Recital

Eryn had her spring recital for ballet today. They try to give the parents a break for spring and reuse old outfits, or use more at-hand clothes for the modern dance type numbers, so this is the same outfit from her previous recital. Eryn's class did Chimchimcheree - not sure if that's how you spell it - from Mary Poppins. Apparently she had a bit of a balance issue in the earlier performance, but was fine for the 4:00 when I was there.

These aren't great because they came off my blackberry. This one is cute, but the next one is my favorite.


Her fighting ballerina pose. Taken shortly after we had a (faux) karate match from the kitchen to the porch. I felt like I was in some sort of weird anime.

Nutbuster: The Ballet!

I haven't been willing to post about this for several days, because I just don't know what to say about it. In the City Pages, there was an advertisement for Nutbuster! The Ballet at the Bryant Lake Bowl. This seemed to be one of those things that would amuse me. After all, the idea that Drosselmeyer is some sort of drunk ruminating on the holidays and having a Nutcrackeresque fantasy - it's all in his mind, not Clara's - is an idea that I feel could be ripe for interesting commentary. Eryn disagreed. She was a bit disgusted with me for thinking that might be fun, although she wanted to know all the details after I went.

But there was no interesting commentary. Rather, after talking Kyle into going with me, we watched a late 40's to early 50's guy dance around the stage for over 30 minutes. Sometimes with a little girl's doll. Sometimes with a bottle of vodka (Kyle and I discussed the similarities to his infamous vodka + knife + phonebook + cement floor incident when we lived at Riverside Plaza. If you look at the picture in that link, we were on the top floor, close to middle, of the building facing you in the photo). Sometimes with a nutcracker. Sometimes with a blow up doll (although he stabbed her at one point and she deflated - I don't remember that scene in The Nutcracker). The only talking was over the pa system at the beginning of the Nutbuster during which John Munger (playing Drosselmeyer) discussed his inspiration for Nutbuster, which evolved out of a lonely Christmas where he wrapped himself three presents, hung out with his cat, and then went to see Dune at the local theater. Given that Dune was released in 1984, I'm going to up my guess of his age to mid-50's.

To capture the feeling of this one man play, I'd have to go with, you know when you see something that's so sad, it becomes funny? And then it becomes sad again? And then you have a moment of disbelief that you're still sitting there watching it, so it becomes sad for you, then sad for them again, and then the whole thing is funny because it's all so sad. But not really in a good way. That feeling. Sort of A Clockwork Orange with your eyes toothpicked open feeling, but more melancholy before the uncontrollable laughter sets in.

On a positive note, the beer and my dinner, three cheese tortellini with shrimp and lots of vegetables, were very good. I had enough Surly Furious to smooth over the strangeness of almost anything, and a good Anchor Porter thrown in the midst of some post-ballet drinking with Kyle made it all worthwhile.