DefJef

I am an architect who attends ballet and knows little about technique and jargon and so forth. I view the ballet like architecture in motion or solidified music in motion. I can't see what an expert sees in a performance. However, for me the dancers represent the idealization of form and motion. Each of us has our eyes trained by our education and out exposure to idealized notions of beauty. This clearly changes over time. There is, for me a ballerina who is too short or too tall, too thin or too curvey or not curvey enough... The same applies to male dancers. In addition, the dancers exist in a matrix of the company and this often forces a type of conformity of appearance.... like a row of identical ballerinas performing in syncronicity. This works better with conformity than it does with variety. You can pick apart a dancer and put them against some platonic ideal and some will come closer to it (the one for today) and others will be off... and usually by a bit.. at least in classical ballet. This type of dance is in a sense very structured and rigid and it is almost expected that a certain body type will be desired over others. Techique also is a component of the aestheic appeal of a dancer. When they have a perfectly proportioned body and technique and dance with passion it is the nexus of aesthetics in the ballet. My two cents!

This is not a serious topic. Ballet is a art form which requires enormous discipline. It is esoteric and like much of art requires a decent amount of commitment even as a viewer. We can all walk past the master pieces in the Louvre or the Met and see the same painting as someone who has studied art and art history and even history. The more educated and experienced person will take more away from the experience. I am a naive consumer of the arts... but I have been at it for 4 decades since I began architecture school. I am in awe of the talent, skill, vision, dedicationand creativity of these artists... all of them. Ballet is something which takes enormous amount of time to perfect... first to train the dancers and then to get them choreographed together into a ballet. It is not the least bit elitest. But appreciation and consumption of art is for those who have or make time for it. Obviously, workers who do 3 jobs just to stay alive cannot go to the met. In that sense, the cost of viewing is obscene and troubling. I would give up lots of things to be able to see the ballet and attend the opera... and I do. These are special and unique moments and anyone who experiences them cannot help to sit in awe. I do.

Last summer we saw the ABT perform le Corsaire. It was fabulous and Paloma Herrera left me speechless. I decided to write to her care of the ABT and tell her how much the experience effected me. It was my first and only "fan" letter and at 58 yrs old it was both hard and easy to write. A few weeks later I received a personal note and an autographed picture. I just had to tell her how her performance made me feel. She got to me! We just saw Paloma dance Le Corsaire agian on Tuesday at the Met. This performance was for the Latin Nights and featured all the great hispanic dancers in the ABT. The performance was nothing short of stunning, even if the ballet "plot" is kinda silly. Palmona and all the others were superb... One of the most thrilling performances I have seen. I must say she has complete mastery of her body in space and time and is in complete synchonicity the the orchestra. Fluid does not even begin to describe how she can move.