Strange Ballet Dreams

[perky]

I had an extremely wierd ballet related dream last night.

I was sitting in the audience watching NYCB dance Emeralds. Towards the end of the ballet when all three male cavaliers are on stage the dancing suddenly stopped as Peter Martins came out and started giving corrections to two of the male dancers. This was during an actual performance. But the strangest part was that two of the cavaliers had switched out of their Emerald costumes and were wearing faded denim overall's, white longjohn shirts underneath and had straw hats on!!!!! They looked like old-time hog farmers on their way to market day. After Martins was finished with his corrections the performance resumed. Now, no one in the audience seemed to find any of this unusual or strange.

What does all of this mean? Do I need to have my head examined? Am I thinking about ballet too much? Should I change my job to hog-farmer/dancer?

Anyone else have ballet dreams?

[sandik]

two of the cavaliers had switched out of their Emerald costumes and were wearing faded denim overall's, white longjohn shirts underneath and had straw hats on!!!!! They looked like old-time hog farmers on their way to market day. After Martins was finished with his corrections the performance resumed.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So, did they keep their overalls on when they started dancing again?

I've had all kinds of odd dancing dreams -- for me they're usually stress-related, but I wouldn't want to speculate for you.

[BalletNut]

I've had several, but the weirdest one I can remember is one where I'm a principal ballerina (weird in itself, I'm short, curvy, and have two left feet) and I'm supposed to dance Lilac Fairy, but I do choreography from Swan Lake instead, but to the Sleeping Beauty music. I guess that's the ballet equivalent of the naked dream, right?

Or the ones where someone makes me fill in at the last minute for a dancer who's injured, and the only pointe shoes I have are these autographed ones I bought years ago for an AIDS benefit. I usually dance well enough, but there's always the thought: "What if they all start to catch on that I'm not really a dancer and have no idea what I'm doing?" I suppose that one's a variation (so to speak) on the classic anxiety dream...

[carbro]

Not a dream as such, but when I'm restless and can't settle down, or sometimes when I'm in that twilight state, I see the Shades entrance. It's a balleto's version of counting sheep.

A friend once remarked that whenever she dreams about ballet, it's along the lines of Dances at a Gathering. Mine tend to involve 24 white tutus in straight lines.

[zerbinetta]

Two nights ago I dreamed about ducks in a pond.

Does that count?

[pugbee]

I usually either have turning dreams, where I squeak out about 30 pirouettes at a time!!! (Funny, since I'm really not a great turner.) Or I'll dream that I'm on stage in the middle of a ballet and I realize that I don't know the end of the ballet!

[Paul Parish]

I'm with pugbee--

most of my ballet dreams are GOOD dreams, actually , WONDERFUL dreams (though i have dreamt that i am about to dance and can't remember if it starts right foot front or back -- but that happens to me in class)...

they're like the dreams I used to have that I'm flying over some green fields -- they're either dreams of thirteen turns a la Carrenyo, SO quiet and with a perfect spot, or that I'm jumping and here are wall these effortless beats happening beneath me....

[oberon]

Perky, remember the old joke: "They x-rayed her head and found nothing"???

I think it's a great dream...maybe next you'll have a Rubies dream!!!

[scoop]

I've had only one ballet dream ever, and I think it was so wonderful it blocked any future ones! I was dancing this gorgeous, passionate pas de deux with Baryshnikov (this was back during his peak as a ballet dancer). I think the dream must have been inspired not by a performance I'd seen but by a series of photographs popular back then, because I distinctly remember that the dream was in black and white and sort of grainy . Anyone remember those photographs? They were sold as posters and postcards, and there were several of Suzanne Farrell and I think maybe Natalia Makarova.

[carbro]

Scoop, I think you're remembering the photographs of Max Waldman.

[nicoal]

I think I'm the queen of ballet related anxiety dreams.

I've had two total non-anxiety types (one it was just a good class with a very involved combination - not one I've done in reality to my recollection - that I actually remembered when I woke up!).

The rest fall into the category of:

1) Lost backstage (actually happened briefly when I was 11, but was always a concern)

2) Lost in the studio

3) Can't get changed fast enough for class and miss the whole darned thing!

I am extremely geographically challenged and can get turned around in a building very easily. And surprisingly, I'm paranoid about being late so it doesn't surprise me this comes out in dreams.

[scoop]

Carbro, right you are. In fact, I was wearing Makarova's Other Dances costume in my dream!

[cargill]

I remember years ago, I dreamed I substituted for Antoinette Sibley in Swan Lake with Anthony Dowell. I was not a great success.

[Paul Parish]

Dream-like--

Once when I was living in England, back in abut 1970, and had recently seen Sibley and Dowell in "Swan lake" I was stoned at a party and we were all dancing to "Black Magic Woman" and I had a vision of Sibley and sort of "turned into" her-- it's one of the truly great experiences of my life, though it's sort of a hallucination.... kinesthetic identificatoin recollected and relived.

[perky]

Paul, I want to party with you!!!

[Mme. Hermine]

Well I once had a dream in which I was at a performance and instead of Angel Corella making an entrance it was Derek Jeter in tights...

[carbro]

I think if he had chosen a different path, Derek would have made one great danseur! And tall enough to partner some of the bigger gals!

I'm imagining his Apollo . . . . .

[dido]

I'm sure that this is a sign of something bad , but I woke up this morning convinced that carbro, perky, oberon and BW (why you guys? no idea) were all shouting at me to get up because "excessive indulgence" was the perfect way to translate the Greek name "Eurymachos" (which actually means something like "wide/broad fighter/fighting.")

[carbro]

Dido!!! I'm flattered that you thought it was me, but I'm sure I was still sound asleep when you were waking up. Pleading "not guilty" to your rude awakening.

[perky]

Dido, I am cranky as hell in the morning but it wasn't me, I swear!!!

[Gina Ness]

This thread is fun...I spent much of my life dancing professionally. I have taught now for years. You would think I would dream about ballet. Maybe even pleasant dreams about ballet. I really don't dream much about it at all! And when I do, it is usually something like: I can't find the stage or my shoes are missing or it's the wrong costume...well, you get the picture! Hmmm....

[jonellew]

Here's another anxiety-induced one: leaving on a plane for an audition or tour, I realize in flight that I've fogotten to pack all dance clothes and shoes. The rest of the dream is spend trying to figure out how I'm going to track down some serious dancewear fast and in a foreign city. Then I wake up and realize I've quit-- thank god!

[danceintheblood]

I barely made it out of my student years as a dancer - but occasionally I have wonderful dreams where I am dancing and I have the incredible ability to stay air borne when I leap, for quite extended periods. Almost like flying, but not quite. I always wake feeling wonderfully exhilerated!

[Treefrog]

I have ballet dreams all the time! They are good dreams, the kind where I can jump effortlessly and learn choreography on the spot. My performance dreams are limited to student recitals, but even those are way beyond me in real life.

There's also a variant where I'm hanging out backstage with Joffrey dancers. I guess dreaming about dancing with them is TOO far-fetched, although I think maybe I once dreamed about taking class with them or doing some social dancing.

I reserve my anxiety dreams for the good old-fashioned topics: taking exams when I haven't been to class all semester, and missing -- or arriving late to -- classes I am supposed to teach.

[bart]

This is a good topic, and I'm glad it's been revived.

As an elderly person new to ballet class, I wish I could report soaring leaps or liberating flights of "dance." All I seem to do in recent dreams is wave my arms around a lot. Gracefully, though, and in something that approximates the correct positions.

This, no doubt, is an artifice practiced by many over-the-hill dancers whose turn-out and knees have given out. (As Anne Bancroft demonstrates in Turning Point.)