Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Get on it, Choreographers!

Okay, okay. So maybe I have strange ideas, sometimes. Recently our local professional ballet company was playing around on Facebook and asked it's fans to throw out ideas for any story they would like to see translated in to ballet. No matter how crazy! And so I said "OOH OOH OOH The Prisoner!" because the Prisoner is probably my very favorite TV show of all time ever in the whole history of the entire world. I don't mean that horrible mini-series thing that ran a couple of years ago and was awful, terrible, stupid, horrible, and also crap. I mean Patrick McGoohan reveling in the pure masturbatory pleasure of being allowed to do whatever you want with a beautiful location and an audience that was probably taking a certain number of mind altering substances. Amazing. And hear me out, here. Because I think it would be a really awesome showcase for a strong male lead. I am always a little sad to see male dancers relegated to standing around in unflattering tights holding on to a ballerina while she does all the interesting stuff. Really *good* ballet uses both sexes really well, you know? And when was the last time you saw a ballet that was about a DUDE, am I right?
And the costumes would be all mod and adorable and the sets would be neo-classical-slash-crazy-drug-trip and it would have all manner of ridiculous, dramatic, carefully planned music (note how the music for the final act paraphrases "Dem Bones" at appropriate moments). And the ending would just be a total trainwreck and there would probably be a gorilla suit, and no one would leave the theater having any idea what just happened. IT WOULD BE SO GREAT, GUYS.
And so that was what I commented. And you could pretty much hear the crickets chirping before someone broke the awkward pause and suggested yet another Alice in Wonderland.
Pssh! People have no imagination!

4 comments:

  1. Death of a Salesman...by Arthur Miller. It would be a sublime ballet!!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ooh! I love the idea of creating ballets from unusual source material. A little forward thinking is *just* what the dance world needs!

      Delete
  2. I agree! Go ahead and enter that idea and see if they take it! If not...try Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill!

    ReplyDelete
  3. By the way, I totally agree about seeing more male leads and more male dancing - their jumps are incredible and I think something that evens the male and female roles out would be great.

    ReplyDelete