Oh, guys! Oh, guys! You know how my lifetime project is to make a classical tutu embellished in beetle wing embroidery? Well, I just found this incredible tiara online:
Did you just DIE? It's part of a parure (set with tiara, necklace, and earrings) made in 1884 or 1885 for Lady Granville from beetles given to her husband (the foreign secretary at the time) by the ambassador of Portugal.
On a different note: I am in the process of moving right now, and I am feeling decidedly low on energy as well as time. So, I apologize for the lateness of this announcement, but I want to thank Mercie et Chatons and The Traveling Dancer for nominating me for a Liebster Award. The "award" is actually not an award at all, it's a sort of meme, a pay-it-forward kind of way to help promote blogs that you read and love. I have basically no time (or brain power) to address it right now, but I will get around to it, I swear. Right about the time I can fish my actual computer out from behind the pile of boxes that is, in theory, supposed to transform a rather stuffy bedroom in to a sewing studio. I will keep you posted!
A couple of times now (pretty sure it's going to be in the recital) we've done this combination across the floor. It starts with a standard set of chassé-sauté arabesques and then all hell breaks loose and you bring one foot in to coupé derriere and then some piqué craziness happens and... well god only knows.
But today, in the lumber aisle at the hardware store (we're moving. I spend like ten hours a week at the hardware store, these days.) while I was waiting for my husband and the wood-cutting dude to finish their tête-à-tête, I sort of veeeerrrrrry slooooooooowly cranked it out. No one was watching me, I feel like I should mention that. Then I did it on the other side. You know, so I would be even.
For the last few weeks we've been using a song during barre work that is excruciatingly familiar. You know the kind, the kind that you KNOW you know, but it hovers right off the edge of your memory like a word you can only remember the first letter of. Compounding the problem is that ballet class music is usually tailored specifically for barre or center work, going so far as to shorten or rework songs to fit specific exercises (I honestly couldn't tell you which exercise we've been using it for, in much the same way that I honestly cannot tell you what type of plug the bathtub in my last apartment has, even though I used it less than a week ago). The tempo was changed quite a bit, and that can make a song sound like something entirely different (not having any lyrics made it tricky, too).
I know that my teacher uses a lot of songs from musicals when she's in the mood for it (she choreographs musicals for a local student theater) so I was searching my mind's vast catalog of show tunes (I, admittedly, also work at a musical theater. I can tell you two things about it: 1- through-composed musicals are proof of an evil entity at work in the world, and 2- there are a LOT of sex jokes in old musicals.) and coming up trumps.
Tonight, finally, she mentioned the name of the song: "The Man I Love" by Gershwin. AH HA! I knew it was something I recognized! Not from musicals, though. No, I recognize it from my collection of Billie Holiday tunes (I freakin' LOVE Lady Day) that played near-constantly during a certain period in my life. I have always been rather fond of the sincere simplicity of the lyrics in songs of the era. Simplicity you couldn't (or shouldn't, more like) get away with now for fear of sounding trite and precious, cliché and condescending. Can you tell I don't listen to a lot of popular music these days?
Now that I know what song it is I can totally sing you the entire thing by heart. Here is the version I am familiar with. The barre version is an up-tempo piano number, naturally.
I'm posting this because it is tangentially related to RP (clinical depression is a symptom of rheumatism, no one knows why but there is probably some genome craziness involved. I am currently medicated to the hilt, which became necessary when my pain meds made me manic, but I have been medicated previously, as well) and because I think it's important enough to share with you. Everyone should read this post by Allie of Hyperbole and a Half, especially if you have never experienced clinical depression. After my very worst bout with what is slightly-chronic depression the only explanation I could come up with is this:
Happiness and sadness are flip sides of the same coin. Depression is like paying with a $20 bill, and not getting any change.
Click the image below to read Allie's take on it:
While toodling around on Google Patents a while back I ran across this weird thing:
which is supposed to be the internal support structure of some kind of bizarre pointe shoe. And all I could think was "good grief, how the heck is that supposed to work?"
I never looked at the inventor's name or gave it any thought, really.
This afternoon I was looking for an image online, of a ballerina "floating" while holding a balloon. And one search term led to another and I learned that this insane contraption (and I mean that in the nicest possible way) was invented by none other than famous edutainment personality Bill Nye.
Well. There you go. You learn something new every day.
And now I wish that someone actually produced this crazy thing. Because, as a ballet and science enthusiast, I would totally buy some crazy Bill Nye shoes.
In the past month I have attempted to sit down and write a review/synopsis/bitchy rant about watching La Esmeralda several times, but to properly express my feelings about it the post always ends up about ten chapters long. It would be faster to WATCH the silly thing than to read my synopsis!
For the record:
It took me a while to find a full-length version of it, because apparently it's rarely performed that way these days. Mostly people stage shortened one-act versions. Am I the only one who gets kind of annoyed when they go to see a ballet and it's super short and preceded by some plotless razzmatazz Balanchine thing? Anyway, I digress.
Luckily, in Russia it is actually performed in it's entirety. So! I found a pretty Bolshoi version (starring Natalia Osipova, who is basically a ballet rock star and now I see why) and settled in for three acts.
It's basically the story of the hunchback of Notre Dame (Notre Dame De Paris) but with a weirdly happy ending attached to it. Which was the part that bugged me. I mean, okay, I can see why you might possibly want to make the ending a little more upbeat than the source material (AND THEY ALL DIE THE END) but it basically ends with Esmeralda being reunited with the TOTAL D BAG she was infatuated with who broke her heart (and then tried to get in her pants anyway). And the only nice character, the dorky but sincere poet that is in love with Esmeralda, gets totally shafted. Not even fair. He was the only one distraught when Esmeralda was being tortured. He was the only one who tried to cheer her up after D Bag broke her heart. He even slept in the barn with the (actual live) goat for her. You know what, Esmeralda? Your priorities are all screwed up.
Anyway, if you want to watch it, this is the one I watched (the acts are all separate videos). Like I said, Osipova as Esmeralda is gorgeous and brilliant. Her dance of dejection when she finds out D Bag is fooling around with another lady is sadness in a bubble. Completely heart-wrenching.
But seriously. That guy was a D bag.
