..condition, in this version at least, than just the specified young-man-driven-to-suicide-by-faithless-lover motif and of course the dancers themselves are simply spectacular, with Marie-Agnès Gillot imposingly impressive. I’ve watched it a few times now (I even showed it to Bill) and I’ve shed a few tears every time – it’s that sublime.
An interesting sidelight; when I was contemplating what on earth I was going to write about this month, I considered having a bit of a moan about school-kids’ smoking – hence the pic at the top of the page that shows the actual smoking paraphernalia on some school kids’ table at Choclatté just the other day. I was wondering how these ordinary middle-class kids could possibly make the decision to start smoking with all the negative information that’s available, that’s absolutely screaming at them from the packets for gawd’s sake. I decided against it in the end because the ballet theme occurred to me and, in any case, I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before.
Coincidentally, the ballet under discussion actually opens with the young man smoking a cigarette, which is compounded later by both dancers sharing a cigarette in a sexually charged way – and I have to say that it’s not only completely justifiable in context, but to excise it would be to lose an important element of the piece, not to mention it would be a triumph for the kind of bureaucratic wowserism that we’re all too familiar in this country. (Hmmm.. I wonder if the cigarettes remain in the more recent productions?)
Anyway, another Stvdio special that helped change my view of ballet was a collection of excerpts from the works of contemporary choreographer, Matthew Bourne, which included his homoerotic take on Swan Lake with a mostly male cast (sans the jokey rugby-team ensemble thank goodness).
And it’s not that Bourne doesn’t have a sense of humour, but his version of Swan Lake is very film noir and very focused. I saw a more traditional production of Swan Lake recently at the Arts Centre and although I thought I detected the Bourne influence, there wasn’t the intellectual rigour on display and it seemed timid and compromised by comparison – in fact, all the things about traditional ballet that didn’t interest me for all those years.
Maria got very excited when she saw that Sylvie Guillem was performing at Her Majesty’s as part of the Melbourne Festival and asked if I’d be interested in seeing her. I’d not heard of Ms Guillem before, but given that Maria seemed so excited I was happy to accompany her.
For some reason I thought we were heading for the Arts Centre again (where I’ve got the parking sorted) and when I realised we were actually headed for the middle of town I panicked a little bit as I didn’t want to be landed with an enormous impost for the simple pleasure of parking handily to the theatre – so we parked on the north side of the Carlton Gardens near the Melbourne Museum, which left us with a walk of perhaps a kilometre.
Maria set off lickety-split at a high rate of knots with me plodding along manfully beside her in my fairly new shoes that haven’t quite become comfortable around the heels yet. We made it to the theatre in time, time enough for Maria to make a visit to the restrooms before we wended our way to the very top of the very top circle - well, one row from the very top to be exact.
We waited. Ten minutes later still nothing – nothing but the growing suspicion that I should have also gone to the toilet. Just as I was about to duck out to the toilet the lights dimmed and Ms Guillem took to the stage. Or I imagined she did. We were not only very high up but at the extreme right end of the row and Ms Guillem was probably doing quite interesting things on the extreme left of the stage and consequently out of our vision entirely.
Then I saw her shadow – and after a couple more minutes there she was there in petite person. And then she wasn’t. And then she was. The girl in the seat in front of me had decided to sit on the very front of her seat and her head was blocking the middle of the stage almost entirely.
What to do? I checked behind me. Nobody there. Nobody that stupid I thought. So I started ducking and weaving round Ms big ‘ead and managed to catch most of the action that way.
A short intermission between the first and second acts. The big-headed girl in front of me relaxed back in her seat. I briefly thought of making a dash for the dunnies, but the lights dimmed again and we were in the second act. This time I enjoyed an uninterrupted view of the stage. I glanced at Maria. She was grinding her teeth and looking furious. It wasn’t the time for a discussion and anyway my bladder was in no mood for an argument, so when the lights came up for the intermission I hurtled down the stairs and luxuriated in a long, life-saving piiiiiiiiiiiiiiss.
When I came back up I noticed Maria wasn’t in her seat. I sat down and I saw she was talking earnestly with one of the attendants. She came back still looking grim and explained there was a girl a couple of rows down who had her iPhone on for the entire first half (what was she there for?) which had been annoying and distracting for both her and the two women seated next to her.
She wanted the attendant to speak to the girl but I suggested it would be better if she did it herself – which she did (most politely) and thankfully the girl was most obliging and put away her phone and we settled down to enjoy the last part of the show without any further distractions.
At this point I have to say that Sylvie Guillem’s dancing was truly amazing. I don’t think I’ve seen such a sustained demonstration of superior gymnastic and balletic technique before – her transitions in particular seemed to me, as a ballet novice anyway, ingenious and brilliantly executed, and her leg lifts, (there must be a ballet term for them) repeatedly defied gravity, as normal people experience it anyway, and defied it with almost casual panache. It seems flippant perhaps, but as a former karate student I’d have loved to see her doing some martial arts’ moves with multiple attackers – I know she would be sensational.
After the final curtain call we drifted downstairs in a reverie. Maria picked up a programme as we left and gasped. Did I know how old Ms Guillem was? Forty-eight!
As I hobbled back to the van all I was aware of was the pain of my blistered heels. In an attempt to distract myself I idly wondered about what drives dancers to continue to put themselves through the drastic physical regime required to maintain that level of unbelievable excellence. It’s entirely beyond me.