Romeo & Juliet

Today, I saw the Romeo & Juliet ballet performed by the Pennsylvania Ballet. Overall, I found the experience boring except for when Romeo and Juliet danced together-- then it was breathtaking. I was surprised by all the character/folk dancing and pantomime involved in this production, elements which I'd read were a major part of 19th century Romantic Era ballets.

Paris' buttocks were gargantuan. Like slabs of concrete dressed in white tights. Attached to these slabs of concrete was a pair of big hunkin' thighs. How was he able to close his fifths with such big hunkin' thighs?

As the story unfolded before my eyes, it suddenly occurred to me that Juliet is a pretty ballsy teenager. It takes balls to take a scary potion that's supposed to bring you an inch away from death. Stupid!-- but ballsy. I wondered how many in the audience had loved with the intensity that Juliet loved, and whether they thought she was stupid or ballsy. During intermission, I browsed the program and found the following dedication from one principal dancer to another, her husband:

My bounty is as boundless as the sea
My love as deep; The more I give to thee,
The more I have, For both are infinite.

He had proposed to her onstage after one of their performances together.

It was a curious experience to be a part of the audience after 9 months of being the performer for an imaginary one. I was now the conscious observer that gave directional meaning to the dancer's movements and poses. She set her arabesques, croises, effaces, and ecartes with respect to me and my fellow audience members. As I'd learned in class, ballet combinations can take on an infinite number of pathways, but logic dictates that only a few of those options will actually work. The observer (the audience member) is a key driver of that logic.

I love this about ballet. On the one hand, it's full of ideals that dancers strive for like the perfect first arabesque, or creating perfect lines and circles. Ideal beauty. On the other hand, it is a heavily observer-dependent art. Without a conscious observer, the movements take on meaning only up to a certain point-- positioning various parts of one's own body in relation to each other-- and past that point, positions cease to be defined. To maintain meaning, the dancer must also position her body with respect to an external viewer separate from herself, who maintains a separate, opposing perspective. In this way, ballet does not exist in a vacuum like Platonic ideals; rather, it is firmly grounded in reality. It is a human experience.

But I must say, it is a lot more fun to do ballet than to watch a ballet. It bothers me that I can't see things up close, like the facial expressions, the veins on the neck, the abnormally arched feet, the sweeping hand. Everything was just so minuscule and that much less impressive as seen from the distant crowd.