An Afternoon at the Ballet

Saturday morning I received a phone call whilst reading my book from my friend Tonya. She was going to see Ballet West's performance of Cinderella that afternoon, and would I like to go with. I thought about it for a few seconds, hesitating as I wasn't sure I was the type of person to enjoy the ballet. But I love watching dancing shows and stuff so why not ballet. I hadn't really been exposed to it very much. I had been to a free performance given at the University where the dance students were showcasing their pieces which ranged from ballet to modern dance. I remember really liking the ballet portion but was it just the use of music by Edith Piaf, which I went and bought a c.d. right after? Now that I think about it I did see a ballet performance of Romeo and Juliet when I was in middle school or junior high but I don't remember what I thought about it. Probably, thought it was interesting but more enjoyed seeing it performed as it was meant to be as I done a few times before in movies and at the festival.

With all these thoughts, I decided to say yes and promptly bought my ticket over the phone. Unfortunately seats were filling fast and Tonya and I didn't get seats together but that's okay. She picked me up for a quick and inexpensive (my idea, as I had just dropped a pretty penny for the ballet, I'm cheap and I'm okay with it) lunch at Chili's. It was so fun catching up on work stories and mutual friend stories and whatever else we talked about. It's so easy to talk to Tonya because I don't have to worry about what I'm going to say to please the listener. We've been friends for a long time.

Then we barely made it to the theatre in time to get our tickets and get in the door to find our seats in the dark before they would have made us wait for intermission. The dancing was lovely and the two step-sisters were played by men and were very funny being extremely ungraceful in their movements, falling down several times. They even stayed in character through the curtain call. There were lots of children in the audience so I think they found those parts enjoyable. When Cinderella and the Prince danced together it was so beautiful or "just lovely" as the ladies sitting next to Tonya kept saying over and over.

Cons to the performance:

Clapping. I never know when it is okay to clap in ballet performances and there was one time when the prince and cinderella had danced together that they took bows for the audience before the rest of the story continued. I assume that is normal but it did take you out of the play which was a little annoying. I was glad they didn't do it again when they danced together for the second time. Also, people tended to clap when some amazing movements were made by the dancers or great successions of movement like jumps and turns and whatever but again at times it took away from the feeling of the dancing. Luckily it didn't happen too often in the wrong places to cause that much of an annoyance.

In this version of the play, Cinderella's father is still alive but he is seems to be a very weak character because he lets the step-sisters tease him until Cinderella comes to his rescue and then stands by looking sadly on as the sisters then turn their malice onto Cinderella. I did in the beginning sympathize with the step-sisters a little. It would be hard to not be as pretty or as accomplished as a step-sister, constantly overlooked. I don't say that as a good excuse for their behavior but I understand where it comes from.

People walking out of the theatre as the final curtain was coming down and then even more filing out down the aisles during the curtain call. I don't think I had ever seen anything as bad as that before. There is usually a few here and there that do it, anxious to get to their cars and beat the traffic, but this time the aisles were full of people as the rest of us are clapping for dancers as they take their bows. I thought it the rudest thing.

photos taken from BalletWest.org and are by Quinn Farley