Royal New Zealand Ballet....

For a brief time, many years ago, I took ballet lessons. I never excelled at it, or any kind of dance, but I enjoyed my classes immensely. Since then I've had relatively few opportunities to see ballet live. I'm very happy to report, as you might expect, that we can see the Royal NZ Ballet all throughout the year here in Wellington!! Just another perk when you're living in the city. :)

Several weeks ago I kept seeing a poster around town advertising a ballet show called NYC: Three Short Ballets from the Big Apple. It sounded like fun so we hunted down the tickets, figured out where the theater was located and went this past weekend.

The locale was an old stage theater complete with several balconies. We found our way to our seats and took in the view. In a word: trippy. With no railings or dividers separating the rows from each other it almost appeared as though you could stand up and tumble straight down into the rows below the balconies. Um, I'm pretty sure it wasn't up to code but I guess they wanted to maintain the original intergrity of the place.

Trippiness aside the ballets were wonderful! Each distinct from the others but all very interesting and beautiful in their own way. The first was very traditional and we read in the program that it was 'technically demanding' - I thought to myself, "Aren't they all technically demanding?". Following the first program was a short break when you could leave your seat to get a drink or 'nibbles'. I was most surprised to see theater employees toting coolers of ice cream as if they were selling concessions up and down the rows at a baseball game. Was it always customary to serve ice cream at the ballet? :) Apparently, in NZ it is! After everyone was shooed back into their seats we settled in for the second ballet. I've never seen anything like it. For it was nothing like the traditional fare we had just watched in the first segment. This one opened on a stage set up to look like a dance studio. Instead of seeing just the stage with everything hidden behind the curtain you saw lights and the 'behind the scenes' aspects of a set that the audience never sees. The dancers were dressed as if they were coming into the studio for a day of practice. All black leotards and girls with wild hair, flying loose. The production looked like a work in progress with dancers running across the stage, costumes being wheeled about all while small groups focused on their dancing. Like I said, it was like nothing I'd ever seen.

With a second break in the action we set out to get some ice cream. We fought our way to the beginning of the line to pay and then returned to our seats for the third and final ballet. This one was somewhat a mixture of the traditional and not-so-traditional that we had seen in the first two. Except that this time there were several segments that showcased a single dancer at a time. Amazing!! I was particularly impressed with one of the principal dancers (from the US, actually) - she was so beautiful, a redhead. :)

I felt as though I was on the edge of my seat the entire time, trying desperately to soak up every bit of what I was seeing on the stage. Showcased in three very different ballets we saw the grace, poise and incredible athleticism that ballet dancers exude. Such an amazing experience - my words don't do it justice.