So a few months back I got an email from NY City Center announcing a four-week only engagement of Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake. I immediately bought tickets. I’d deal with the fact that NY City Center is in New York (obviously) and I am in Los Angeles at a later time. More importantly, how would I sell Boy Swans to CarBoy? Normally CarBoy is pretty game to take me to the ballet, there is, after all, the promise of pizza after the show, and Swan Lake has been his favorite – he likes “the mechanics” of the flock of swans.

Me: We’re going to New York to see Swan Lake

CarBoy: Again?

Me: This one is different?

CarBoy: How?

Me: The swans are boys.

CarBoy: I don’t get it.

Me: Boys. The swans are boys.

CarBoy:~ confused silence

Me: Don’t worry about it, you’ll like it, and anyway there will be pizza when it’s over.

CarBoy: Cool

We headed out to City Center on Thursday, October 21^st. With seats front and center, it was all I could do to sit still waiting for the curtain to go up. And when it did, the velvet curtain rose to reveal a scrim with a single swan in flight painted upon it. It was so beautiful that I was riveted by the scrim all on it’s own. It was obvious the music would be taped, as there was no orchestra pit. That is always a little disappointing because there is nothing quite so luscious, so decadent, and delicious as ballet accompanied with a live orchestra. And I will admit, there were a few moments when my radar ears caught a little static in the sound system but the reality is that as much as it would have been wonderful to have, live music wasn’t a deal breaker for this production.

My Boy Swan for the evening was Jonathan Ollivier. I’m not really very familiar with his work as a dancer but most of the reviews I read were of performances that featured the other Boy Swan, Richard Winsor. My prince was Dominic North, who was receiving wonderful reviews. Now let me also state for the record that I read reviews, but I don’t put all that much stock in them. Reviews are impossibly subjective and victim to a whole number of contexts and sub-contexts, so I read them but don’t necessarily believe them. Back to ballet… Dominic North was indeed really wonderful as the Prince, innocence without melodrama and sympathetic without being overtly pathetic. Shelby Williams played the girlfriend to the Prince and she was Hy-ster-i-cal with a capital H. I loved her absolutely. Her pantomime was over-the-top in all the right places. She was a terrific dopey blond Barbie doll complete with pink poof dress.

Where to begin about Jonathan Ollivier! I loved him. It’s hard to even begin to describe how beautifully Mr. Ollivier played the role; his juxtaposition of characteristics was simply perfect. So instead of just gushing, I guess the best way to talk about Mr. Ollivier’s performance is to talk about the ballet. I love the audacity of Matthew Bourne to take such liberties with such a classic, well-known, and well-loved ballet and tweak it so bruskly as this. MB’s Swan Lake is both extreme and subtle, wacky and well balanced. I think it appeals to me because it is literary at its best; the story is rich and well layered with symbolism and syllogism. It is a ballet that you can discuss for hours afterward, not just the staging and the dancing… which I love to do, don’t get me wrong, but the story! Which, let’s be honest, classical ballet is not known for its literary strength of story and character.

MB’s Swan Lake is thick and fraught and funny and beautiful and moving and sickening and theatrical and classic and creative and… I could keep going on for hours, in fact, I did… over pizza.

The reality of Mr. Ollivier’s performance is that he met all the needs of MB’s Swan Lake, beautiful, fraught, sexy, sickening, theatrical, tragic, comical… he was mesmerizing throughout. His dancing was big and lush. In the ballroom scene, he practically danced right out of his leather sexypants, ripping the rear end seam! His swan was hostile and angry, moody and melancholy; when he tore through the bed to save the prince, he was equally savage and tragic.

CarBoy was equally impressed, according to him; of all the ballets that I’ve dragged him to, uh, that he’s accompanied me to, he’d never seen dancers work so hard. He imagined that the entire flock collapsed right at the wings. Something that I’ve always loved is the sound of a flock of swans on pointe trying to dance quietly on shoes that have been beaten against cement to soften the sound, only to hear the thud, thud, thud, thud, thud as they enter and exit the stage… boy swans do not disappoint with the crash of bare feet coming down hard and fast, running onto the stage and running off, the sound was fantastic.

The fact that this production doesn’t come around too often is indeed a shame, as I do believe that I could happily see it all over again. And so I did… stay tuned and I’ll tell all about Swan Lake with Richard Winsor as Boy Swan!

Inspired by http://rhymeswithdarling.blogspot.com I’m going to engage in a exercise of self analysis and reflection. I think it’s a good way to honestly look at the health & body situation both good and bad in my attempt to change things.

From feet to head, then:

– Feet: American size 6.5 or European 36.5, which is pretty small. I actually have good feet, Giselle feet, so my toes only have a slight taper from big toe to small toe. I have strong arches and narrow heels, which can sometimes be a problem with fitting shoes.  And the toes of the left foot have begun to creak when flexed, it’s a little unnerving as this is a new thing, but I keep on flexing them anyway.

– Lower legs: I’ve always had really strong ankles. My mother claims its because I from the moment I began to walk (early) I work Buster Brown little walker booties until I was about 5 years old. Most kids only wear “walker booties” a year or so. Apparently I liked them and my mom was concerned about my feet developing well. My legs are really short but then that’s pretty much all of me, short. They are also still pretty muscular, I’m a little bit vain when it comes to legs as they’ve often been complimented. I have a small triangular scar on the right calf. I leaned up against the hot chrome trim on a VW bug when I was a teenager.

– Knees: My right knee now sports an ugly scar from kluztiness. I tripped over a toolbox and went skidding knees first across a cheap rug in a hotel room at a car show this past summer. I really thought I broke something but turns out, I’m pretty sturdy. Sometimes they pop during warm up exercises.

– Upper Legs: The thighs are heavier than I remember and than I’d like. Flexibility is not as good as it used to be and that makes the thighs unhappy as sometimes they really, really want to go for a run.

– Hips: Hips. (insert sigh here) If I had an internal clock which signaled child bearing imminence, I would be in good shape as I have child bearing hips unfortunately there was a miscommunication between my hips and my hormones. When I was thin, I actually like my hip bone structure, but as I haven’t seen them in a couple of years, it’s only a pleasant memory.

– Butt: Yeap, I have one. Latin genes can be cruel.

– Torso: I have the shortest torso on the planet. I am unable to wear a belt as there is nowhere to put it. I have an innie bellybutton and it’s pierced. Don’t ask. I was young once. I now have a tummy, which I hate. When I work out, I get a violin stomach, which I love, being a violinist it seems appropriate. Everything is pretty soft around the middle right now. The bain of my existence – the chest. Even when I lose weight, there they are, the girls, up front and center. Some women have paid a lot of money for a set like this but I have to tell you, its no picnic. Like I said, Latin genes can be cruel.

– Arms: My hands are small. The fingers of my left hand are still very strong and I the tips still a little calloused – fingering hand. The 2^nd and 3^rd fingers of my right hand want to stick together and curl in to touch my thumb – bowing hand. I still keep my nails short and unpolished or just clear polish. I also have a serious writers callous on the inside of my 2^nd right hand finger. This comes from years and years of writing without a computer. I wear my grandmother’s wedding band and my own wedding band as a set. My grandmother’s is art deco hand engraved platinum, amazingly thin and beautiful. Mine is a single row of tiny diamonds, amazingly thin and beautiful. I never, never take them off. My wrists are also very strong but do tend to pop and need to be flexed often. My upper arms have gotten soft and that really annoys me because I used to love to wear strapless numbers, but not so much anymore.

– Shoulders: My shoulders always end up around my ears. I’m usually cold, so I hunch when I sit. I also carry stress right where the neck meets the scapula, so the shoulders just inch up bit by bit, until a masseuse gets them back down where they belong.

– Neck & Back: Like the rest of me, my neck is short. I hate my back upon the discovery of back fat. Yeap, back fat. I also suffered from bacne as a teenager and am self conscious of mild scarring. My back loves warmth and requires stretching several times a day otherwise it begins to protest with stress knots.

– Face: Where to begin. I have a round face, it’s the cheeks. I have chipmunk cheeks. Thanks, Dad. My face is fairly symmetrical, forehead not special. Ample dark eyebrows, long but extremely straight eyelashes that resist curling with a passion. My eyes are Latin almond shaped and the color of dark chocolate with darkest black pupils. I’m not a fan of my nose although it’s gotten its share of compliments. It’s rounded and turns up at the end. My chin is unremarkable. I have full Hispanic lips that don’t turn up to a smile easily. My polite (fake) smile is usually more of a flat line than an actual smile shape. But when I do smile, I have a series of dimples. Six to be exact, but it looks like four, two on each side of my mouth, deep into my cheeks. In fact, the deeper set have a smaller set of dimples immediately next to them. I’ve had to endure decades of being referred to as “dimples.” My teeth are small but straight. I’m growing out a mop of dark brown hair. It’s very straight and likes to just lay there. I get a few grays when I’m very stressed, this has been the case since high school.

– Brain: I am a cerebral human being. Most days I love it, some days I hate it. My brain has actually been studied, hooked up to monitors, watched on computer screens. I don’t know if it helped anyone. It made me paranoid for a while, I was a teenager at the time and kids are cruel, smart kids can be the cruelest. I think fast and in multi-dimensions. I scare some people. I hate that I remember with vivid accuracy most everything, except for people’s names, birthday’s, favorite colors, if they have children… I’m not always the most cuddly person. I can read several books at a time while moving along the aisles in a bookstore. It sounds cool but think of how that sort of cancels out the idea of lying out at the beach leisurely reading the latest fiction novel.

– Heart: Despite what I’ve said or what you’ve heard, I have a heart. I’m just selfish with it. Because when I love, I love deeply and that is always painful. Loving deeply means loving unselfishly and with abandon. I will protect the ones I love with myself as the shield and I will take on an unwinnable battle with such fervor as to frighten a Spartan. So to save on wear and tear, I keep it well guarded and often hidden from plain sight.