Tonight

When I read the stories about Stravinski's ballets, I can't help but slip into fantasy. People rioted over The Rite of Spring. The people involved in the productions had personalities too big for reality. They made bad decisions, and they did what they wanted for the sake of a moment's passion, a flight of fancy, or a vision so particular only they could understand it. But with this pertinacity they were able to hound down the dominant artistic ideas of the time and wedge in their own ideas. Over time these people become legends.

I can't imagine that these people would be particularly pleasant to be around, but I want to imagine what they were like. I want to find it in their work. Now Ballet Austin is performing The Firebird as their season opener. And I get to see what remains of a great personality over a few generations of production.

Tonight was Ballet Austin's Studio Spotlight. This is a rehearsal that the public is allowed to attend, and that Ballet Austin uses as a way to inform about a few different aspects of the work. It's also free, and the closest I will ever get to people performing ballet.

Michelle Martin opened the performance with a lecture on Ballet. Along with the firebird BA is performing Act II of Swan Lake. Accordingly, much of this lecture concerned different ideas of duality. Tonight's performance was held inside the Butler Dance Education Center in the AustinVentures StudioTheatre. The only other time I was ever in that room was during the KVRXplosion SXSW showcase last year, and the lighting was a lot different. There were also piles of people everywhere in different states of intoxication and Red Bull abuse dealing with the fact of the under supply of alcohol, the broken bathrooms, and the goonish security--themselves dealing with their lack of preparedness and a crowd who was quickly turning to destroying everything expensive and breakable in sight in outrage at the complete lack of preparation for the basic necessities of a crowd that large.

After I came out of my Red Bull flashback I tuned into the Michelle Martin discussing the duality of dance: A dancer is a resource and a tool for a choreographer; A dancer is an artist. This is question of organization, or stage and fame. A choreographer can only dream without dancers, and a dancer is supposed to turn over her dreams to the artistic interest of a choreographer. How do you make them both happy? Michelle didn't answer that. All that she said was that some of the conflict in dance was in consoling the needs of both of these people. Michelle was a dancer in several dance companies and eventually became a dancer with Ballet Austin in 1991. In 2000 she became associate artistic director. I suppose this is one way to appease the tension.

Her lecture wound around to the topic of the essential qualities of dance. She spoke about the qualities that can be learned, and the qualities that had to come natural for a great dancer. This was very interesting, but it ran long, so I looked around to see what other people came to the spotlight.

Most of the audience was professional, older people who came a little dressed up. There were a few younger people in the audience, but they appeared to be aspiring dancers themselves.

While she spoke the dancers were visible in two corners of the stage on either side of her. This was a kind of exposure to me. As I said, the only time that I have seen ballerinas before has been from balcony seating while they were shrouded in the mystique of a large venue, costumes and elaborate sets. Here they were in rehearsal clothes under florescent lighting--naked, in a way. I don't have a vested interest in ballet--I just like how it looks: the control of motions, the artistry of movement--so this was the treasure of the experience. The dancers were a flurry of movement. They stretched and went through steps, both aware that they were on show, but not performing, so relaxed. Some had more attractive faces than others, but they couldn't be ugly. There were some who had bodies that I would expect from ballerina while others were knobby. They all had muscular thighs, but some were more muscular overall than others.

Eventually they began dancing. Swan Lake is a large ballet with many dancers on the floor and a focus on a central pair. I don't like this form of dancing as much because I like to concentrate on the movements one dancer, or the syncopation of a group. I might be missing something. Full matching costumes hide some mistakes, so does a thousand feet. Not that there were mistakes, but the array of clothes made watching them confusing. These outfits didn't hide muscles, and there are many ways to be impressed by a dancer. Being that close to one, for example. Seeing them go through the poses, hold themselves up through will, rather than through some spirit of night and darkness and large spaces, as it seems on the stage.

It didn't satisfy my urge to see them perform, and it wasn't supposed to. AB is smart. It just opened up some part of the performance to me that I wouldn't have noticed otherwise. So now I can bring with me the story of the performance and the magic of the performance, and keep somewhere in my head the reality of putting one together.