Alone at La Bayadere.

Languid precision … Vadim Muntagirov
and Marianela Núñez.

I went to the ballet alone last Sunday.

La Bayadere.

For a person who doesn’t really like ballet, I find myself becoming more and more curious about dance.

The presenter introduced the ballet and then said something like, “Sit back and enjoy”. Her face was beaming and so filled with anticipation that I could not hardly want to do the same thing – sit back and enjoy.

The moment before the ballet starts I find myself overwhelmed as I acknowledge privilege – sitting in a warm space, watching ballet transmitted from Russia, somehow feeling the collective energy of everyone else in the theatre, people I don’t know but with whom I could have a productive conversation if any of them would stay and chat at the end of the performance.

I watch the synopsis on the screen, put there in at least 5 languages. I think about the reviews which have acknowledged that this is a period piece and its overlay of colonization is not one that can be admired. Still, there it is – the ballet with that classical scene from the heavens in the last act – the purest form of ballet some of the reviews say.

I couldn’t have had a better time. I stayed after the ballet and watched The Upside Man. I wouldn't have wanted to have missed that either. Fun! Arta