FANNISH FIFTY #1.

It's May, now. Perfect time to start a challenge that was supposed to kick off in January, hahaha. I still have time. Let's see what I can make of it.



Mostly, this is not going to be about the ballet, NAPOLI. Mostly, this is going to be about my experience of the ballet, NAPOLI, which may or may not be two distinctive things.

Back in 2010-ish, the Royal Danish Ballet released a filmed recording of their new production of NAPOLI that premiered in 2008/2009-ish. It was right around the time I got into ballet and started following the company closely, but for various reasons, I didn’t get to see NAPOLI on stage until 2018, not even when Susanne Grinder, my big ballet idol, danced Teresina, the lead ballerina role, in 2011/2012. I did, however, buy the DVD and have seen it many, many times. It’s not the best ballet recording there is, the editing job is weird and ~artistic~, but it does feel like an old Italian film and that fits the mood of this restaging of an old Bournonville classic. The cast is stellar and especially the second act + the pas de six (which I will get more into later) are worth the purchase, tbh.

After all, this little DVD was the reason my co-author and I started working on the anthology “Det trækker op til storm / A Storm Is A-brewing” around 2016-ish. We both loved the story of the ballet a lot and could see so many ways to expand on it and dive into it, so we did. We basically wrote a large selection of fanfic for the ballet, NAPOLI, in Hübbe’s restaging. And self-published it. Don’t get me started on the legal woes of that, but we certainly didn’t care and no one has complained since.

I was most enamoured with the pas de six, the bright colours and the carefree dancing, whereas A., my co-author, was very taken with the second act and the ruler of the sea, Golfo. Over the course of two years, we wrote our separate universes in prose and in verse and eventually combined them into one book of more than 300 pages, divided into 3 acts like the ballet itself. My corner stones in this collection were the three short stories, “Gråblå / Greyish Bluish”, “Sommergul / Mistress of Sunshine” and “Brændt orange / Burnt Orange”, about three of the unnamed pas de six variation girls, the girl wearing blue, the girl wearing orange and the girl wearing yellow. And yes, all three stories are highly sapphic in nature.

For this Fannish Fifty entry, I am going to focus on the girl wearing blue (I’ve called her Francesca) and the girl wearing yellow (I’ve called her Adelina). I originally wrote the story, “Greyish Bluish” about the girl in blue, and “Mistress of Sunshine” is a continuation of it, following her through her brief summer fling with Adelina, the girl in yellow. Until now, I’ve only had my own translation of “Greyish Bluish” lying around in my writing journal, but for the purpose of getting started on my Fannish Fifty adventure, I decided to translate “Mistress of Sunshine”, too. They can be read separately, but if you like Francesca after having read “Mistress of Sunshine”, I highly advice you to read “Greyish Bluish” as well, to learn of her origins.

The reason I ended up writing about this exact combination of girls is partly favouritism and partly because I think they mirror each other, theme-wise. The four dresses on the girls in the pas de six are arranged after seasons (summer/yellow, spring/green, fall/orange and winter/blue), so Adelina and Francesca represent the ever-present contrast of summer/winter which is always interesting to work with. The music is also contrasting, with a certain sweetness and warmth in the yellow variation and a crisp liveliness in the blue one (if you ask me, not a music major or anything). Lastly, Susanne Grinder and Caroline Baldwin who dance the blue and the yellow respectively are two of my favourites and remind me of each other in style. Both very musical and elegant dancers. I could vividly imagine their personas in this story.

Below I leave some links to explore this ballet more, but as always, I will highly recommend buying the performance. It is well worth the money, not just for the pas de six. It's available in full and for free on the Royal Danish Theatre's streaming site, but I think you have to access it through a Danish IP address to be able to view it. Very sad about that.

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+ MISTRESS OF SUNSHINE
+ GREYISH BLUISH
+ VIDEO: PAS DE SIX + TARANTELLA FROM NAPOLI
+ VIDEO: YELLOW VARIATION, OLD AND NEW STAGING
+ VIDEO: BLUE VARIATION, OLD AND NEW STAGING
+ VIDEO: SUSANNE GRINDER, BLUE VARIATION