wednesday.

[sunfright]

So. Since today has been crap so far, haha, I've tried to be gentle, nurturing and understanding towards myself. As usual, that means ballet, because ballet does something for me that neither literature, musicals or any other word-based form of entertainment does. It's visceral, hits right in the solar plexus and gives me an actual physical response, because all the feelings are shown in body and interpreted in body, too.

So, I've binge-watched not 1 or 2, but 3 versions of one of my favourite ballets, a short 20 minute piece called The Moor's Pavane by Jose Limon from the late 1940's I believe. It's based on Shakespeare's Othello and is the joined effort of only four dancers on stage, two male dancers as Othello (red-purple) and Iago (yellow-green) and two female dancers as Desdemona (white) and Emilia (orange-red). It's minimalistic and some would call it dated today, but I still think it's one of the most powerful choreographies there is. The already very tragic story is made all the more tragic in this minimalist interpretation when danced by the right dancers.

It is danced to music by Purcell.

Ever since I saw it first, I have been enamoured with the idea of the Royal Danish Ballet taking on this work. Their strong tradition for mime and story-telling would do it justice, I think, though more recently I'm no longer sure I think we have the right dancers for it. Five years ago I could've cast, like, two casts myself, but the strengths of the current line-up might not be as good a fit for it anymore.

Anyway, there are two full versions of the ballet on YouTube, danced by the same company, Jose Limon's own, both times. I personally like the one from 1955 the best, because you can see how the choreography has developed since the 1949 original version, which is here re-mastered in colour.

Watch on YouTube

Besides the above versions, half the ballet in a gala version performed by four Paris Opera Ballet dancers can be found here. This performance is one I have on DVD and my initial introduction to the ballet. It is a gem, a true masterpiece, four very strong mimic dancers who showcase the emotion and the steps equally well. I'm really sad the ending isn't on YouTube, because it has me in tears every time. However, the beginning is also very good and worth a watch, especially since you can watch the rest in one of the other two linked versions.

The DVD it's from is called Divine Dancers, filmed at a gala in Prague a long enough time ago that Polina Semionova was just a baby ballerina and Daniil Simkin looked like a 15 year old and the full gala isn't that interesting, but this piece is the heart of it and understandably got a roaring ovation.

Listening to the music today and watching the performance three times over, I got an idea for an alternative NaNoWriMo project that I might pursue instead, depending on how things progress, but there'll be more about that later today, when I make my update.

Conclusion: if you have 20 minutes and want to treat yourself, watch this. If you know your Othello, you also know what warnings it comes with, but I'll say it anyway, it features violence against and murder of women and implied suicide.