sunfright | wednesday.

I didn't know what to do with myself when I woke up (early, it was four am) this morning. I have been kind of erratic the past couple of days and I was preparing myself for another day of the same, of feeling bad about being unproductive, of feeling anxious at February approaching, etc. However, after a very nice visit from my social worker where we turned some thought processes over and gave me a new perspective on things, I have actually been able to exist today in the feeling of not doing anything in particular and not working towards anything specific.

Just being.

It's been nice. And as it turned out, once I allowed myself to do that, I actually and quite naturally found myself able to pursue some of the things I love to do. I read over a few more scenes in my fic for

smallfandombang and am now almost through chapter 1. Reading that fic, which is a fanfic for the ballet, Napoli, gave me an urge to rewatch the ballet itself and I sat down to stream it from the Royal Danish Ballet's website where I could also steal a whole bunch of caps from, so I capped the hell out of Alexandra Lo Sardo's Teresina and updated my roleplay journal for the character with new icons. It felt very productive.

And here I am now, working on a small introduction to my love for Lo Sardo's portrayal of this character, my love for the ballet as a whole and some nostalgic navelgazing about my time as a habitual balletomane.

Napoli is the only ballet by the "current" RDB (and by current, I mean anno 2014, but many current stars are featured in it) that I have on DVD. Unlike companies like the Paris Opera and Royal of London, the RDB has never made it an art to release their performances for consumption outside the theatre. Probably, they don't have the funding to do it, but it makes me all the happier that this little gem, Nikolaj Hübbe's re-imagining of Bournonville's Napoli, did make it out. And that I had the sense to buy it back then.

Due to a writing project I did some five years ago, it is the most watched ballet DVD in my whole collection and I have literally written hundred of pages of fiction inspired by it. That is how much I love it. Still, it wasn't until 2018 (the DVD came out in 2015, I think) that I got to see it live with my own two eyes. Then, it was with my favourite girl, Holly Dorger, as Teresina and my favourite guy, Jonathan Chmelensky as Gennaro, and although it was wild experiencing such a dream casting for my first exposure, I will always return to the DVD for its Teresina. Alexandra Lo Sardo.

You can see a clip of her here.

Alexandra Lo Sardo rose to prominence as a soloist with the RDB around the time I got into the art form and started coming regularly for their performances. Besides her role as Teresina and an upload of her role as Manon on YouTube, I have actually never seen her on stage in a leading role. Not because she hasn't been cast, but because she has always been cast in different casts than the ones I was attending. Still, I regard her as one of the RDB's leading actress-dancers and am very sad to see she is no longer used much if at all in current line-up. I would have given my left arm to see her in a full production of La Sylphide and not just the clip we get here.

Her Teresina is a perfect mix of stereotypical Italian temper and passion - as well as a seriousness, depth and sweetness that I attribute to Lo Sardo alone. I have seen other dancers in the role now and I can say, very few make Teresina as likeable as she did, which is a feat.

This Napoli is also one of the few ballets in which I have seen Alban Lendorf, former international superstar, be such a natural actor besides a gifted dancer. And Alban, at least, I have seen in quite a lot of different things, so I can tell, this was his peak, acting-wise.

Anyway, this rediscovery of my little gem of a ballet has given me all sorts of plotbunnies for more Napoli fanfiction, so I might get to work on that for one of my many prompt tables over the next couple of weeks.