Two boys talk about the ballet

Dirk came over last night to watch more Wolf's Rain and I must say that I am really enjoying it. I've read a lot of reviews about the ending so I know, after only watching 10 episodes that I'm probably setting myself up for a fall but so far the series is cool. I enjoy watching Tsume and Hige jumping around like super heroes taking out soldiers. I love Kiba's fierce determination. I think Cheza is fantastic with her red eyes and foreshadowed doom. Even the potential bad guys are interesting, though it is often hard to tell whether someone is truly a bad guy or not - so many shades of grey. Very cool series.

Before we started we discussed that ballet, as civilised gentlemen do, and Evie, who was in her sewing room at the time, came out to mention how neat it was that two boys were discussing the ballet. We were talking about the bits we liked and the bits we didn't like, mostly stuff we have already covered in his and my previous ballet posts.

The one thing we hadn't discussed much, though Dirk had mentioned it, was the Dracula play that we saw in Palmerston North last year. The thing that stood out from that was the movement of Dracula. Mostly the rest of the play was forgettable though the staging and action were both good.
In the play the Dracula may have had some dance experience but was not obviously a ballet dancer. His movements were more about the character and the mood. Now it is difficult to compare the two things because they really were trying to tell the story in a different way but one thing stood out as being better in the play than in the ballet and that was because it was so similar. When Dracula came down from Renfield's prison it was very stilted in the ballet, pretty much unlike all the rest of his movement. In the play, Dracula made a lot of similar entrances, sliding upside-down down a banister, jumping from a balcony to a swinging cage, flipping down from the cage to the floor. There were a lot more risks taken in his movements and actions (though I'm sure ballet is risky enough) and I thought they paid off. Of course the group that put on the play was an experimental group and such groups are often more risky. Still it was interesting to be disappointed in the ballet by such a small thing when mostly the rest of it was so well staged. If only they had created a slightly better part of the set just for that moment, Dracula could have entered the scene smooth and sinister rather than slow and stilted. Perhaps this was why I never quite got into the scene with Lucy in her room, because Dracula was not able to get his presence back to the same degree he had in earlier scenes.

It is much fun to talk about ballet with friends.


Point of Fashion: Newly dyed dark brown hair ^__^
Current Obsession: Final Fantasy Larp