Friday, January 23, 2015

50 in '15 #49: Go to the ballet.

We've spent a little time during the first few days of the New Year trying to get together a game plan for getting things done and were happy to notice that The Mahaffey would be hosting a ballet to start off the New Year. Getting things done just three days into the year? Yes, please!

The Mahaffey is a wonderful theater that has the added bonus of being walking distance to where we live. Throw in the fact that this performance of Black Swan had the reasonable price tag of $37.50 a ticket and we had no choice but to get ourselves fancied up, make some quick last minute dinner plans and have ourselves a classy evening at the ballet.


I have now learned that there are no words in a ballet so I was a little bit at a loss to what I was actually watching and now (without first checking the Internet to see what the story is) will attempt to translate what I saw.

Act I: It's the Prince's birthday and he's having a crazy party with lots of dancing. The Prince is a bit of a player and is dancing with all the ladies. Then his mom gives him a crossbow as a gift.

Act II: Now that Mr. Prince has a crossbow he needs to go hunting. And where better to do that than Swan Lake. But wait! There's a dark wizard who decided that he had a plan to turn swans into hot ladies in an attempt to worm his way into the castle. The Prince then falls in love with a swan.

Act III: Another party! Mom parades out some ladies for our Prince to pick from, but he's all like “Nope, sorry Mom. I have already fallen in love,” and in strolls his lovely swan. But wait! She's now dressed in black! Chalking it up to her goth phase, they dance the night away. The real swan walks in and is all like “What the heck! Who's that emo swan?” and runs away heart broken.

Act IV: The Prince, realizing his error, runs to Swan Lake to find his real love. There he encounters the dark wizard again and they proceed to have the least manly fight of all time. The Prince wins. He gets the right Swan. Happily ever after.

Wait one moment while I check Wikipedia...

And how did I do? Not bad at all! Turns out I'm not the worst all time at watching the ballet. I missed a few things but, as a whole, I was pretty close. Minus the emo stuff, but that's only because Swan Lake was written in 1875 and they didn't have the word yet.

Even though, I'm a story guessing professional, the important part (at least to us) was the dancing and the was something to see. I don't know much about ballet dancing outside of watching Black Swan that one time, but everything I saw was impressive. How anyone can spin around in 200 circles while standing on the tips of their toes (or do any of the other moves) is beyond me.

Would I go again? Maybe, if it was cheap. Will Katie drag me to one again? Definitely.

For posterity, here's a crappy picture as they really don't like it when you use your phone at these sorts of things, so I had to be sly and sneak this one during the final bow.


No comments:

Post a Comment