On attending ballet

The post in which I reminisce.

Tonight we're going to see The Australian Ballet perform Onegin. I think it may be my favourite dance, although I'm also terribly fond of Manon and Giselle and some of the other great narrative ballets. It's a beautiful traditional ballet filled with exquisite ball gowns, sumptuous sets, a great tear jerker of a plot and Tchaikovsky's sublime music - we're in for a real treat. I think Onegin may be the first ballet I ever saw. I certainly remember my mum teaching me how it is pronounced - not on-e-gin or one-gin but on-yay-gin with a hard G as in good not G as in the drink made of juniper berries. I have lovely memories of seeing ballet as a child. I felt very grown up indeed, and I am grateful to my parents for taking me.

We subscribe to the ballet as a family because it is just something we do.

This year The Australian Ballet celebrates its 50th Anniversary. It was really only when Maina Gielgud assumed the reins as Artistic Director back in 1983, though, that it became a Company equal to any in the world. I first started subscribing a year or two earlier than that. I went with a group of friends from University organised by my friend Catherine. You could tell that Catherine's parents were cultured even by the names of her and her sisters - Meredith and Rosalind. I always regret that I never met her father. Her parents has separated acrimoniously a year or two earlier, and emotions were still very raw. I think he would have been a fascinating man - his daughters certainly were. We went on Youth Tickets, which were far more affordable than the adult tickets for impecunious students, and yet despite paying only a fraction of the full price, we managed after a few seasons to end up with the coveted 8th row centre seats. Pretty fantastic really.

I suppose I must have stopped subscribing with Catherine when I went travelling through Europe in 1985. I know that I next subscribed with my mum in the early nineties. We would each travel separately into The Arts Centre, she from Geelong, and me from my work out in Clayton, and meet at The Treble Clef restaurant for dinner and a half bottle of champagne before the performance. Happy memories. I was always regretful that I had been overseas when Sir Robert Helpmann made his last move as the Red King in Checkmate back in 1986 because of my gallivanting, but we were delighted to see Rudolf Nureyev's last tour in 1991. I remember that we were both sorry we knew so much about his quite sordid private life, because it put rather a damper on what would have otherwise have been a highlight in our ballet memories despite his obviously diminished capabilities as a dancer by that time because of ill health (he died a year later from complications of AIDS).

I suppose I must have stopped subscribing with mum when I went travelling through Asia in 1995. (Notice the trend here?). I next subscribed with my husband and a good friend in the early 'naughties'. Although our friend stopped coming when she began her family a couple of years ago, hubby and I are still going strong and loving it just as much as we always have. We had always planned that Jemimah would join us when she turned 8, but as it turned out, she was six. It just seemed easier to take her than to organise babysitting.

For us a night at the ballet is an occasion. We dress in going out clothes, and we always have dinner at a smart restaurant first. The glitz and glamour delights our bling-loving daughter, and she has always behaved immaculately. Despite our expectations that she would prefer the story ballets - Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, even Onegin, at six she preferred the triple bills, which were shorter and had more variety in costume, scenery and music. When she was bored she liked to look through my opera glasses at the dancer's faces and costumes or to watch the orchestra. I didn't mind as long as she enjoyed herself...and that she was quiet! At ten, she, like me, prefers the narratives the best, and my favourites are amongst hers as well.

I don't know why I love the ballet, but I do know that it makes me feel happy. Last year after the flood it seemed quite surreal to dress up and attend a performance as if nothing had changed. It made me forget my troubles for a little while, and for that alone I was grateful. I'm so glad that we had already paid for our season tickets, because we would not have been able to justify the expense otherwise.

People have actually done scientific studies on the benefits that can be derived from watching ballet. Apparently dance audiences can experience physical and imaginative effects of movement without actually moving their bodies; that is, spectators can react in certain respects as if they were moving, or preparing to move. None of that matters much to me, though - I don't need an excuse to do something that for me is sheer delight. They say that music soothes the savage beast, and it is certainly difficult to be in a bad mood while listening to Tchaikovsky. I'm told that listening to music reduces blood pressure, controls pain, heightens the immune response and cures depression. When you combine that with the graceful and lithesome dancers then it is hardly surprising that ballet is so very peaceful and relaxing, and for me at least, attending the ballet is a real stress reliever. It is worth going for the sheer rapture on Jemimah's face as she watches the story unfold on stage. As a ballet dancer herself she appreciates certain intricacies of dance that are lost on me. Certainly her insider knowledge adds an extra layer to her enjoyment.

As a family we attend many performing arts productions - the opera, Shakespeare and many music performances, but we subscribe seasonally only to the ballet. Why? Well, because we love it, that's why. All that other stuff is just a bonus. I can't imagine us ever doing anything different.

Are you ballet lovers?

On Dance and the Arts

I don't necessarily like Graeme Murphy's radical reworking of traditional ballets. Sometimes I do, just not always. His Tivoli, for example didn't do it for me. Neither did Swan Lake. Nutcracker, on the other hand was pretty good. It all depends, I guess, on whether he leaves in the bits I expect to see. If they're not there, I get grumpy.

No matter what you think of Murphy's work though, there is no denying that they are always spectacular productions. The scenery, the choreography and the sheer artistry of the dancers is always in a class above other productions.

On Saturday we went to see The Australian Ballet dancing his production of Romeo and Juliet. It was with a little trepidation - would we like it? Would Jemimah?

Well the answer was Yes - but with reservations.

Certainly Murphy's interpretation of this ballet was marvellous for its entertainment value. The translation of the traditional marketplace scene into an Indian Bazaar provided the most wonderful opportunities for colour and movement that highlighted both the dance and the story as well as working well with Prokofiev's sublime score. Somewhat more strange was the need to New-Age the ballet by the inclusion of Japanese temples, a bed of skulls in the dessert instead of the traditional crypt and the strangely blended Buddhist/Hari Krishna hybrid monks. I was saddened by the overt signs of Australia's post-Christianisation, and the replacement of Franciscan Friar Laurence with an Eastern Holy man failed to resonate with us at all.



We resubscribed to new season of The Australian Ballet a couple of weeks ago. Unlike past years it was not a straightforward decision. A year's subscription for a family - even with only one child - is a significant financial investment, and we needed to consider carefully whether we were wise to invest this money in something that many people consider classist, frivolous and unnecessary when we are still living in a flood ravaged home with little furniture, our possessions packed in boxes, and borrowed beds.

The inclusion of the Visual and Performing arts as part of our children's education has often come under scrutiny. Is a study of literature, dance, music, opera, painting and theatre as important as our acquisition of skills like reading, writing, science and mathematics?

Certainly the arts have, since primitive times, occupied an important part in the lives of man. Jubal was making musical instruments - the harp and the flute - back in Genesis 4, and throughout the ages men have recognised the pleasure that the arts can introduce into our lives. The arts are a mirror into the hearts of man, and our appreciation of the arts and culture is one of the characteristics of being human, making us different from animals. As I watch Graeme Murphy's Romeo and Juliet, I view a profound expression of his understanding of human existence and of his religious commitment, and I gain an appreciation of Australia's new values and beliefs - beliefs very different from my own.

It is not only the secular communities, though, that recognise the importance of the artistic expression. Throughout history Christians have produced a wealth of art, both liturgical and non-liturgical. The singing, music, dance, the beautiful vestments and the fine decoration of the temple, are all hugely visible in the Old Testament. A study of the arts of man provides us with some of the clearest manifestations of human religious beliefs throughout the ages. We see clear evidence of their values, beliefs, and the importance they place on them.

These then, are some of the reasons that we include the arts in our children's education.

I would like to say that Jemimah's father and I considered all these things when we weighed up whether or not to renew our subscription to The Australian Ballet's 50th Anniversary Season. I'm afraid, though, that the most important factors of all in our decision were the fact that we love the ballet. We love getting dressed up and eating out. We love the music, the dance, the spectacle. We love the memories. The ballet is one of the things that we do as a family, and we all enjoy it very, very much indeed. I'm so glad we're going again next year.

On doing nothing

My goodness - I'm on holiday. What a wonderful feeling to wake up with nothing to do. Quite surreal. Not even the fact that we have risen to a leaking hot-water service and no hot water can dampen this very fine day. (Well, if you stood underneath the unit you would get rather wet, but I meant metaphorically and figuratively damp and not physically so.)

Apart from organising a gas plumber, today should be a lazy lead in to our super-lazy break. I am so looking forward to doing nothing, and I suspect that I may be somewhat out of practise, so I shall use today to have a trial run of nothingness.

I have a hairdresser's appointment booked for later this morning, followed by a trip to the beautician's for some obligatory lash darkening. It is such a drag applying mascara when it's hot and humid outside, don't you think? In the meantime I am enjoying catching up on some of your bloggy goodness, and in creating a little of my own. How nice to have time to just surf between pages on a whim like this. My Beloved has toddled out early for a neck crunch at the chiropractors, and Jemimah is still being slothful and so this time is my own to just chat to you. So nice. I am enjoying this very much.


Tonight we're heading out to opening night of The Nutcracker. Should be a very fine start to our holiday indeed.

Are you doing anything nice this weekend?

Our little ballerina

For physical training nothing is so good as Ling's Swedish Drill , and a few of the early exercises are the reach of children under nine. Dancing, and the various musical drills, lend themselves to grace of movement, and give more pleasure, if less scientific training, to the little people. Charlotte Mason, Home Education p315

One of Jemimah's most greatly anticipated activities is her weekly jazz and tap class with a small dance school in our local town.

As Miss Mason says above, her dance class give great pleasure - if little scientific training - to its little charge. The teacher is an excellent disciplinarian and the girls love being with her - and with each other.

Friday night was the End-of-Year concert...yes really...already...in October.

Regardless of whether it really is the end of the year, it was a wonderful night, and she looked beautiful. Proud parents and grandparents were in attendence, and we all had a ball. She even suffered through a night of rags in her hair to create ring curls. That takes great determination (as I remember from my own childhood - as does my mother from hers!)

Here are some photos of her in full stage makeup.