An American in Paris

Just to confuse you further about the family whereabouts, tonight I attended a balletic performance of Gershwin's "An American in Paris". The family is, of course, on their way back to Todi from said city.

First, what do you do when you need performance space that can seat 1000+ in reserved seating? You close off the main piazza, of course. Tonight all the entrances to the piazza, including the only road through the center of town, were barricaded off so the piazza was available only to ticket holders. Having seen this routine last night for a different event I had my ticket ready.

Ballet never has been my favorite, but by partway through "An American in Paris" I had decided it was really great--kind of an early version of the music video. Gershwin's music is wonderful, and the scenes had a lot of energy and personality without any real need to transmit a story line.

Unfortunately the work is only 15 minutes, and at 18 Euros for the cheap seats that would be a bit steep. The second piece listed on the ticket (no program, of course) was Ravel's "Boléro", which is also 15 minutes. What to do? Insert other pieces you like to dance, of course.

The little I could understand in the announcement said that the next piece was something Vivaldi. Not wanting to distract from the dancing itself, the dancers performed in grey underwear. Since we had descended into dance "interpretation" I was pretty lost.

Things went further amiss with the next piece, which was announced as a tango. It was either multiple pieces or one that was in a half dozen movements. They decided to wear clothes for this one. I'm pretty sure they danced the Macarena in the middle of the first movement. Maybe that wasn't the dancers' fault: there wasn't much in the piece to suggest a traditional tango. One of the movements sounded like it might have some 70's percussion influence, another could have had african drums, and in another I thought, "Do you normally have a sax in a tango?". Eventually the music rose in pitch and dissonance and ended in piecing violin shrieks. I did see a dozen bars of heavily interpreted tango. There might have been more, but I haven't been watching "Dancing with the Stars" to keep up with modern developments.

The program ended with the promised "Boléro". Whatever. Ballet isn't my thing. A single couple putting some passion into their dance would have been more interesting. Instead, I noticed the artistic nonsense like the male dancers throwing off their shirts one by one as the dance heated up.

The troupe had a choreographed curtain call (to the "Boléro" refrain). Then they decided we were more enthusiastic than we wanted to be and they kept coming back. They gave up when more people were at the exits than in their seats.

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure these were great dancers and I know they were great athletes. It is just that great dancing can't make up for the fact that classical music makes my mind wander and ballet just makes me wonder what the choreographer was thinking.

Michael