#15 Go to the Ballet

Top 13 Things I Loved about the Ballet

13. I got some gossip from my new friend. Not much but one of her friends had dated one of the dancers.

12. I saw a lady with helmet hair. It was seriously a foot tall. She looked like she was ready to get on stage for "Hairspray."

11. I saw 14 people pushing Segways across the street while on my way to the ballet. Ha.

10. Ungraceful people. It was even funnier seeing people do not so graceful things during intermissions. Some lady dropped her huge purse with a big plop and it was much funnier than if we hadn't just seen people dancing around beautifully.

9. Apparently it was the last show of the season. That was kinda cool.

8. Because it was the last show of the season, they honored some ballerina who had been with the Joffrey for 26 years. That was touching. All of the dancers and her family came on stage and each gave her one flower until she had a huge bouquet. Sweet.

7. I made a new friend. No one would go with me, so I went alone. There was a girl in my box, also alone. Apparently she loves the ballet enough to subscribe (meaning she's a member and goes to several shows a year at a discounted price) and she can never find anyone to go with, so she goes alone all the time. I would have told her to call me next time and I'd go with her but she had to leave early, in the middle of the 3rd... act? So hello out there, Julia. Thanks for taking my picture!

6. Multimedia. They did a whole speech and video presentation explaning the show and how it came about. That was cool because the Joffrey can be quite modern and it definitely needed some explaining. The choreographers even explained their inspirations, which were dreams. I liked it.

5. I had a box seat. It was box #1 so I could see the up front stuff really well but not everything on the side of the stage. It felt fancy to be in a box and sit in fancy chairs though.

4. The auditorium. It was a really, really pretty auditorium.

3. Muscles. I felt like I was at a live version of Body Worlds. I mean, those cats have NO body fat, which is possibly unhealthy, but it was so cool to see people who are so leanly muscular. I guess that's the kines geek in me. Both the men and the women were so impressively fit. (Sidenote: while watching I remembered that I had had a dream that we were having a party at the Campus Rec. It was pretty much the lock in, but we were dressed up and planning to dance at some point. Karlo showed up in a cut-off shirt to show off his impressive abs. It was weird.)

2. Costumes. Apparently I'm girly enough to love flowy skirts and pretty colors.

1. The dancing. So pretty. So graceful. So impressive. I don't know how they don't kick each other in the face all the time. Just so crazy athletic and kinesthetically aware.

Top 3 Things I Did Not Love about the Ballet

3. All the bowing and clapping. They did a whole bowing thing after each "act" and it got old clapping. I wanted to clap loudly for the ballerinas/inos but I got tired of clapping by the end.

2. Men in ballet shoes. They have their own type of ballet shoes, not toe shoes, that almost looked like they were barefoot, but they weren't, I don't think. It weirded me out. I mean, I guess actual barefeet could get sweaty and slippery, but still weird.

1. All the white boys had douchey haircuts. That was weird. And distracting. It just kept making me wonder if the ballet required them to have those bowl cuts all the boys had in 7th grade or if it was by choice.

Overall, I liked at least 10 more things than I disliked. I would definitely go again and would consider buying season tickets. I really loved it, way more than I thought I would. The dancing was amazing.

Update: I went to the "ballet" again. This time it was to see the lovely Danielle with the PE girls. It was... the best 23 seconds of my life. The rest was... interesting.