Darcey dancing.

Yesterday in a bit of a birthday treat to myself a friend and I went to Darcey Bussell's 'Farewell' show at Sadler's Wells. It was an amazing evening which lived entirely up to all the most ridiculous heights of expectation I'd elevated it to, helped by the centre front of stalls seats I had managed by some miracle to get (they were the last two seats in the entire five night run of the show). Funnily enough it wasn't so much Darcey that I enjoyed so much as the chance to watch varied excellent choreography, all of which I had heard of often but never managed to watch before. Of course, though, she was as beautiful and as amazing as ever. She still has ridiculously high extensions. She still reaches all those extensions with a gorgeous fluidity that melds itself, chameleon-like, into wildly varying choreographic styles. It is simply a real pleasure to watch her -- those giant grant jetes (and giant they are -- you don't quite realise how tall she is until well into the show when tiny Tamara Rojo comes on) eat up the stage in a truly exuberant fashion that is hers alone.

Funnily enough, for a dancer who has danced all the biggest classical roles, I enjoyed the Sylvia pas de deux the least in the entire show, perhaps because sometimes these classical pieces can seem a little odd taken out of context, perhaps because I am perhaps no longer as enamoured as I used to be with the classics. On the other hand, I really enjoyed her Cinderella variation, shown on film, Ballet Boyz style, while she changed backstage betwen dances. Such speed! Such turns! Such neatness! It really does put paid to all the "Darcey is too tall to dance Ashton" myths.

The rest of the first half was made up of two modern pas de deux, both of which I loved. The first, from William Forsythe's In the middle, somewhat elevated, was fantastically exciting and sexy to watch. From the moment the sinfully good looking Roberto Bolle swaggers onto stage and muscles his way into an off-centred balance it holds you in a really physical way. And then Darcey comes on and the remainder is a whirlwind of thrown 180 degree extensions as she is manipulated into one impossible angular pose after another. If anything I liked Chris Wheeldon's Tryst pas de deux even more. Johnny Cope came out of retirement to perform this with Darcey and I could not imagine this being danced by any other than these two gorgeous dancers on whom it was created. In feel it could not be further from the Forsythe, all melting gentleness from which emerge the most breathtaking moments of counterbalance and flexibility that if you hadn't seen for that split second between all the rest of the flowing moment you would think weren't humanly possible. Whilst the Forsythe for me blended into one long impression of Darcey's leg up by her ear, the diversity of the beautiful images left indelibly by Tryst I think makes it for me the more appealing of the two works (though both were brilliant in very different ways!). Darcey on pointe in fourth, tipping so perilously and yet also so stably from side to side, pendulum-like, balanced on just one of Johnny's arms round her waist; Darcey held high as if caught upside down in soaring mid-flight, balancing for one long beautiful moment on the soles of Johnny's feet; Darcey in a full split sitting almost comfortably across his thighs in an expansive grand second plie, look ma no hands. It shouldn't have been possible, but they did it, and they did it in such an unassuming and quiet way that made it all the more powerful and impressive.

The second half of the night was a full performance of Kenneth MacMillan's Winter Dreams, based on Chekhov's Three Sisters. Not being familiar with the play I had a lot of fun concocting my various theories of what complicated love entanglements were going on -- though I did understand that it ended it tragedy for everybody (not uncommon for Chekhov I understand). But more seriously, this was perhaps the most satisfying part of the evening. I've already waxed on and on about MacMillan's ability as a dance dramatist in this blog, but I can't stress it enough. His ballets have an amazing ability to make me lose sight of the dance for the story that they are so movingly telling. In a way I suppose this is a pity because I rather enjoy enviously admiring the beauty of an arch or the line of an arabesque, but on the other hand this is the dramatic form of dance at its very very finest. I thought that of all the choreographers of the evening perhaps MacMillan understood Darcey's dancing the best, with her lush fluidity more obvious here than anywhere else. Jonathan Cope was a revelation, such an amazing actor; his was truly tortured role as the husband who is left by Masha (Darcey) for another man, layered with complexity and filled with so much pathos. But again, it was a quiet, internal torture that he put himself through, and the choreography was quirky but so very, very effective in his hands. Their farewell pas de deux, again, was fraught with emotion.

I tried to understand, what it is I love so much about these ballets, why being moved by the story and the characters is so emotionally fulfilling. Why not, indeed, watch a play, where they are not restricted to stylized dancing but instead can speak their despair, where lovers can fall into each others' arms without triple pirrouetting first? I don't really have a good answer, but some part of it would be that the dance form really is more global. Other than the obvious language issue, the minute you open your mouth you are labelled, particularly in this land of a thousand accents, and with that labelling comes a host of associated social contexts which I think many of the stories that are told through dance can shed. True, this makes them simpler, less interestingly complex. But that doesn't make their simple stories any less powerful. Another part of my answer would perhaps be that often, in our deepest agonies of joy and despair, there are no words, not if you aren't Shakespeare. It is a physical feeling, falling in love as Masha does, being tied to your loneliness as her husband is; and dance is perhaps one of the best ways to express such things. Don't we all want to leap for joy sometimes, even if it's not with pointed feet and in a full split as Darcey can?

Enough rambling, I must have utterly lost all of you by now; forgive me but I no longer write a diary and thus have no other outlet for these ramblings that could only interest, well, me.

I had a really lovely birthday, despite the fact that I spent most of it working as usual. After work I had a really nice long dinner with a friend who shares my birthday, and I've also received in the mail not only my teddy bear all the way from Australia (hurrah) but also this ecstatically received present from the boyfriend. He knows me and my gluttony inside out and I love him for it :)