# Paris Opera Ballet



## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Last night's show ... wish you all could have gone with me. Only one part of the show was really valuable to me - Suite en blanc - but it was really quite something. All the dancers in white (except for some gentlemen, who had black trousers). Clouds - flocks - of young ballerinas escorting the stars on and off the stage. Moments of ... well, think of a ripe peach, or a basket of strawberries. That kind of thing.

It was described in the program as "a synthesis of the choreographer's neoclassical art," and as dry as that sounds, perhaps it should have been called a pinnacle or a peak of the neoclassical art. Apparently the choreographer, Serge Lifar, was also attempting to present "innovations of our times" (the times being 1943) and to "sum up" his own research in choreography.

I don't know what innovations it presented, or what research he did. But in spite of the occasional clumsiness, the surprising grace and subtlety of the dancers frequently made me almost gasp. The key there is the surprise. You think they're going to do this, they seem to be leading up to this, and they do that, and it works so much better than you could have imagined it would. It's difficult for a male dancer to deposit a female dancer on her toe, in an attitude of display. In one segment they did it again and again and again, seeming to say, it couldn't be any easier. It's hard to make legs look graceful - they're really very large and clumsy things - but again and again, the dancers expressed tenderness using only their legs.

I only have one more ticket to this show, but I wish I could go every week. It would be worth it.


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