A white nerine flushed with pink in a glass of water on the kitchen windowsill. The ‘March lilies’ have begun to flower, in a green late summer that is somehow gaunt, losing vitality as autumn creeps closer. My neighbour’s winter arthritis is twinging already.
Went off to watch the 2010 film Black Swan at a friend’s house, taking along a medley of chopped carrots and cucumber and sugar snap peas, fresh, juicy and just right with a lightly dilled cream cheese dip. Why do raw veg lose their sparkle and attraction next to a bowl of salted caramel popcorn? The film was OTT theatrical, infuriating and marvellous. Like Red Shoes, that 1940s classic of revulsion, compulsion, beauty, masochism and craziness.
For years now I have read Joan Acocella’s columns on dance in the New Yorker and the one recurring theme in all ballet memoirs or profiles is pain and injury. Training in pointe work can damage the dancer’s feet since to dance en pointe is a technique that places the weight of the body onto the toes through the aid of wooden blocks and often occurs before physical readiness. The combination of strength training, the strength needed for such athletic work and the vulnerability, the strain placed on the body from the severe dieting, the stress of lifts and jumping, the competitiveness — I think of all those little girls of my generation wanting to be ballerinas in pink and white tutus, the unreality of those day dreams. Nerve compression injuries or sprained ankles, anyone?
So lovely to watch though. Svengalis and all.
I haven’t seen the movie. I think about the torture of those feet and what one goes through to get to the extremes, whether it is ballet or ultra running.
Syd the suffering demanded of athletes and those who have to push themselves harder and harder in sports, dance singing etc takes its toll. I’m not sure it is worth that price.
Oh yes, so lovely to watch.
Balanchine’s dance routines are available online Andrew — he may have been a monster but he was also a genius.