Nutcracker Sweetie

  So, finally, I get to go to the ballet.  Not a swanky affair; with more starched white dress shirts and pink chiffon than you can throw fabric shears at, but (perhaps even better) an edgy, full throttle, dance extravaganza by Dance Mission Theatre http://www.dancemission.com/ , humorously entitled, The Nutcracker Sweetie’. 

I sat in the small theatre, and not even the fidgety kid in the row in front could dampen the experience that filled up the next 2 hours of my Sunday evening.  What the ballet dancers did with their toned limbs and elegantly pointed (I attempted to uncover a more graceful noun but nutin came…though I did discover that stiletto means point.  Am I the last to know!?)   bare toes had me centre of an imaginary Catherine Wheel, fizzing with delight and enthusisasically slapping my hands together at the end of each piece.  The story was told through other dance movements as well, we got down with hip-hop, thrust out by tiny girls in colourful lycra, felt every beat of the six drums, banged out at perfectly timed strokes which were delivered by an interchanging group, who danced between the drums passing the batons, maintaining awesome timing.  A ballerina, cutting of the air, in a long sweeping arch cut by a wooden swing, tied with white, filmy scarves, made goosebumps prickle my skin.  There was bellydancing too.  A troupe of ten girls, of varying stature and age, took to the stage with the tinkle of ankle bells and had the crowd whooping and whistling as they made waves with their torso and cut the backdrop with the snap of their hips.  The girl centre stage was adrift in the revery of her own movement and stole the show, her counterparts not quite matching her lack of self consciousness.  You could almost see their thought processes written in the space above their heads, stopping them from abandoning themselves in the music.

Two hours passed in moments and I sprang a happy step down the theatre foyer and back out into the Mission.  The evening drew to a contented full stop with an hour spent in the über cool interior of the Sugarlump Cafe, on 24th Street in the Mission.  https://indialeigh.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/nutcracker-sweetie/

I longed, ached, desired NOTHING (well, perhaps I was coveting the low slung, boxy, orange plastic retro chair, highlighted in the soft glow distributed from the hanging, Modernist, oval-shaped fireplace that graced the space before me as I read.  (I could…if I were not a woman of impeccable virtue…. of easily slung said chair into a waiting truck and taken it home, to spend a ludicrous amount of hours marvelling at).  I moved through a wedge of pages of my current book of prose, enjoyed the easy accent of the American waiter as he told flat ‘drummer’ jokes to a girl who was blatantly trying to chat him up, and drank a belly bursting amount of  strong Yerba Mate.  My walk home was spent listening to the full concert length rendition of ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ bashed out on piano keys by my yoga buddy, Keith!  You don’t get answer phone messages like that every day!  

A jolly – I shall clap at the joy of it – type of day I was blessed with.  And so happy (despite the pain still radiating in my sciatic pinched ass) to bed.