Ballet surprise

I am happy to go to a classical music concert or opera. I have rarely been to a ballet, or even a musical. Just not my taste but I had a very unusual experience last Saturday evening when I returned from Karow.

I felt like relaxing so zipped through the channels on my TV. The usual Saturday evening rubbish of American films being shown for the 400th time, American crime series, or home made German crime series, or ‘Heimat’ films were on offer. Yuk, I never watch this stuff.

I thought about finding a DVD as I zapped further. I then hit Sat 3. This is a TV station offering ‘alternative’ programmes. It is aimed at people with an attention span of over 10 seconds, who can write more than their name, and even read more than one page in a book or newspaper. We are in a minority!

A ballet programme had just started. It was amazing! The choreographer was called Alonzo King, the ballet was Dust and Light. The ‘contemporary’ dance company was called ‘Lines Ballet’ and had 11 dancers. The programme was about 35 minutes long and had been recorded in their home town of San Francisco in 2011.

They danced to Baroque music by Corelli, Handel and Bach. There were trio/quartet/quintet pieces and Alonzo King had somehow worked out how to show each dancer representing one of the instruments. It really was an eye-opener! I had never seen anything like it before.

When the programme ended, I turned off my TV and put on a computer to look on the Sat 3 web site to learn more. I also wanted to see if there was a button to click to see it again. Unfortunately not, but I did find these two photos of the choreographer and a couple of dancers.

If you ever get the chance to see it, cancel all your appointments and turn on your TV!