Harmonies

"A poetic image of eternity, of order, symmetry, harmony..." I read these words this morning with great interest. Eternity, order, symmetry, and harmony: hey, it's what I'm after! The image referred to is the opening sequence of the famous "Shades" scene from the ballet La Bayadere. I became familiar with this ballet in 2007, when Daniela performed it with CPYB. (In 2008 we saw the complete ballet performed by Angel Corrella's company in their debut at the Royal Theatre in Madrid. The ballet was created by the great choreographer Marius Petipa, based on a score by Ludwig Minkus.) This morning it is the subject of Roslyn Sulcas' reflection in the New York Times. The first time I saw it I was completely enchanted and so now, having seen the ballet twice, I understand Sulcas' affirmation. You can watch the scene here, performed at the Paris Opera Ballet. The movement is slow and repetitive, and may strike some as simplistic, but it is no easy feat and for the dancers it requires tremendous strength, discipline, and pain-staking coordination. I guess what interests me is the group dynamic. Thirty-two dancers! (CPYB and other companies do this scene with twenty-four dancers.) That's harmony. Perfection! (I get a similar feeling with some of Jorge Guillén's poems, especially his décimas.) There is something somewhat otherworldly about this dance. And dreamlike.

Well, that's what I read this morning. Now it's time to get to work. Must prepare an exam. Yesterday too much time was spent cleaning up from Friday's damaging hail storm. Asun worked on the damage done to her vegetable garden, and I tried to repair some of the damage done here at home. This morning we just noticed the broken window panes in one of the carriage house windows. Ugghhh, more chores, more lack of perfection and harmony. The hail storm certainly did not suggest symmetry, but it sure was a poetic image. Perhaps of chaos, of cosmic anger. My head got clobbered! Some of the hailstones were pretty large and there sure were a lot of them! Incredibly, even though it was warm after the storm passed, there was still ice in the garden yesterday afternoon, twenty-four hours after the storm had passed.