the Russian ballet, we never miss it!

I was lucky enough to go to not one but two professional ballets last year! I took ballet from age 5 through age 16 and did about 4 years of that on pointe shoes. I appreciate good ballet. Not that I was ever really good (we'll blame my body type), but I still like to watch. Before last year I have seen three other professional ballets, Swan Lake at the Pacific Northwest Ballet, a random grouping of three ballets at PNB, and La Fille Mal Gardee at the Royal Ballet in London. (That last part was pretty snooty wasn't it!)

In November, when I went to Jessica's wedding, my sister took me to see Ballet West's production of Giselle. I enjoyed it and learned about that story. Since seeing it I've read a book about the history of ballet, which was like a stinking textbook, and learned that Giselle is important because it is one of the very very first story ballets. It was first performed by a French ballet company and then imported to Russia and from there spun off many of the important classic Russian ballets we know today like Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. It's kinda simple in its choreography but I like the ghost story aspect of it. I just remember that the Ballet West production had live greyhounds come out on stage at one point (the nobility came to town and therefore brought their dogs), and I thought that was kind of crazy. 'Twas good.

In December I got to see the Nutcracker danced professionally for the first time, with my mom.  It was so much better than my local ballet academy production-they don't really dance too much, just run around. We saw the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle. Their version has sets and costumes designed by Maurice Sendak (who wrote "Where the Wild Things Are") and has been around since the 80's. I used to watch the Patricia Barker (Richland Native!) version each year in ballet class the last class before Christmas. 2014 was the last year they were going to do this version because they want to be snooty and produce a Balanchine version for 2015, but they are continuing the theme of having a children's book illustrator do the costumes and sets so they have the guy who does the Olivia pig books, Ian Falconer. The old version doesn't do all the "candy" dances that the Balanchine version does, ie coffee, marzipan, grandma ginger, etc, instead they set the second act in a kind of an Arabian country with exotic animals and plants. Which I kind of didn't get because they still had rats there, and I thought the Nutcracker had just beaten them in a fierce battle...???

 I really liked this version and liked how it was different than the "candy" version. I loved the huge grandfather clock that turns into Drosselmeyer and the base splits apart into legs. The Arabian/bird dance was pretty wild and had an exotic costume.

 Instead of grandma ginger they had this "Wild Thing"-esque puppet thing that jumped around, it was cute and fun.

Instead of a sleigh that takes Clara and the Nutcracker to the magic kingdom, they had a pirate-looking ship that sailed to the exotic land, complete with jumping dolphins! I kinda missed the Sugar Plum Fairy because I like her solo, they just had Clara do another solo for that song. But I did like how Clara got to dance a lot more in the second act than she normally does. I think my favorite part was the pas de deux that Clara and the Nutcracker did right after he kills off the rat king. I love the music for that part and the dancing was just amazing. I was so moved. And the thing that gets me is that the leads weren't even principal dancers with PNB, they were soloists or corps members. They were the "second tier" and they were amazing!! The whole thing was just wonderful, the ballet mixed with the Christmastime was magical. Mom and I just loved it and wanted to go again.

Of course our trip to Seattle wouldn't be complete without a visit to the Dahlia Bakery and Nancy's Sewing Basket in Queen Anne.

They make the best soft molasses cookies and a kind of chocolate truffle cookie that takes like heaven.

Nancy's Sewing Basket provides a lot of stuff costume-wise to PNB, I liked this window display, they made doll costumes that look like ones from the show!

And then in the lobby at the ballet, to tease and tempt us, costumes from the upcoming Swan Lake. Gorgeous.
So now that I've been to a few professional ballets I need to see more and more and more.