We begin ballet tomorrow, doing Giselle by Alophe Adam. As people who read my blog know, I don’t particularly get ballet, and I especially don’t connect to story ballets. But that doesn’t mean I don’t try to play my best. Honestly … whenever I get into the pit or on the stage I believe in the music. If I didn’t I think I’d go bonkers!

It’s not the dancing that bugs me about ballet. It’s all the gestures when they aren’t dancing. It’s all that miming. And yeah, I’m sure I’m just a grump about ballet! So sorry. And yes, I am extremely thankful for the work, and I love our dancers. So please know I’m not grumping about the dancers or anything. Just the story stuff. (And occasionally the rather lame music!)

So tomorrow we go into our awful rehearsal hall with horrendous fluorescent lights. This is the biggest problem for me with ballet; our rehearsal hall is bad when it comes to both sound and light. And both of those issues can cause me to get migraines, get vertigo and aggravate my tinnitus. I’ll be bringing a stand light with me, as it sounds as if management may not be able to provide any for me (I actually requested two; I guess I should have had my otologist write a letter about this, eh?). I’m hoping that having a stand light might help me get through the day. We’ll see. If not, and if I get ill, I’ll probably end up sick the following day, and we aren’t allowed to miss a rehearsal, so that would mean the end of the ballet run for me. I hope it doesn’t come to that!

So here’s the start of Giselle for you, to give you an idea of what I mean by “story ballet”:

So what do you think? Love it? Hate it? Don’t care …? Does it make you want to watch the next bit?:

and more …?:

to the end of Act 1?:

… or did you stop after the first video? (And did you even notice the English horn? I think it’s the second act that has a bit of a solo, but otherwise you won’t hear a lot of me. This is probably good, because the way the set up the microphones — yes, they mic this — there isn’t one anywhere near me, while they mic all the other main winds. I’m not sure why they’ve never understood that English horn usually has solos. Odd!)

If you want more I can post Act 2 later. Maybe you’ll even notice the English horn then. Or maybe not.

Okay … over and out … I have a Giants game to watch in the very near future! GO GIANTS!!!