And a well-paced one, at that – each twenty-minute intermission served as a palate cleanser for the audience, as much as it gave time for the performers to prepare.īeing seated amidst a very diverse crowd sharing this attention gave this writer great hope on a weekend where national pride and military might were being rehearsed. It is quite akin to a spiritual experience. Sitting with a work of art for a while gives us the chance to peel back its layers, to see what the choreographer saw. The shows were not flawless, they were human. It is their attentiveness and care to each moment that transports and elevates an audience. But it is not their prowess and virtuosity that makes watching these dancers revelatory. Not for nothing did Albert Einstein proclaim dancers as “athletes of God” certainly when it comes to the elite artistic education of the Paris Opera, the description is accurate, not hyperbolic. For the connoisseurs it also becomes like sports commentary, comparing the styles of one ballet company against another. When it comes to enjoying a triple bill by a ballet company, it is fairly natural to compare, for instance, which piece you like best, which dancer was great, whether the men or the women were more interesting. Instead, it is precisely the repetition of artists performing the lofty, soulful creations of three great choreographers, that gives us a chance to more deeply comprehend the wondrous nature of the human body and the human imagination. We would relegate repetition to the work of our technological inventions. It almost feels embarrassing to confess how different my experience was in each show – and yet there is such incredible sensitivity and intelligence in the work of these luminous artists, that if there were no difference and dull perfection I might have nothing to discuss. Not everybody has the privilege of sitting through a performance twice. These contrasting personal experiences within the span of 20 hours surely captures the intense subjectivity of live performance.
I overflowed with serious tears over The Seasons’ Canon by Crystal Pite the second time around, after feeling slightly skeptical about it the first. I had the pleasure of seeing the Paris Opera Ballet perform twice – first, from the best seats in the house on Saturday evening, then, from the circle seats on Sunday afternoon.
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