the leaves are fading

That's a ballet by Antony Tudor to utterly beautiful music by Antonin Dvorak.  I haven't seen the entire thing yet, but I have videos of two versions of the pas de deux - one danced by the Kirov Ballet's Altynai Asylmuratova and Konstantin Zaklinsky, the other by American Ballet Theatre's Amanda McKerrow and John Gardner.  The week of the break, I had been watching each version one after the other.  Some time ago, I had first seen the Altynai-Zaklinsky version and was "Oh that's nice," but not terribly impressed when I saw it.  Some time later, I saw the McKerrow-Gardner version and was really blown away.  Only later later on did I realize it was the same pas de deux.  I've been wanting to watch them one after the other since that realization and only got the chance to last week.

In fairness to Altynai and Zaklinsky, I'm pretty sure they wanted it to be a great performance, but there were a lot of things working against them.  First of all, I assume they merely learned the dance from a restager while McKerrow had actually rehearsed The Leaves Are Fading with Tudor himself.  You could tell that Altynai knew the dance more than Zaklinsky did and he was taking his cues from her.  I think they only learned the dance because they were in London and performing for Princess Diana and needed to do a British ballet in that night's repertoire.  So it looked impromptu and lacked rehearsal.  That's not to say though that it was a terrible mess.  It was actually well done, and even beautiful if you have nothing to compare it with.

The McKerrow and Gardner was, in a word, wow.  In comparison, these two had everything working for them.  Knowing the ballet right from the heart of it was essential, but everything else super clicked, too.  They had previously been doing the pas de deux regularly and so rehearsal was adequate.  And, guess what, McKerrow and Gardner are married to each other.  The most distinctive thing between the two versions though was the quality.  McKerrow and Gardner knew exactly what the dance was all about and they danced with that almost ethereal nuance all throughout the pas de deux.  McKerrow looked particularly buoyed - for lack of a better word, buoyed with hope perhaps?  Contentment?  It was so peaceful and every movement done by both of them was fluid and breathtaking. 

The Russians seemed to be dancing a wholly different ballet.  There was none of that uplifted, ethereal quality as she went through the steps.  I guess that was my biggest problem with their version. While Altynai was lyrically beautiful, you could see that she was a technically proficient dancer, instead of seeing the dance.  And Zaklinsky was merely waiting to catch her.

During the week of the break, I had also watched the video of our last recital, where I did a sketchy Black Swan pas de deux.  Sketchy because there were good moments, there were great moments, and there were, oh-geez,-I -could-have-done -better-than-that moments.  The first time I saw that pas de deux and felt disappointed with myself, I was rather surprised because I was in shape when I did that and I thought I would have done better.  Well, I thought I was in shape. 

Now, seven months later, I know I would do better because I was actually mistaken about being in shape then.  This is when I'm at my peak of in-shapeness, right now I mean.  I noticed that after taking relentless classes every day since January (which is the month after that Black Swan), I definitely have higher leg extensions, more secure turns, a better quality of moving.  And I'm thinner.  It boggles the mind how thin I am compared to how I was last December, especially when I thought I was thin then already.

A nice story: this week, we would end ballet class with fouettes (for girls) and tours a la secondes (for boys), do as many as you like to the music.  Thursday, the piano music was the coda of the Don Quixote pas de deux and I was trying to hit 32 but I would falter at the last 8.  I keep trying and I'm perplexed why I'm unable to finish 32 turns.  I sit down and start thinking, oh well, maybe I'm really not that strong.  And suddenly, the next music plays and it's the coda of the Black Swan (slightly faster than the Don Q coda) and I get up and do 32 fouettes like it was a piece of cake.  This only proves my point about how much more in shape I am.  Last December, I was only able to do 16.  Maybe I'm not strong enough yet for Don Q but I'm getting somewhere.

My brother watched that video with me (since he was dancing in it as well) and there were moments where he would say, "Wow, that was great!"  That scene was in my head when I was watching the Kirov The Leaves Are Fading.  There were a lot of "Wow, that was great!" moments, but they were just moments.  The next time I dance a pas de deux, I want it to be seamless and I want to dance it beautifully in its entirety, not just in particular moments.  And I would demand more rehearsal.

Since I'm not dancing a pas de deux anytime soon, I was thinking that this should go into my thesis, but I can't use The Leaves Are Fading as my main pas de deux because I'm supposed to place it in a Philippine context.  And it would be pointless to.  I guess I can use it as an example to explain modern pas de deux but it can't be the foundation of my thesis.  The bad part is, because of this, I start thinking, why am I writing about the pas de deux at all.  Merf.  Blogging about all this is waaaay easier than writing my thesis; I don't even have to have a point at all.  Long live blogging!