Midsummer Night’s Dream: Ballet

This past Friday I was in for a treat of human creation.

It’s been a really long time since I went to the ballet. My last memory significantly shaped my view of art, and its influence is still with me. On Friday, then, I was nervous. What if I didn’t enjoy it? What if I had to pretend to like it? What if I fell asleep and my snoring was not in sync with the rhythm?

Since I haven’t read the Shakespeare play, I thought I would look through the program notes so that I would have a good idea of the plot. After all, how would I be able to comprehend a story without words? I read the synopsis twice, however, but was still confused as to the exact love triangles and pentagons and other complicated relationships that form in the play.

The performance began with two notes, pitched at A. It was the calling of the audience’s attention, the singular harmony of different instruments and octaves striving for the purity of one sound. Unity is in those first notes: for the orchestra itself, and for the audience and the performers.

On to the ballet itself. Combine the mood of the music with the swift or stealthy or graceful moves of the dancers, and reveal magic. The first act completely blew me away. Introduce the characters, the setting through dances that depict personality. The story was captivating. Whereas I was confused reading the program notes, here the relationships involved made sense here through costumes and acting. Love was depicted, as was repulsion, as was vanity, as was confusion. What interested me was the way that the dancers portrayed a specific emotion not through facial expression or words, but instead with their whole bodies. Performances were much nuanced, such as the queen waking up from her nap: every motion was natural, graceful, passionate. This dancer had lost herself completely to her character, and the audience happily fell into this deception. The donkey was amazing. He was wearing a mask, but with his body was able to perfectly depict his confusion. I don’t know how he did this but it worked so well! I really liked the choreography of the “threesome”, in which the leaning and positioning of each individual with respect to the other demonstrated their emotions toward each other.

The ballet was universal because it was so innately human: art, emotion, and passion. Indeed, the passion of the dancers for their dance came through to me, and I felt an intense joy in the live performance. William Blake wrote, “Eternity is in love with the productions of time”. A Midsummer Night’s Dream was one production that transferred love in such a way that the experience of two hours became a lasting impression on me.