Friday Five (on Saturday again)

Sorry, I know I've been lax with my Friday postings lately!  But when you've got all day (and night) Friday rehearsals and cane to gouge, well things come before blogging.  I know, the life of an oboist is so glamourous!



1.  Last Saturday was one of the best days I've EVER had.  First, there was an apple festival where I live and it was awesome!  I got concord grapes (which I've not had in a couple years now) and some apples (honeycrisp I think?) and the most delicious apple pie ever!  It had fresh whipped cream too....so delicious...


2.  That night I found out last minute that the Joffrey ballet was doing a reproduction of Rite of Spring so OF COURSE I decided to go see that instead of practice because that is a once in a lifetime experience!  For those of you who don't know, the Joffrey ballet made a restoration of RoS that is as close to the original as possible (costuming, choreography - everything).  Rite of Spring is famous to those of you not in the music world as a ballet written by Igor Stravinsky and choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky, and the combination of the two was so far beyond what ballet audiences of the time expected that the audience actually rioted!  Audiences at the time expected ballets to be graceful - with extended arms and legs, fluidity, and pointed toes.  The choreography of this is very angular, hunched over posture - the exact opposite of what is expected.  Basically this ballet is one of the most influential and groundbreaking things we have in the history of ballet and music, and seeing it live like the original audience would have is pretty much like going to see The Beatles live.

I'd honestly recommend watching the whole ballet, it's only 30 minutes, but I know not everyone has time for this.  I'd skip to the 8:30 mark in this one (this starts the last third of the ballet).  It is sort of terrifying to me actually - it's by far one of my favourite scenes from the ballet and shows pretty well why the ballet was shocking to audiences of the time.  It starts the Glorification de l'élue part of the plot.

3.  What I didn't expect were the other 3 ballet scenes!  I know I should have expected something else since The Rite of Spring is only half an hour, but I was really surprised when I heard Tchaikovsky and not Stravinsky (it is like hearing Enya when you expected Metallica) haha.  I hadn't picked up a program so I didn't know!  So the first ballet was a Tchaikovsky, the second Khatchaturian, and the third Rachmaninoff (who I didn't even know wrote any ballets so that was pretty cool).


4.  What I really really didn't expect was the effect the Khatchaturian had on me.  It is the Adagio scene from his ballet Spartacus, and it was the most moving, expressive...just...EVERYTHING thing I have ever seen.  The choreography was...it was just so much longing, and loving, and exoticism...it was everything I could have ever dreamed of seeing and everything that made me love ballet in the first place.  I actually found the Yuri Possokhov's (the choreographer) premiere of the the dance on youtube  and I've been watching it nonstop.  They've done some tweaks to the choreography since then - her entrance is a little more striking for one, and I much preferred their costumes and seeing them on a dark-lit stage as I did, but for the most part this is very similar to what I experienced.  Watching this on youtube doesn't capture just how magical it was live, but it's the best I can get (and show to you).  Honestly, this blew me away so much that Rite of Spring didn't register quite as much as I had expected to.

Skip to the 45 second mark, for some reason the beginning is just a bunch of rich people drinking wine.

5.  So I've been reading stories by Rezbratonna on fictionpress, and she is an amazing author.  All her stories are CRAZY different!  She's got a story about a female MMA, which is the first story I read, a trilogy about a zombie apocalypse (which is SCARY REAL) and is currently on her sequel about...paranormal stuff is the best way I can say it.  She writes really well, has totally pulse-racing plot lines, and believable romance!  Basically what I'm saying is you should go check her out because I can not for the life of me understand why she doesn't have many followers!  I would buy her books if she wrote them.  She didn't ask me to do this (you know, I've just realized that I'm not entirely sure she's a she, I just assumed), I just find it appalling that she doesn't have more followers especially as she's written so much.  And as a blogger, I know how it feels to post things and never have comments (not that I can complain anymore - I got almost 60 comments on my TTT! That's insane!  I've never had half that many before!).  So keep her inspired and writing and check out her crazy fantastic stories!


So basically that's my week.  I know it's only about my last Saturday, but honestly the rest of my week paled in comparison.  I'm going to go watch Possokhov's choreography of the Adagio...for the 500 millionth time...(have I mentioned he's my new favourite choreographer?  I love you Mia Michaels and Wade Robson, but you've been replaced for the time being).  How was your week?