A year without
Hello, good readers —
It’s been nearly a year of this. Nearly a year without hugs, handshakes, dance floors, dining in, karaoke, kissing strangers, browsing at Target, and being together in our sacred spaces — whether that’s a temple, a yoga studio, or the heavy quiet of a theatre in the seconds before the curtain rises.
We are still ourselves. Perhaps more anxious, more bereaved, more agoraphobic, more exhausted, more adept at making banana bread, more practiced at making do without, but still us. But it has been a year of this, a year without so many of the things that make us feel like the best and most whole versions of ourselves.
And we’re entering this second year without the 500,000 Americans who have perished needlessly, often alone and frightened, abandoned to sicken and die by a government that simply did not care to protect and save them. It is a psychic wound the rest of us will live with for the rest of our lives, even if we’re not conscious of it every day.
I am tired. You are tired. We have each hit about half a dozen “pandemic walls” at this point. And the end is in sight, which makes everything better and also worse. In the U.S. vaccine supply is about to skyrocket, and if things go according to plan, a great many of us will have been vaccinated by the summer. That is — and I can’t emphasize this enough — a miraculous human and scientific achievement. But right now, it’s the dead of winter, Texas just froze over, and summer feels like a very long way away.
This is about the time so many ballet companies would be launching their winter or spring seasons. Recovered from Nutcracker, they’d be staging revivals of beloved classics and launching new works into the world in the hopes that they’ll become modern classics. Instead, we must content ourselves with digital offerings, which provide both. I am stuck inside this week (it was 20℉ in Iowa today) and one way I’m trying to scale the wall is by missing some deadlines (this newsletter is late, I’m sorry) and watching some ballet.
In Australia, where life is basically normal, they have live outdoor ballet. The Australian Ballet’s first performance under the leadership of David Hallberg, former principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre, is this weekend. They’ll be performing the iconic Kingdom of the Shades from La Bayadere, and the famously difficult Balanchine work Theme and Variations If you’re in the US you can watch it live Saturday night or stream it for 48 hours afterwards:
This is my hometown company, the one I grew up watching, and I’ll absolutely be streaming this one.
American Ballet Theatre’s studio company has a series of new works rehearsed in a “ballet bubble,” featuring new dances by former Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater veteran Hope Boykin and New York City Ballet principal dancer Lauren Lovette.
If you’re looking for something more classical, the Royal Ballet has you covered with The Sleeping Beauty and La Fille Mal Gardee, the latter starring the transcendent Natalia Osipova and Australia’s own Stephen McRae.
And if you’re looking for something neo-classical, New York City Ballet will screen Balanchine’s Prodigal Son starting on the 25th.
That’s it from me this week, save for a reminder about Turning Pointe virtual book events, which I’m scheduling at dance schools all over the country for the spring and summer. They’re free for schools and attendees — parents and advanced ballet students — and if you’re a dance parent or know one who might want to bring me and the book to their community, you can fill out this form to get that process started.
Thanks, as always, for reading,
Chloe.