on being a distant londoner

whoop whoop is that another post in february??? what is wrong with me...

i'm working on another ballet costume review post, from 'the corsair' this time. this is coming in about a weeks time, i don't have the info with me here.
where is here you might ask, or not, i wouldn't.

surprise, surprise i'm in london again and thought since this time i seem to think a lot more i might as well write about it here. there will be photos! (imagine that in some cheap word art)

today's views

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ok so this was written on freaking thursday! i'm so bad at this. but now i need to finish this because i told my uk friends in real life (i know, i have a life!) that i'll finish it soon. here is the rest of my beautiful monologue.

i'm currently at the stansted airport, sitting with my paper cup that i emptied during the 20 minutes i was trying to connect to my wifi. that's such a #firstworldproblem but i'm just that wanna-be western. i officially left london on about 6 am but i feel like the goodbye should be my point.

you see, yesterday when i was on a very long walking (and then some more walking) day i realised something. i need this time alone. i need it like water. only when i have a 'good day' in london i actually feel well. like i belong. 

i could walk around this city forever. and i did. first i went to all my favourite places and then just wandered around. i know, sounds so dreamy but when you think about it carefully it seems awful. all day of walking with a abnormally heavy bag (i carry a full set of watercolours for some reason) without even reaching the desired destination. but i don't really care. is that a londoner thing?

no, it probably isn't. 'the natives' take the tube just to get about 200 meters down the street. they get really angry at slow-walking people (i can see the point, they are so annoying!) and they generally hate kids and the rush hours. they hate being stuck in a traffic jam on oxford street any time of the day, they hate waiting for the tube more than 2 minutes and they hate... well ok, they don't hate everything but you get the point. 

then i'm a distant londoner. i feel so good in this city, and i don't even know why. i love the uk in general (great music, great actors, great accents) but i can't place that one thing that keeps me going back to the capital (it's my 10th time, *celebrate plays in the background*).

in my favourite seat on the bus (upper deck, right at the front on the right aisle seat) i feel in my calm, safe and happy place.

one of my friends (ami) asked me how am i not sceared to come here all alone (we're 17), so many times for about 3 years. that just it.

congrats if you got in this far, here is your reward:

i invite you to my happy place

that's enough for now. i'll see you in a bit...

love,

qofr

today's tune: arctic monkeys - why'd you only call me when you're high

jewels

so the other day i went to see the transmission of a ballet 'jewels' from the bolshoi theatre. the play was originally choreographed by george balanchine in 1967 for the new york city ballet and now the bolshoi got the permission from his foundation to re-stage it in moscow.

the ballet has three acts but it doesn't really matter since it's not story driven. each act symbolises one kind of jewel, emeralds, rubies and finally diamonds. the choreographer wanted to bring a forth jewel, sapphire but, in the end, it wasn't finished.

it is said that balanchine was inspired by the rich and wonderful jewellery stores down the fifth avenue in new york. each jewel symbolises different ballet schools. emeralds are like the delicate and elegant french ballet, rubies are classic but with a musical ballet twist like the american ballet and the crowning jewels, diamonds, are as sophisticated and precise as the russian ballet.

the music also matches the symbolic meanings. emeralds dance to extracts from Gabriel Fauré's Pelléas et Mélisande (1898) and Shylock (1889), rubies twirl to Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra (1929) by Igor Stravinsky and diamonds shine to the tones of  Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 3 in D major (1875).

so now that we have the general overview, let's get to the really exciting part, the costumes! 
i was really excited, like imagine how many things you could do with costumes for not only a ballet play but picturing jewels! i was so pumped. 

it turns out i overshot the creativity of the costume designer, Barbara Karinska. i know, it's probably a shock, she designed so many wonderful costumes. 
and now hear me out. i'm not saying the costumes aren't wonderful. they are so well crafted and beautiful, they kinda look like i could imagine them but come on... so much more could have been done to them!

photos for reference:

 emeralds

 rubies

diamonds

in each act there are the 'main' dancers and of course the back... (i don't know, i know the minimal things about ballet). the problem for me was that there wasn't much difference between the main and others... like none at all. i suppose it was a conscious decision, since those are the same jewels, but i was just so disappointed... 

the thing i thought was really well thought out was the style of the costumes. they were quite nicely fitted to the choreography and music. but they didn't look like jewels and i think that was the main point.

 emeralds

look at this. the tulle is so nice, the colour is perfectly matched. but the design on the front is just so generic.

 rubies

this is even more generic. the 'rubies' skirt doesn't move with her dance. after rubies i sort of lost hope for these costumes.

 diamonds

these sort of restored my peace of mind. for me it was the best part.

i think i'm done here. have you seen it by any chance? what do you think of the costumes?

btw do you like those 'review' things?

love,

qofr

ps. the photos are not mine, taken by damir yusupov and elena fetisova, curtesy of the bolshoi theatre website.