Everything is Beautiful at the Ballet

I fell in love with the ballet when I was a young girl. My Aunt took me to my first ballet in Philly and it was magical. Magic is what I feel and experience at the ballet. I never took formal dance training but dance is my first love, all forms of dance. Ballet will always be my center, my escape, and my expression of flight. I have been blessed to experience many great ballet companies; Alvin Ailey, the Chinese Ballet performing Raise the Red Lantern, the Joffrey Ballet performing the mystical Rite of Spring, the Dance Theater of Harlem, and last night finally seeing American Ballet Theater (ABT) with#primaballerina Misty Copeland performing Firebird. Anticipation flowed through the crowd. Theatergoers dressed as only Angelinos can in every style and color – oh so LA. So many girls, all ages, all ethnicities, and older black women who you could tell this performance meant more that then typical performance – dreams realized and represented on stage in Misty. Everyone was there to see Misty. What does Misty mean to so many? For me she embodies that magic. And I could see this special reaction in each young girl’s eyes. Since I could not take photos I pulled a few “official” photos that are shared in the slideshow. The artistry and technique of ABT built with each performance culminating in the visually stunning Firebird. It was breathtaking, electric, emotional, and mystical all in one moment. Hearing the first strains of the Stravinsky score sent chills and transported me before the curtain was raised. Each dancer embodied their role and their chemistry effortless. Misty was effervescent as the Firebird; strong, vulnerable, and magical. Firebird was a total experience – the orchestra staying true to the Stravinsky score, the costumes, sets, the story told through dance – humor, joy, pain, anger, love all expressed in dance. When the lady sitting next to me with her teenage daughter (who was just as entranced as I was with the performance) asked me if I was a dancer I immediately said no. But I was wrong. I am a ballet dancer, because inside I am on pointe, dancing, leaping, spinning and loving the dance. I am a dancer just like I am an artist at the museum and the actor at the movies, and first and foremost I am always a writer.