A Ballerina, The Répétiteur & Snow White
Sunday, December 01, 2013
Saturday Rosemary and I went to Granville Island’s Arts Umbrella for an open house
on our granddaughter Lauren’s ballet and modern dance classes.
No matter how many times, through the years
that I have gone to this sort of thing (we went for Rebecca’s classes until she
lost interest) I always leave with the certainty that there is no better dance
school in Vancouver
than the Arts Umbrella Dance Program run by Artemis Gordon.
A few people understand that many of the
graduates of the program have gone to some of the best ballet companies around
the world, not to mention our very own Ballet
BC. In fact Ballet
BC has an impressively long bench of stars
that I liken to a bench that runs the span from Granville and Davie (where the Vancouver Dance Centre is
located) all the way to Granville Island.
I particularly enjoyed today’s classes
because of the program’s répétiteur, Robert, who jazzed up (most skillfully)
Christmas carols or simply played beautiful jazz standards to accompany the
dancers. Lauren’s ballet instructor, Margaret Reader-Martin teaches with an
accurate and insisting style that she softens with most personal corrections. Lauren’s
modern dance teacher, London-born Claudia Segovia, gives her students lots of
room to create and innovate their own ideas. I find that these two teachers
become a fine balance of discipline with a let-loose policy that gives the
dancers lots of confidence.
Of particular note for me is the efficient
performance of my very own Fuji X-E1 digital camera which seems to take lovely
window portraits with a soft texture that I am warming up to.
Our afternoon after the dance was an
afternoon at the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library. We went home with
a pile of Film DVDs and books.
After a dinner of barbecued vegetables and
flank steak with little potatoes baked in the oven with Parmesan cheese and
olive oil we retired to the den and watched Blancanieves which is a 2012
Spanish black-and-white silent fantasy drama film written and directed by Pablo
Berger. Since this circa 1920s Snow
White protagonist becomes a bull fighter (of the female kind) it gave me the
opportunity to explain to Lauren that bullfighting is not a sport but an art
form similar to ballet. The bullfighter (who most often kills the bull and the
bull most often does not reciprocate) has to be graceful in the path of danger.
How he (or she) twirls the cape or the muleta (a squarish cape held in place by
a sword) is poetry in motion even though Spaniards and most that are fans of
the art know that the bull does not have a chance.
Lauren did not question my explanation even
though I suspect she might in a few years. In Mexico City as a teenager and a young man I
often went to the bullfights and saw some of the best. I have no idea how I
would react to one now.
The film was enjoyable. I took a happy
mother and daughter home (the other daughter now works on Saturday evenings).
Looking back at the day I can consider it a
success. But I will have to come up with a very good encore for next Saturday’s
after dinner film.
