Sunday, November 06, 2011

Sandrine Cassini


 

Penelope has been much in my thoughts. This is because I have seen the terrific The Penelopiad twice in the last two weeks. It is an Arts Club Theatre production at the Stanley, adapted by Margaret Attwood from her Novella of the same name.

When I found out that French dancer Sandrine Cassini (working as choreographer and dancer for Ballet Victoria) was coming to town to see her father off to Niece I had an idea.

Cassini has a remarkable face which I will not try to describe at length or in detail except to point out that she has a face of someone from the past. I sometimes believe that Mr. Wells’s time machine is around somewhere and people travel back and forth.

Because Cassini danced for the Paris Opera Ballet I like to think that she may have seen Degas sketching (and even sketching her) in her other life as a dancer in Paris in the 19th century.

But when I looked at my previous pictures of her (some as Carmen from the ballet version of the opera) and noted her ballet hair, all swept back in a tight bun and I noticed her narrow face and Gallic nose I saw her as that ever-patient and long-suffering Penelope.

Here she is wearing my mother’s antique 1950 Mexican rebozo and some Mexican black stone beads.

Is she not Penelope looking past the cliffs of Ithaca and imagining Odysseus returning after her long 20 year wait?


Sandrine Cassini & My Toothache
Seeping Blood from the Paris Opera Ballet