I am so cultured!

Last night I attended a dinner/auction for Ballet West, followed by a performance of Swan Lake. I'm not sure I'll be rushing back any time soon. To be fair the only other ballet I have been to is the Nutcracker, so I am not very well versed on the nuances of ballet, but there seem to be issues especially for the male viewers. It even sparked up conversations in the men's room at the first intermission, and guys just don't normally talk in the bathroom. The main issue was wanting pants on the male dancers, do their tights really need to ride all the way up the butt crack? That's without even mentioning the ever present bulges. One guy in the bathroom suggested the men and women swap costumes and he might be more interested. I can't say I agree with that, I felt like I should go back stage and hand out cheeseburgers and pamphlets on eating disorders to the ballerinas. My wife even noted that one dancer really stood out, because she actually had breasts, although the rest of her was sickly skinny. My biggest problem was that I couldn't figure out what was going on. Thank goodness for the program, rather, thank goodness for my wife reading the program and explaining to me what was going on in the story. My friend summed up the story as far as we could tell, it started with some homo erotica, then some pedophilia, then bestiality, then a double suicide, all with lots of dancing. I am convinced that ballet is best viewed as if you were making an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MSTK3000), with a running comic commentary. Things were just begging for ridicule. Unfortunately my wife threatened to separate Dave and I if we continued to do that, so we had to show restraint and just do it a little. Despite it's 3 hour run time, and several glasses of wine, I never came close to nodding off, so that was a positive. I do have to admit, the athletic ability and talent of the dancers really is incredible, they work very hard at their craft and are undeniably beautiful to watch move. The sets and backdrops were also amazing, as were the costumes, there are some very talented artists at work at Ballet West. I can't leave out the orchestra and the music, which were also top notch and a highlight of the performance. One last positive from the night, we won 3rd row tickets to a Jazz game in the silent auction, that way my wife can take her turn and make fun of that all night. Then I could have her write a blog about her experience!