queen at the ballet
“I am going to the ballet tonight, but oh don’t worry, its all to Queen music so I am not a huge dork.”
On Friday night at the Artscape theatre, we ventured to the ballet, and yes, the entire ballet was all to the music of the rock band Queen, and it was awesome. No offence to my ballet enthusiast friends, but the ballets that I have seen have not always been that different from each other, so it was nice to see something completely different. Ballet with lots of men in sparkly hot pants is not something you see every day, am I right?
Every time the two singers started a new song, I was still surprised that I was seeing Queen at the ballet. I just thought “Oh my god, its Queen!” at the beginning of almost every song.
It was also nice seeing some sex and ballet mixed together. Why not show off the beautiful, sculpted bodies for which the dancers have worked so hard to achieve, with adding sparkles to everything? I will say, that the sparkly hot pants and ballgowns completely added to the show.
My favourite song was naturally Bohemian Rhapsody, when the main male character came out on a trampoline, what else would he come out on, seriously?
the trendy life.
Last night, we ventured to Camps Bay, the most trendy and posh area of Cape Town, to go to Ignite, a posh and trendy bar for Kristen’s twenty first birthday. We dolled ourselves up in the most trendy outfits possible. I wore a skimpy black dress of course, with heels that make me six feet tall, and hurt my toes. But hey, beauty is pain right?
We took a fabulous mini van with a TV that played hip hop music videos all the way to Camps Bay. We arrived at Ignite, to see many posh people sitting on couches in the corner, with not so great house/techno music, and nobody on the dance floor. It was quite a sad story. I decided to go to the DJ booth, and ask the DJ if he would play some top 40 so I could get my groove on, but he just replied “I am not going to play any hip hop, you can come on Thursday night,” very rudely. Well, maybe he should wake up and realise that nobody is dancing to his music.
So Overall, it is good to say that I ventured out into trendy land, but for now, I think that I am just fine with staying on Long Street where Zula plays Justin Timberlake, and people dance so much at Marvel my feet hurt from people stepping on them, but it doesn’t even matter. The trendy life is not for me.
gettin our groove on.
One aspect of Cape Town that Katy and I were speaking about being completely fed up with, is the creepy guy scene, yet creepy guys were not going to keep us from getting our funky groove on at the clubs, no sir-ee. So we decided to go dance the night away in Green Point, the “queer friendly” area of Cape Town. This way, no creepy guys would be interested in us, and we could be around a diverse, open minded and sexually free group of people.
Ask and you shall receive. Beuhlah Bar was just that. A trendy, gay bar with fabulous music and marvellous people of all ages, shapes, colours, sizes, sexualities and genders. I loved it. We danced to Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, etc. like crazies, and since so many types of people existed at the bar, it did not matter how crazy we looked, we just added to the fabulous ambiance and mix.
The end of the night, though, was a lesson to be learned. We stopped into the Bronx bar, next door, which is another gay bar, mostly made for the boys, topless males at the bar. Loved it, again, naturally. Anyways, the symbol at the bar was the anchor. I really like anchors, some of you readers might just know why. There happened to be a shop open next to the Bronx, selling men’s tank tops that said “Bronx” and had large anchors on them. Having had a little bit of something to drink, I felt obligated to purchase one, as if my life depended on it. However, I accidentally picked up the wrong shirt, and when I got home I realised that the shirt I picked up did not have an anchor on it, it just said the name of the bar on it. My roommates made fun of me when I tried to show them a shirt with an anchor on it that did not have an anchor on it when I came home. I was rightfully embarrassed.
Moral of the story: never shop drunk, but do always go out dancing.
nia.
Early one Sunday morning, I saw my friend Elena leave her apartment in flowy pants to head to an alternative dance class called Nia. When she explained what Nia is, she immediately sparked a curiosity. Nia is a dance class that is a mix of aerobics, dance, healing, and spirituality. From the outside, it would look like a group of women in yoga outfits trying to find their chi, but it was more than that.
I walked into the bright studio the next week with Elena with the Sunday sun shining in every window and reflecting on the yellow walls, brightening up the space. Women clad in bright, flowing outfits smiled at the newcomers as they stretched on the wooden dance floor. I was completely nervous that I would make a fool of myself, because if anybody knows me, coordination is not my forte, but despite my lack of skill, I do like to dance so I decided to attack my inhibitions and take a place on the floor.
During the hour of the class, I felt that every aspect of me benefited. I did not realize that I had so much tension in my body until I shook it out of my body and felt instantly more relaxed. I did manage to attack my inhibitions even with the mirror in front of me. When the teacher told us to shake our hips to Mustang Sally, I shook the best I could, when she prescribed specific dance moves to the empowering music, I followed her, not quite with ease, but I managed and tried to put my own shakes and twists when I thought I had the moves down. When the soothing music came on in the end, I relaxed and stretched my inflexible thigh muscles the farthest they could go. I cleared my mind, my body, exercised, gained confidence, worked on finding the centre of my body and felt good as a woman during the class. I am ready for next Sunday to clad myself in gaucho pants, a bright headband, and a focused mind and body.
dance empowerment.
Friday night, after a full day of school, volunteering, rain and dinner, we walked over to the Baxter theatre to see the Cape Town Dance Festival. The festival was advertised as a dance show full of different types of dance from modern to ballet to meringue. The show was not just a dance recital or even just a dance show, it was a political, social commentary that transcended “art for art’s sake.”
The show began with a video screen of a news broadcast, spitting out statistics of rape and domestic violence in South Africa, with are very high statistics. A very intense and moving modern dance followed. It was effective in sending a message because it was not too explicit or graphically about rape, but the choreography and attitude of the dancers made their point very clear.
Another dance that was very powerful was about Long St., which is the street in Cape Town comparable to Adams Morgan of Washington D.C., or Boylston St. in Boston, completely lined with bars and young people at night. The dance was accompanied with a speaker, who told a story about girls on Long St, which involved, fun and dancing, but also violence and drugs. Not only did the dancers and speaker make some other important points about the problems and dangers of South Africa, but the dancers were almost inhuman. The way they moved their bodies with such precision and synchrony was hectic, as a South African might put it.
Along with the pieces with messages, there were also dances purely for fun and show: including a group of curvy women with huge smiles dancing a meringue type dance, and a group of young women and men in all black dancing a slinky routine to an Edith Piaf song.
Overall, I thought the show was very empowering to women. News casters reading off statistics to not show the true nature of the dangers that women face in Cape Town. Dance is a way for women not only to be empowered, but to use art to comment on and inform others of the terrible social situations that will not get into some people’s minds in other ways but to see it through art.
