Het me some of that!

Jan Vermeer, The Art of Painting

For some time now, I have had a crush on the Netherlands. The seed was planted many, many years ago, when as a kid I read Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates, which is about authentically Dutch as the windmill at your local mini-golf establishment. However, it implanted in my mind the idea that Dutch people were good at heart, hardworking, honest, and healthy, which is sort of their national image anyway. Even though Mary Mapes Dodge (the author) had never been to what she called "Holland," she had somehow absorbed that idea. Other literary factors in my generally warm and fuzzy feeling about the Dutch included The Diary of Anne Frank (not the fault of the Dutch that the Germans took her away, in my young view of things, see below for a corrective), and every single painting ever by Vermeer (discovered in a coffee table book my mom inherited when my grandparents died, the pages of which smelled a little damp).

David the Psalmist (and dancer), Vivan Bible
Paris, BnF ms. latin 1

I lived in northern Europe for a substantial number of years in my 20s, I only visited the Netherlands once in that entire period, in 1996, when the Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht had an exhibition of all the greatest Carolingian manuscripts, including the Utrecht Psalter, and the First Bible of Charles the Bald aka the Vivian Bible. I have only the most fleeting memories of the town (beautiful, bicycles, canals, bricks), because the illuminated pages of those 1200 year old books pretty much blew my mind. I still get breathless thinking about the way the color seems to project itself forward from the page, right into the back of your head.

Finally, in November of 2018, I made my way to Amsterdam. If you have not been there, or thought about going there, consider it. I have been to a lot of Europe's "great cities," and lived in both Paris and Florence for extended periods of time. Amsterdam puts them all to shame. It's clean, but not too clean; it's big, but not too big; it has canals (all the best cities have them, just ask Venice, or Milan, or Bruges, or Alappuzha); it has soooo many bicycles; the architecture is beautiful, and not fake; it has all the things (museums, places to get great coffee, "coffee shops," shopping, beer and weird appetizers); the Rijksmuseum; the Rijksmuseum; the Rijksmusem. I pretty much died and went to heaven, even though it was extremely cold (I'm against being cold). 

I ate literally the best meal of my life (and I've eaten some pretty good meals at some pretty famous places) at a little restaurant off the Prinsengracht called DenC (Dik en Cunningham), which specializes in wild game and seafood. I can't even describe how delicious, unusual, and intoxicating the food was, how perfect the service, how reasonable the prices. Just go there and taste it for yourself.

"What has this all to do with ballet, adult bunhead?" you may ask. Well, during these strange days, dear reader, as I've mentioned, I have been trying to take online classes with some regularity. I was good at first, and then I got depressed and I was not so good. 

This week I've been a little better about it. I did a full hour and a half of Kathryn Morgan on Sunday, including 30 minutes of pointe. She has some new stuff coming out this week, and I am definitely going to devote some weekend time to it. However, I had already committed to a variety of other things, with actual, live humans on Zoom for this week, so I had to squeeze in barre here and there. Then, it happened. I discovered this:

Het Nationale Ballet, the Dutch national ballet company and school, is offering free, prerecorded online barre, with a real pianist in a real studio with a teacher. Sometimes, you can even take a live class with the company!!! Or as they say, "We zijn weer live tijdens een balletles met al onze dansers vanuit hun huis!  Doe gezellig mee of kijk mee, geniet ervan en blijf veilig." 

My first foray was into this short TUTUrial (their wordplay, not mine), with Wendeline Wijkstra (I love Dutch names), in Dutch. Now, I speak some German, but no Dutch, and yet, you know, I could basically follow along. Dutch, as my son observed, is pretty much someone speaking English with a German accent and some German words thrown in (I didn't disillusion him: English as it happens is really someone speaking Dutch with some French and Norse words thrown in).

Today, I tried out a full barre with Ernst Meisner, artistic coordinator of the Junior Company at HNB. It was literally the best barre I've taken online (excluding live lessons). I mean, I love all my other standbys, but this one just clicked for me. It wasn't particularly easy, but it was just so clean and precise and good for working on all the stuff I'm terrible at. Also, he is freaking lovely to watch: he has the most elegant, understated port-de-corps, and the pointiest feet. Also, the pianist is named Rex Lobo, which is like a character out of a Dutch idea of an American western (okay, Karl May was German, but I'm imagining what a Dutch version of a western would be like, and it would definitely have a character named Rex Lobo).

Obviously, this is not me

I think it sort of helped me get through a really awful day of working from my closet (aka my "home office") knowing that I had Ernst and Rex to meet me at 5 pm. I changed into my brand-new Sansha overalls (yes, I've been doing some quarantine shopping), and put on little sockies (sometimes I do get out my slippers, but I just wasn't feeling it), and danced away the cares of the day (which included things like hearing from an epidemiologist that we'll probably have a surge of COVID-19 again in October, when flu season hits, and learning that a project I entrusted to someone else didn't get done, and that a person in leadership punted a really serious problem into our office, probably so that if we handle it in a way that makes people mad, that person won't take the blame). Anyway, it was good for the soul, and it really did nothing to dispel my romantic idea that Dutch People Just Do Things Well.

Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, founded 1602
It wasn't all pepper and porcelain.

Caveat: No European country has an unsullied history when it comes to colonialism, anti-Semitism, or autocracy, and the Netherlands are no exception. Along with the Portuguese and the Spanish, they basically invented the brutality of colonialism (if you're American, you probably did not learn about the violence of the Dutch East India Company in Indonesia in the 17th and 18th century, but it was literally genocidal, and the mass murder kept going at least until 1947); and while they admitted the Jews driven out of Spain by the Inquisition in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and out of Poland by the Thirty Years' War, there were always restrictions on Jewish freedom, and Jews typically made up the underclass, a situation that was maintained through discriminatory laws -- when the Nazis showed up, while some valiant Dutch Christians hid and protected their neighbors, many more must have collaborated, since something like 75% of Dutch Jews were deported or dead by the end of the occupation. The Dutch pride themselves on their democratic tradition, but like most democracies, there is some hypocrisy involved; more than one critic has pointed out that for the Dutch, democracy is not incompatible with maintaining a strict class system and a titled aristocracy (it wasn't incompatible for the inventors of the idea, in Athens, 2,500 years ago, either).

So, I'm not really an uncritical fan of the Dutch tout court, just an enthusiast for the generosity, aesthetic sensibility, arts-friendliness, and liberality of their national culture. And their ballet people. But generally, I think ballet people are on the balance (ha!) generous and community-minded. Not all of them (don't watch interviews with Sergei Polunin if you want to enjoy his artistry with uncomplicated feelings), but most, and this collective experience of trauma seems to have made this increasingly, publicly visible. Silver lining?

PS: If I ever get another cat (the current feline does not tolerate same-species company), I will call her Wendeline if she's a girl, or Rex Lobo if a boy.

Si dolce é’l tormento

I do not live alone. I have a cat, and two kids still (or again) at home, and a partner. Our house is not large, and it has a nice, open plan (e.g. not a lot of privacy). So, that’s my situation, along with a space about 6 feet long and 20” wide for practicing ballet, doing my Pilates workouts, and stretching. As winter grudgingly gives way to spring, there are sunny days, sometimes, and I get out for walks when I can. Eventually, I’ll probably take my bike down and start riding it for exercise, something I haven’t done regularly since we moved to Utah (weird, I know, but I sort of gave up mountain biking when I had young kids, and then I developed a hip thing, and then… well, you get it).

pas de chat

I’m really very fortunate, and I am grateful and humbled about this daily as I watch the news or read stories about people living on the streets, being forced to go to their Amazon warehouse jobs, or to work extra shifts as EMTs without even having health insurance. Last week, I had to have an outpatient surgery, nothing major, but just being at a hospital, and seeing all those people hard at work after several weeks of working from home myself was food for thought.

The ballet community continues to cohere and persevere – all kinds of opportunities are out there, and some are even for people like me, enthusiastic and not particularly talented adults. Some women I met last summer at the Artémotion adult ballet intensive are involved in this cool, international adult ballet intensive online: https://www.adultballet.co/blogs/adult-ballet-collective-online-intensive

That said, I haven’t taken a single live class since my last post. I don’t know, I’m just suffering a bit of Weltschmerz if Weltschmerz is something you can experience in “bits.” I am basically an introvert, but when I move, I like to move with people around; whether it’s rowing, yoga, ballet, hiking, I just prefer to do it in company. Dancing by myself is not all that entertaining, contra Billy Idol.

Too cool for me.

Part of my lack of motivation has to do with the weather, which has turned cold and grey again. Part has to do with the aging body I inhabit, I suppose. And part has to do with the webcam on my electronic devices. I had been filming myself taking class, so I could provide myself with some feedback that I’m not getting when I’m following a live class with a world-class dancer somewhere in their glam apartment in Paris or whatever. And I did not like what I was seeing. I won’t bore you with the details, but whereas I’m pretty critical of myself in the mirror when I’m in the studio, I can also sometimes see something that looks good. The video recordings I made of myself were not that forgiving. NOTHING looked good. Literally, nothing.

To make matters worse, I was going on Instagram or whatever and seeing people I knew – other adult ballet people, posting videos of themselves doing the same classes, and they looked great. High extensions, nice turnout, pleasant and appropriate facial expressions, non-awkward seeming port-du-corps… something nice. Some of them even put on real ballet clothes, or pointe shoes, and still looked impressive, not lame. I haven't put on a leotard in weeks. Last time I did, I made the mistake of taking a picture of myself in it, in my bathroom, and it was not flattering. 

I literally haven’t spent this much energy thinking about how much I suck at ballet since I was a teenager.

This studio will never seem small again.

As a grownup, I realize this is completely unproductive and ridiculous. I stopped (mostly) filming myself and started doing the easier online classes I found on Kathryn Morgan’s and Lazy Dancer Tips’ YouTube channels. This has helped a bit. But I don’t have a mirror, and it really is hard to do things right or even sort of right when you can’t check your form from time to time. I also don’t have a barre, just a chair, and my floor is very slippery and small, and a million other things, wah, wah, wah. I just want to get back to the studio and be in that happy place, where the walls are pink (why?), the floor is Marley (yay), and I know which mirrors to avoid (funhouse effects).

Before I “saw” how really bad I actually am (and please, this is not an invitation for contradiction, because it’s not about facts one way or the other, just the psychic damage of watching videos of myself), I had this idea I wanted to choreograph a short piece to a piece of music I really like, a Monteverdi aria called “Si dolce é’l tormento,” and I thought I would perhaps set it on myself. The lyric, by Francesco di Leonardis, is about the pain of loving an unobtainable beauty, which is pretty much my relationship to ballet, come to think of it. Now, I’m thinking perhaps I need a more lithe and accomplished body to work with, since what I want to say is how very sweetly agonizing it is to desire the beautiful that is out of reach, or, to throw another German word in there, Sehnsucht. Hard to say that when it looks like you're holding hamburgers in your hands, you have a dopey, yet intensely concentrated expression on your face, and you are two beats behind the music.

Here is the lyric:

Si dolce è'l tormento              

Ch'in seno mi sta,                  

Ch'io vivo content      

Per cruda beltà.                     

Nel ciel di bellezza                 

S'accreschi fierezza               

Et manchi pietà:                     

Che sempre qual scoglio

All'onda d'orgoglio                

Mia fede sarà.                        

La speme fallace                    

Rivolgam' il piè.                     

Diletto ne pace

Non scendano a me.

E l'empia ch'adoro

Mi nieghi ristoro

Di buona mercè:

Tra doglia infinita,

Tra speme tradita

Vivrà la mia fè.

Se fiamma d'amore

Già mai non sentì

Quel rigido core

Ch'il cor mi rapì,

Se nega pietate

La cruda beltate

Che l'alma invaghì:

Ben fia che dolente,

Pentita e languente

Sospirimi un dì.

So sweet is the torment

that lies in my heart,

that I live happily

because of its cruel beauty.

May beauty's fury

grow wide in the sky

without compassion;

for my devotion shall hold

like a rock against

pride's unrelenting wave.

False hope,

keep me wandering!

let no peace

nor pleasure befall me!

Evil woman, whom I adore,

deny me the rest

that compassion would give;

amidst infinite pain,

amidst broken hopes

shall survive my devotion.

There is no rest for me

in the warmth or the cold.

Only in heaven

shall I find rest.

If the deadly strike

of an arrow injured my heart,

I shall heal still,

and change my destiny,

death's very heart

with the same arrow.

If the frigid heart

that stole mine

never has felt

love's ardour;

if the cruel beauty

that charmed my soul

denies me compassion,

may she die one day

by me pained,

repenting, languishing.

(1624)

And here’s a link to a performance by Philippe Jaroussky, a fabulous countertenor; I think it’s my preferred version, played on “period” style instruments, and so haunting (I saw him perform it in Paris once, and it’s not something one easily forgets). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woh1d7QxIKA

I have some vague sketch in my mind of what this might look like, but I won’t commit anything here. I think instead, I’ll just make some notes (not videos!) and when I can, I’ll set it on someone with some actual grace and poise. But it is definitely a solo dance, a pas d’une (or in the case of Jaroussky, d’un), the ultimate vehicle for Einsamkeitserleben.

Home, practice

The "studio" COVID-19 style

Like almost everyone else in the whole freaking world, I'm stuck at home. I'm grateful that I have a home, food to eat, my family and my cat to interact with, and a whole slew of other things. I'm not sick. Nobody I love is currently sick. Knock on wood. Lots of people are sick. A guy I knew in college, just 52 years old, died yesterday from COVID-19. He was a pretty well known musician, and Variety reported on his death, which is why I know. There might be other people from my past or present who are sick or dead, and I won't know for weeks. That's the nature of this damn thing.

So, it's a weird time. The ballet community is in a particularly weird space, or perhaps better said, everybody is in their own weird spaces, doing what they can in their garages, living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, and in at least one case I know of, their master bathroom. The upside of all this downside is that lots of really awesome artists are sharing their home practice with the great unwashed (who showers when they never go out?). I took a ballet class today from Christopher Stowell, who oddly enough was on my younger brother's soccer team back in the day (we lived in the same neighborhood as the Russell-Stowell family, doyennes of PNB). He was in his living room in Toronto (I presume), holding on to the back of an upholstered chair, being elegant. His pianist was somewhere else, but somehow they made it work. If you want to take this class, it is recorded and available on the Zarely website. It kicked my butt. (https://www.zarely.co/pages/live-streams).

The class was free, as are most of these unprecedented opportunities to literally dance with the stars. But let’s not forget that these people are mostly currently going unpaid, and the future of the companies that employed them is uncertain. The big companies have links now on their homepages to donate, but some smaller companies do not, and our local civic ballet had to cancel all its spring classes and performances, so teachers are out of a job, too. Consider making a donation to your ballet school or local company. If you have season tickets, or a refund due on spring classes, you could also donate those funds to the company or school. I'll be donating the remainder of my spring tuition to my school, and I've already made a donation to several regional dance organizations. If you're looking for a place to lend your support, first ask around in your local dance community, or explore one of these general funds:

• Dance NYC COVID-19 Emergency Fund: https://www.dance.nyc/about/donate
• The Dancers' Fund (Chicago): https://chicagodancersunited.org/the-dancers-fund
• Performing Arts Worker Relief Fund (San Francisco/Northern California): https://www.theatrebayarea.org/page/COVID-19relief-fund
• Americans for the Arts has a list of arts relief funds -- scroll down to find it: https://www.americansforthearts.org/by-topic/disaster-preparedness/coronavirus-covid-19-resource-and-response-center

Also, don't forget to keep bugging your local, state, and federal government representatives to include the arts in their thinking about disaster recovery. As I said in a keynote talk I recently wrote for a virtual student research symposium at another university (my first guest speaking gig of that sort, for sure), science will help us address the immediate crisis, but the arts are what will allow us to process the grief, recover our sense of humanity, and rediscover joy.

Quarantinewhile, as Stephen Colbert says, I've been working out a lot, even though I'm still working full time from home. In addition to being an art history professor, I'm in university research administration, which means a lot of things right now. We have to have plans: plans for when the campus completely locks down to ensure that valuable research materials aren't lost, and multi-million dollar equipment is safely maintained, plans for the lab rats if all the vet techs who care for them get sick, plans for our human-subjects researchers whose grants are predicated on working directly with, well, humans. So it's a lot. The working out helps mitigate the stress and the fact that I'm working at a tiny desk that I put next to my dresser in my closet (it has a skylight, so it's not as dreary as it sounds).

I usually do Pilates two or three times a week. I'm up to five, partly just to keep my trainer, who owns her own business and has rent to pay on her studio, in business. At some ungodly hour each morning, I get up, change into my "work" outfit of leggings, a sports bra, and a t-shirt, and "go to class" on Zoom. It's not the same as the Reformer, but we'll deal with it. My butt and shoulders seem to be working harder than ever. And I get to stay in my Pilates clothes all day long. At first, this seemed like heaven. Now it's just a little scungy, and sometimes I actually clean myself up and put on a real shirt and jeans.

As for ballet, I've been taking these online classes, and filming myself while I do them. It is Absolutely Horrifying. I have no illusion that I'm "good at ballet" or anything, but crap, I had no idea how bad I am! Especially my port-de-corps -- arms, upper body, head, they all suck. Oh well, things to work on. My feet make me want to weep. And what happened to my turnout (oh, yeah, hip surgery and 51 years of living on earth).

Today, the little piece of Marley floor that I ordered came. It's really little. I think I can just about get my size 7.5 feet into first position on it. The problem is that my actual floors are so slippery they're no good for practicing pointe work, and I like to practice pointe work, because if I don't, I go from bad to just execrable. So I'll be doing my daily Katherine Morgan pointe class on this tiny patch of studio like surface for now.

Anyway, there's no particular point to this entry, other than to remind everyone to take care of our professional dancer and dance teacher friends, and just an effort to follow through on my commitment to restart TightsUp. Maybe I'll have some Deep Thoughts presently. For now, it's just #Stayathome and #practice.

See you at the barre, on IGTV or wherever.