¿Ballet?...Vále.

As a going-away get together for the program (a quarter of the kids leave tomorrow night, the rest a week from now...except for the 4 like me who are staying for two months), ISA bought us all tickets to an outdoor ballet performance at the Alhambra. The performance was part of a series of cultural events which take place during Granada´s annual summer festival. It was...interesting. The first two pieces were extremely modern, and a little bit weird in choreography and such. The third piece was much more classic...but then the sound system gave out for 45 seconds in the middle of it. At first I thought it was purposeful -- the director had done enough other strange things during the first two performances -- but it was in such an awkward spot, and you could still hear the oboe slightly coming from the taped recording (no live pit, sadly), that I realized it had to have been a mistake. All in all, while I enjoyed the performance, I didn´t love it -- largely because I´m not a big 20th-cenutry music fan in general.

I left the performance hugely missing my musical friends in Bloomington with whom I could have dissected the works. So here, I´m going to list them, and see if you can offer any insight.

First: "Aluminum", set to the music "Shaper Loops" by John Adams.
This featured a woman dancing around a kitchen area, scattering aluminum tables and plates all over the place, and fighting with a man...before it proceeded into a series of echoes. (She and the guy would do something, while another couple copied the motions in the back of the stage). Apparently it was supposed to symbolize the reflections of the innermost desires of her soul. (All of the program notes were in Spanish). I thought it was odd...though I did like the echo section. What I found fascinating about it was the space between the copied choreography. I started counting beats, and discovered that at some points there would be 40 beats of separation, and in other places 60...which was because the time signature (which was insanely difficult to figure out) kept changing from 2/2 to 3/4. (I think?).

Second: "Out of Breath" set to the music "de Cuarteto para cuerdas num. 3" by Jacob ter Veldhuis. This was almost more weirdly modern than the first one...it featured the oddest, most atonal violin solo I´ve ever heard. I never want to hear anyone play the violin like that ever again. In fact, even though I know absolutely nothing about this era of music except for the parody Micah and Sarah once made me listen to, it sounded VERY "12-tone"... Am I right? Do my music friends even know who Veldhuis is?

Third: "Walking Mad", set to the music "Boléro" by Ravel.
I almost have no further comment -- this is one of the most famous ballet works in existence. Sadly, it was in the middle of this performance that the music cut out. Out of them all, however, this choreography was my favorite...and of course the music was, too, because it´s more classic. Still, I´ve seen it performed better. And a live orchestra would have added a lot. Feedback from speakers tends to diminish the appeal.