clubhouse
The conference room smells like grease, leather, and aftershave. The attendees, mostly men, scarf down pizza and sit on colorful plastic chairs. They're talking about cutting-edge technology, while pretending that they're in a school cafeteria. There are board games stacked on every table.
colossal
The giant seated ballerina looks like a float that broke off from a parade and came to rest among skyscrapers.
future
Ten years ago, did you imagine your life as it is now? (When I ask her this, she shakes her head and frowns.) So that means that ten years from now, your life may also become something you can't currently imagine. Hopefully in a good way. You aren't stuck.
needling
After demanding that he prove his identity, they ask him a bunch of questions about himself. Like, "What's your nickname for string cheese?" He answers each one, but they look skeptical, telling him that they're not sure it's really him. These are the kind of mind games older siblings come up with.
overtures
Building a fragile trust with the baby, who smiles with saliva-bubbly lips and then breaks into a wail.
pause
Sunlight, green leaves, and a pale gray pond in the early morning.
prelude
Balloons float off into a dusky sky as the orchestra warms up.
Showing posts with label ballerina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ballerina. Show all posts
Monday, February 26, 2018
Sunday, April 30, 2017
Week in Seven Words #338
ballerina
All of the dancers are talented, but one in particular has presence. She creates a mesmerizing character, and even when she isn't moving, she commands attention.
carrying
When possible, I don't use a purse. I like a small colorful backpack, secured on both shoulders and well-stocked.
distracted
The theater is dark, and she's bored. Her phone casts a square of white light that irritates other people, but gives her a pleasant scroll through all the headlines and texts that have cropped up in the last hour.
feat
With some of the dancers, the effort is obvious. They can't hide a straining muscle or how a limb struggles to extend. Beside them dance the ones who seem to need no effort.
jester
I want to make her laugh, so I do a chicken dance and jazz hands.
menace
They reach over the railing to pet the horse in the enclosure. A park ranger warns them off. "It bites," he says. They immediately back off. The horse remains still, revealing nothing.
skimming
Insects glide over the sand like silvery sci-fi drones.
All of the dancers are talented, but one in particular has presence. She creates a mesmerizing character, and even when she isn't moving, she commands attention.
carrying
When possible, I don't use a purse. I like a small colorful backpack, secured on both shoulders and well-stocked.
distracted
The theater is dark, and she's bored. Her phone casts a square of white light that irritates other people, but gives her a pleasant scroll through all the headlines and texts that have cropped up in the last hour.
feat
With some of the dancers, the effort is obvious. They can't hide a straining muscle or how a limb struggles to extend. Beside them dance the ones who seem to need no effort.
jester
I want to make her laugh, so I do a chicken dance and jazz hands.
menace
They reach over the railing to pet the horse in the enclosure. A park ranger warns them off. "It bites," he says. They immediately back off. The horse remains still, revealing nothing.
skimming
Insects glide over the sand like silvery sci-fi drones.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Dancer Taking in Paris
Earlier this year, the Opéra National de Paris YouTube channel posted short videos directed by Benjamin Millepied. They feature different dancers from the Paris Opera Ballet. This one focuses on Dorothée Gilbert and, all around her, Paris.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Week in Seven Words #137
confab
Two elderly wheelchair-bound ladies sit side by side in an elevator. One reaches over to the other, clasps her hand, and says, "Your hair is white." A pause, before the other replies, "I haven't been in the sun for so long." They lapse into silence.
danseuses
Little girls in a ballet class, spinning, spinning, stumbling, one of them picking her nose as she twirls.
gastric
He wrinkles his nose at the pink frosting on the cupcakes. I tell him the color doesn't matter because once it's in his stomach it's going to look like the pizza he just ate.
irrelevance
Phone static swallows up most of what he's telling me. The only thing I can make out is his reference to I Love Lucy.
pixieish
She's half-pixie, bangs her head on the table, smiles, clutches my hand, wants a co-conspirator in mischief and song.
sheltering
Do any of them think of this as their safe place? It has a warren of bookshelves and desks, a lounge, a little room with computers, and no windows looking out onto the outside world.
unpredictable
A local train turns express, sweeping me off to a stop I didn't intend to go to.
Two elderly wheelchair-bound ladies sit side by side in an elevator. One reaches over to the other, clasps her hand, and says, "Your hair is white." A pause, before the other replies, "I haven't been in the sun for so long." They lapse into silence.
danseuses
Little girls in a ballet class, spinning, spinning, stumbling, one of them picking her nose as she twirls.
gastric
He wrinkles his nose at the pink frosting on the cupcakes. I tell him the color doesn't matter because once it's in his stomach it's going to look like the pizza he just ate.
irrelevance
Phone static swallows up most of what he's telling me. The only thing I can make out is his reference to I Love Lucy.
pixieish
She's half-pixie, bangs her head on the table, smiles, clutches my hand, wants a co-conspirator in mischief and song.
sheltering
Do any of them think of this as their safe place? It has a warren of bookshelves and desks, a lounge, a little room with computers, and no windows looking out onto the outside world.
unpredictable
A local train turns express, sweeping me off to a stop I didn't intend to go to.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Week in Seven Words #103
bibliophilic
The takeout sushi and blaring battery-powered car have distracted him for long enough. He crawls to the bookcase in the corner of the room and uses a shelf to pull himself up and stand before it. We think it's wonderful that he's interested in books at his tender preliterate age, and when he starts to scratch the spines of the books, up and down, it looks like he's trying to break through them to get to the good stuff inside. One of his older siblings tells us that he likes scratching them because of the funny sounds they make, a raspy choir of book spines; we shouldn't start calling him a scholar yet. But maybe that's how a kid starts loving books, because of the weird sounds and sensations, the look and feel of them.
concealing
Snow coming down like curtains around the world.
inspired
He tells me what he needs for inspiration. It isn't the recreation room with its tables full of old folks bent over pieces of paper. It isn't the ballet playing on the large T.V. in the corner, though he watches it from time to time with a far-off look in his eye, Romeo locked in dance with Juliet to the music of Prokofiev. What he needs is a room with a piano and sunlight and peaceful solitude.
phlebotomy
I stare out the window and pretend that the lab technician is not currently rooting around in the crook of my elbow trying to coax blood out of my vein.
propel
Blow up a balloon and pinch the end shut between your fingers. Then tape it to a straw. Slip the straw onto a wire or long piece of string, and tie the wire/string between two chairs or the walls of a room. Release the balloon. As the air flows out, the balloon-straw contraption rockets forward. Most of the time. Sometimes the balloon makes a horrible whining noise and deflates in agony without moving.
reconstructive
On Martin Luther King Day there's a sing-a-long at the nursing home. The pianist and singer, who isn't much younger than the residents, grew up in the segregated South. The audience, mostly wheelchair-bound and living in different states of lucidity and coherence, were a part of that era too; it's likely that there are civil rights protesters and activists among them, and people who went to hear King speak. Some of them remember, and for others this is a pleasant interlude of songs unconnected to anything past or future. But often they know the words; the words and melodies and sentiments of old beloved songs stay with them even when other things crumble.
subterrane
People expect cutesyness from young kids. They want to imagine that a first or second grader for instance doesn't have any serious fears or frighteningly complicated thoughts. Probably because as adults we often can't handle those kinds of thoughts well ourselves, and we hope that children won't demand more of us than the regular pat reassurances.
The takeout sushi and blaring battery-powered car have distracted him for long enough. He crawls to the bookcase in the corner of the room and uses a shelf to pull himself up and stand before it. We think it's wonderful that he's interested in books at his tender preliterate age, and when he starts to scratch the spines of the books, up and down, it looks like he's trying to break through them to get to the good stuff inside. One of his older siblings tells us that he likes scratching them because of the funny sounds they make, a raspy choir of book spines; we shouldn't start calling him a scholar yet. But maybe that's how a kid starts loving books, because of the weird sounds and sensations, the look and feel of them.
concealing
Snow coming down like curtains around the world.
inspired
He tells me what he needs for inspiration. It isn't the recreation room with its tables full of old folks bent over pieces of paper. It isn't the ballet playing on the large T.V. in the corner, though he watches it from time to time with a far-off look in his eye, Romeo locked in dance with Juliet to the music of Prokofiev. What he needs is a room with a piano and sunlight and peaceful solitude.
phlebotomy
I stare out the window and pretend that the lab technician is not currently rooting around in the crook of my elbow trying to coax blood out of my vein.
propel
Blow up a balloon and pinch the end shut between your fingers. Then tape it to a straw. Slip the straw onto a wire or long piece of string, and tie the wire/string between two chairs or the walls of a room. Release the balloon. As the air flows out, the balloon-straw contraption rockets forward. Most of the time. Sometimes the balloon makes a horrible whining noise and deflates in agony without moving.
reconstructive
On Martin Luther King Day there's a sing-a-long at the nursing home. The pianist and singer, who isn't much younger than the residents, grew up in the segregated South. The audience, mostly wheelchair-bound and living in different states of lucidity and coherence, were a part of that era too; it's likely that there are civil rights protesters and activists among them, and people who went to hear King speak. Some of them remember, and for others this is a pleasant interlude of songs unconnected to anything past or future. But often they know the words; the words and melodies and sentiments of old beloved songs stay with them even when other things crumble.
subterrane
People expect cutesyness from young kids. They want to imagine that a first or second grader for instance doesn't have any serious fears or frighteningly complicated thoughts. Probably because as adults we often can't handle those kinds of thoughts well ourselves, and we hope that children won't demand more of us than the regular pat reassurances.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Performance artists
In New York:
and old York:
The one from New York (I'll call her the Blanched Ballerina) was posing in Central Park. The one from England (Purple Pedaler?) was in The Shambles.
It seems like both photos captured them mid-motion, but neither one was moving, just being as still as possible and drawing people towards them with their novel presence.
and old York:
The one from New York (I'll call her the Blanched Ballerina) was posing in Central Park. The one from England (Purple Pedaler?) was in The Shambles.
It seems like both photos captured them mid-motion, but neither one was moving, just being as still as possible and drawing people towards them with their novel presence.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)