No this isn't a retelling of little red riding hood; I don't have a red cape or coat for starters. The path I'm actually talking about is the religious one. You see a lot has happened in my life in the past year, and coupled with the amount of ancient history and religions I've studied you start to loose focus, and in some ways, your faith. But I've been told since a young age that "The Lord works in mysterious ways" so when I ran across St. Peter's Catholic Church, just off Madison Ave, I went in. The chapel itself was stunning, minimal in frivolities (it's run by Franciscan friars) but they had these statues and reliefs... it was stunning. And rather small. If it hadn't been for the doors I wouldn't have noticed it - odd considering the crucifix on the front, but I wasn't looking up. Chicago, winter, wind... need I say more? Anyways, for whatever reason I decided to look at the mass schedule, and ended up going to 11:40 mass today. And I feel better for it. I think I missed believing in something... I missed doing something so natural to my state of being. Granted I have never claimed to be a good Catholic, for many reasons, but at the same time it's what I believe.
Moral of the story: Do what your gut tells you; do what you believe.
Now that I've taken the time to tell you all my religious story let's get to all the stuff you want to hear about. First off: I'M SORRY I DIDN'T WRITE LAST WEEK!!! But since everyone was dealing with Thanksgiving and black Friday (I had work at 6am), I don't think I'm in too much trouble.
Also, starting about two weeks ago, I broke down and started watching The Nutcracker. This is a ballet that is near and dear to my heart, always has been, and always will be. I've read the book almost every Christmas season since middle school; I've performed in the ballet multiple times (No, I don't have any pictures that I can show you, otherwise I would); I used to watch the cartoon when I was little; and I have a collection of at least 10 of varying sizes that continues to grow every year. So when I ran across two new ones on youtube (new for me at least), I was excited.
The first one is performed by The Australian Ballet, and I know the choreography (Peter Wright's, for anyone who knows repertoires by choreographers) so that wasn't terribly intriguing, but the sets and costumes were. They're like a watercolor kaleidoscope!
And the other one was by the Mariinsky Theatre for the 2007 season, with choreography by Kirill Simonov. OMG! I have always thought that the Waltz of the Snowflakes was a bit erratic sounding at the end, more like a blizzard than anything, and I gotta tell ya, this production saw it my way!
Their Waltz of the Flowers was pretty spectacular as well.
Not to mention, the Sugarplum Fairy costume reminds me a bit of a design I created awhile ago...perhaps I'll upload my old nutcracker designs sometime. Regardless, this production makes me smile all the way around.
No comments:
Post a Comment