“How does a body stand upright when the world is spinning around it?” Gia Kourlas began her review of the New York City Ballet’s performance of Solitude.
We find ways to find joy, I think, even when faced with despair. I knit and cook, write and talk. Walk the dog. Hike. Find solace in nature. I also try to see art exhibits and live performances.
This past week I had the privilege and pleasure of seeing two magnificent live performances that transcended my day to day yet each drew attention to the issues we face.
Artists create.
At the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, I heard the New Jersey Symphony perform Richard Strauss’ Concerto in D Major for Oboe and small orchestra. The program notes explained that the piece was inspired by a request from an American serviceman stationed in Strauss’s village after the Allies defeated the Nazis. The solo oboe, that began and ended the work evoked war and peace. I marveled at how the composer captured these contrasts.
On a more bucolic note, the performance included Antonio Vivaldi’s 1725 Four Seasons for violin and Orchestra. The popular piece, a favorite at weddings, celebrates the contrasts in nature from triumphs to calamities. I heard light breezes to hard winds, gentle rains to combative thunder storms; I envisioned pastures of flowers and mountains of pines.
Later in the week, I attended the New York City Ballet. We have friends who have subscribed for more than 40 years and invite once a year. It’s always a treat as the seats are close enough to see the facial expressions and chiseled muscles of the dancers. The program of three dances included Solitude, a new work choreographed by the ballet’s Artist in Residence Alexei Ratmansky and set to several symphonic movements by Gustav Mahler.
The ballet is about the war in Ukraine, where Ratmansky grew up and his parents reside and was inspired by a photograph of a father kneeling next to the body of his 13-year-old son after he was killed by a Russian airstrike at a bus stop in Kharkiv. The reporting said the father held the boy’s hand for hours. On a stark stage, a male dancer does just that with a young member from the School of American Ballet. The movements are sharp and visceral, at times a tangle of limbs askew. No words are needed to experience the grief penetrating the stage. The music and choreography create images of war and its cruel, heartbreaking effect on children.
LisaKWinkler 