An interesting weekend, which began with my first 'live dance' experience. I've never fully got to grips with dance as an artistic medium. I suppose my perceptions were all based on a traditional ballet style of dance, the most obvious recent example being Rosalie's love of The tales of Beatrix Potter as performed by The Royal Ballet. I can see why she loves it, of course, but it leaves me rather cold. Except perhaps to marvel at the dancer's ability to pirouette while dressed as Mrs Tiggiwinkle, etc.
So, on Friday we went to see a performance called Two:Four:Ten at the London Coliseum, a retorspective of ten years of work by a choreographer called Russell Maliphant.
We got to Know Russell and his family through mutual friends. When I heard that they were doing this show, I thought I should give it a go (no, not the dancing, obviously).
We went, and I was spellbound. It's probably described as 'contemporary', but there were no hedgehogs, field-mice or dying swans, the lighting was fantastic, the music interesting, challenging at times, and the dancing? Well, it was impressive, fluid, complex, even moving. It just worked (The show included this piece, but with two dancers moving in and out of synch with each other). I think I got it. I certainly enjoyed it, and I might even go and see some more, one day.
I must be becoming a Culture Vulture. I do rather like those rhyming sobriquets. I heard a good one the other day to describe wine enthusiasts. Cork dorks. I'm just glad that I'm not overly fond of oil tankers...
The rest of the weekend was, of course, devoted to chocolate. It is Easter, after all. Traditions must be observed. After all, when Christ was on the cross and a spear pierced his side, he did poor forth chocolate buttons. He also had previously spent forty days and forty nights in the wilderness, trying to find the last Easter egg that was unaccounted for at the previous year's hunt.
As you may have gathered, the whole religious thing doesn't really float my boat, and while I understand the whole Oestre spring fertility pagan history of the other version of Easter, I do find the excessive promotion, packaging and consumption of all that chocolate rather obscene, in a way.
Obviously, I never touch the stuff, except in my parental role as poison taster, and in order to stop her from eating too much. It's a sacrifice, but you have to do these things. Think of the children. Eating their chocolate is a way of keeping them safe.
My latest Times Column is out today, strangely in the travel section online this week. It's sort of about Rosalie travellling to the top of the climbing frame, I suppose. Anyway, it's good to have it online so that those of you who are overseas can at least see what I've been getting up to.
So, on Friday we went to see a performance called Two:Four:Ten at the London Coliseum, a retorspective of ten years of work by a choreographer called Russell Maliphant.
We got to Know Russell and his family through mutual friends. When I heard that they were doing this show, I thought I should give it a go (no, not the dancing, obviously).
We went, and I was spellbound. It's probably described as 'contemporary', but there were no hedgehogs, field-mice or dying swans, the lighting was fantastic, the music interesting, challenging at times, and the dancing? Well, it was impressive, fluid, complex, even moving. It just worked (The show included this piece, but with two dancers moving in and out of synch with each other). I think I got it. I certainly enjoyed it, and I might even go and see some more, one day.
I must be becoming a Culture Vulture. I do rather like those rhyming sobriquets. I heard a good one the other day to describe wine enthusiasts. Cork dorks. I'm just glad that I'm not overly fond of oil tankers...
The rest of the weekend was, of course, devoted to chocolate. It is Easter, after all. Traditions must be observed. After all, when Christ was on the cross and a spear pierced his side, he did poor forth chocolate buttons. He also had previously spent forty days and forty nights in the wilderness, trying to find the last Easter egg that was unaccounted for at the previous year's hunt.
As you may have gathered, the whole religious thing doesn't really float my boat, and while I understand the whole Oestre spring fertility pagan history of the other version of Easter, I do find the excessive promotion, packaging and consumption of all that chocolate rather obscene, in a way.
Obviously, I never touch the stuff, except in my parental role as poison taster, and in order to stop her from eating too much. It's a sacrifice, but you have to do these things. Think of the children. Eating their chocolate is a way of keeping them safe.
My latest Times Column is out today, strangely in the travel section online this week. It's sort of about Rosalie travellling to the top of the climbing frame, I suppose. Anyway, it's good to have it online so that those of you who are overseas can at least see what I've been getting up to.
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