The ballet

Saturday afternoon Garry and I went to the ballet- we had to be in the city later in the afternoon to help with oral English tests for our friend Tatiana's students. Garry had asked her if there was anything on in the city and it turned out there was a matinee performance by the Dnepropetroesk ballet company.

There was a 50 person orchestra playing during the production- we arrived early since we were buying our tickets at the door- so we got to listen to them tune and warm-up. The house was at least half full- quite a few children in the audience, some small girls sitting on their mother's lap-I think they get in free that way. We were in row 14, right where the auditorium has a dividing aisle- Garry liked the legroom.

I'm told it was a traditional Ukrainian ballet- but I don't know the name of the ballet. It was a romance with star-crossed lovers, a controlling mother (played by a man I think) for the girl who wanted her to marry a rich man instead. The girl spends most of her time dancing with her friends and avoiding chores like churning butter, spinning wool, sweeping to spend time with her beau.





Then just before the intermission there was a big harvest scene which ended with a pouring rain- it got dark and they used lights on sometime that was falling to look like a huge storm. Really cool, but I didn't get a good photo, since I was snapping without a flash.




There was a slight miscue in the second half in front of the lovers curtain when the little girls tried to enter too early and the other dancers shooed them back.
Of course at the finale they are married with about 70 dancers on stage including a large number of young male and female ballet students. It's amazing how much of the story you can understand even though you can't read the storyline in the program.