Dancing the night away...

It's been a quiet couple of weeks for my liver and that's a good thing. As an alternative to hitting the pub I've seen a transvestite ballet company, a real ballet company and a few good movies.
The dance companies were a bit of departure for me. Watching dance is not really my thing as I've always been a bit puzzled by the entertainment value of it. There is no doubt that dancers are great athletes and can do amazing things with their bodies but how am I supposed to react to that? What is the difference between a dancer and a physical comedian or even a mime? They are all people using their bodies to express an emotion, wether it is love, comedy or anger makes no difference to me.

So anyway, I stared in some puzzlement at the first show I saw by The Martha Graham Company and kept thinking of Brendan Behan shouting "Up Sodomy!" at his first attendance of a ballet. There were some not too subtle left-wing political references in this show that held my attention for a bit but I wasn't particularly moved by anything I saw. I'm not saying it was bad; in fact if you like ballet it was probably great. It just wasn't my thing.

The Grandivas on the other hand were a laugh a minute. An all-male company performing Romeo and Juliet can only be good. I guess it was the comedy I liked or the fact that they were puncturing holes in the pretentiousness of the whole thing. I've always loved people who do that; check out Luther Wright and the Wrongs bluegrass version of Pink Floyd for example.