Not-so-Center Stage

Having two girls who have seen Center Stage several million times each watch a ballet rehearsal is not a good thing.

"Um, that wasn't like Center Stage at all! Only one of those dudes was even potentially straight!"

Though, Ari and I did see, er, every single muscle on the male dancers' bodies.

Last night, the Jete Society of the Washington Ballet and Junior League offered $15 tickets to come sit in the company's rehearsal for Carmina Burana, which opens at the Kennedy Center March 28th. A beer reception followed.

I'm a chick. I dig ballet. I know, I know, the cliche of it all! One of the New York Ballet's famous principals was there last night. Sitting two people down from us. I was in awe.

They say with watching a ballet company, you should sit back and see who your eye takes you to watch. That's going to be the star. What was interesting about last night was that normally I'm drawn to watching the women. This time though, perhaps because the piece is very male oriented, I was watching the men more. They were incredible. Even in their tight dance everyday clothing... okay, especially in their tight dance everyday clothing.

Carmina Burana is an hour-long piece based on 13th century scripts found to be written by Bavarian monks. They were originally thought to be prayers, but, later, were discovered to be drinking songs. Thus, it was amazing to watch a final "chair" dance where the ballerinas acted out being drunk in dance.

Reminds me of Erica's boyfriend Jeff's response to Picasso at Lapin Agile when we were in college. I was Publicity Director for the show. I made them go. The entire play, though hilarious, is set in a bar. At the end, Jeff remarked, "I need a beer badly. I just spend 2 hours looking at a bar."

But back to le ballet.

I appreciated that the dancers, in their normal dance outfits, tried a bit harder to make the clothing hip and dancer-like. One of the girls had cut off one leg of her pants below the knee so we could watch her footwork more. I also appreciated the over-dramatized choreographer giving direction throughout the rehearsal. We actually felt like we were watching backstage of A Chorus Line.

Ari and I were both surprised that the majority of solos in the show went to Jason Hartley. Looking at him, he certainly didn't appear to be the typical ballerina. He is much more stout and muscular. That was, until he danced. Wow. Couldn't take our eyes off the man. We discussed later in the car how surprised we were that he was as amazing a dancer as he ended up being.

Of the women, Ari said she enjoyed watching them when they were interacting and not dancing. The stunning Kara Cooper looked like a mixture of the two most attractive Rachels in Hollywood (Rachel Bilson and Rachel McAdams). When the girls performed, her flawless perfection made us hate and adore ballerinas. Ari was convinced the other girls didn't like her. "She's hot. But she knows she's hot. And, the other girls totally don't like that she knows she's hot. I think everyone liked the blond one with the weird pant thing though."

Afterwords, we stopped by Safeway so I could pick up some lettuce and Fiber One. Yeah, seeing a bunch of chicks without an ounce of fat on their bodies is definitely bad for the self-esteem.