at the movies: black swan

"We're going to take Swan Lake, strip it down and make it visceral and real!"

I'd been dying to see Black Swan ever since I first heard rumblings about a dark mind-f*ck of a movie involving ballet and directed by Darren Oronofsky, who also did The Wrestler (which I loved). That's right up my alley, in case you were wondering (I have always been fascinated by the ballet). But... whoa. I was expecting psychological torment, but it was gory--an honest-to-goodness art house horror flick that had me diving behind my hands again and again. Natalie Portman was incredibly well cast, and underwent a year of intensive training to shape her (literally) into the perfect prima ballerina. (She also was impregnated by and is now engaged to the prinicipal dancer who played her Prince in Swan Lake.) It was one of those movies where I left the theatre unsure of whether I liked it or not, but I think I can say now that I really did. The symbolism of black/white and good/evil is obvious in the extreme, but I think it suits the film quite well. After all, that is what Swan Lake, the ballet within the film, is all about. And to some extent, I think that is what the world of ballet is all about--a facade of extraordinary beauty and perfection and the ugliness, pain and suffering underneath (have you ever seen a ballerina movie where the dancers didn't peel their mangled, bloody feet out of pretty pink shoes?).

As for making the film visceral and real, Aronofsky went above and beyond, scraping away Nina's flawlessly fragile skin and revealing the raw meat underneath. It was as if Aronofsky was reminding us of our corporality with every blink of an eye--even the way that the dancers would shred and tear and stitch their shoes it was as if they were eviscerating raw flesh. I was also struck by the way that every space (with the exception of the main stage and theatre, of course) seemed dingy and dark, evocative of the underground. These were the sort of spaces you would expect heroin addicts to inhabit, not lovely, lithe little ballerinas. And the blood... so, so much blood...

the ballerina project

This morning I was inspired to simplify.

At first I thought my all-black ensemble was indicative of my feelings on my upcoming birthday (mourning the loss of my youth, perhaps?), but dismissed that notion because I've actually quite come to terms with the big 2-5. I then serendipitously stumbled upon the Ballerina Project (via Rockstar Diaries), and was instantly smitten. I have a fondness for the ballet that I can't quite explain--I'm certainly no swanlike ballerina, and I generally gravitate toward dramatic chaos (as opposed to the stiff discipline of the ballet), but it's just so beautiful. Ballet is, to me, the quintessance of graceful femininity and timeless art.

(dress: TJMaxx; shoes: Payless; glasses: F21; bolero: consignment)

Voila! My homage to ballerina-chic :) And now, the real ballerinas:

Lovely, yes?

chevron ballerina

I got this skirt about six years ago, on the super-sale rack at Urban Outfitters. It may have been the very first thing that I ever bought at UO, back when it wasn't the hipster hotspot it is today. When I bought it, the skirt was too big and too long, and I think I wore it maybe once before burying it in my dresser with an imaginary "project" sign on it. It's still too big (hence the belt), but the shorter length has definitely brought this funky little skirt back to life in my book.

(skirt: UO; top: Marshall's; shoes: Kohl's; belt: Old Navy)

Pink really isn't a color that I wear very often. It's a little bit too Pepto-Bismol Barbie for me, I guess. When I do happen to wear pink I usually feel too... sweet, or something. Like an eleven-year-old girl clinging furiously to her femininity in a boys-have-cooties kind of way. Like Shelly Tambo (if you don't get this reference, you need to watch Northern Exposure--stat!) and her sickeningly pink interior redecoration of Holling's apartment.

Of course, that's overkill. A little bit of pink can go a long way. This skirt also makes me feel a bit like a ballerina, with the slight tutu-inspired poof and the unapologetically girlish hue.

ballet after the rain

I totally intend to embrace my inner girly-ballerina this spring. It may be January, but the torrential downpours of yesterday undeniably invoked the spirit of April showers, so I'm getting a jumpstart on the business of being arabesque-esque.

(shirt: Old Navy; skirt: stolen from mom, hemmed; tights: Marshall's; shoes: Madden Girl; pearls: Claire's; crystal beads: Grammy Flood; ring: vintage)

Sometimes I still wish I were born to be a ballerina, even though I know that the life would be grueling and painful and I would be hungry all the time... but alas, even at five years old my ballet teacher could tell that I would never be great. She said that my spine was too curved for ballet and that I should try gymnastics, which I was actually pretty good at and enjoyed, to an extent. Apparently I decided to quit when the pressure to compete became too great... that's kind of a theme in my life. I also quit the violin when my teacher suggested that I compete in Fiddle festivals.

It seems odd, even to me, but I often find myself a victim of cultural-exposure envy. I have this unfortunate feeling that there are things I wish I had known about or experienced in my youth, which might have churned out a better-formed, better-informed individual who could easily discourse on the pop culture of decades past (though perhaps with partiality toward a particular era), on art or rock music (I so often wish I had been a little rock and roll rebel--Almost Famous is one of my favorite movies). It's not that I wasn't exposed to culture--the opposite, in fact--but it was the equivalent of aboriginal culture: music and art that was organic and freewheeling and influenced by the cerebral cortex more than modern popular culture. The kind of culture that is inwardly expansive but outwardly alienating. Of course, I'm exaggerating. I love the life I had growing up and I know I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world... but I do wish I could identify more than fifty-percent of pop culture references when they arise.

I leave you with a quote, re-blogged from the amusing blog of miss Marisa Meltzer, which I spent more than my fair share of allotted internet-time wading through yesterday afternoon. This particularly struck me (and made me laugh) because so often I wish I could be an artist (preferably a painter) and spend my days strutting around a wide-open studio with a brush in one hand and a glass of wine in the other, alternately splattering paint and vino on big, thick, thirsty canvases:

"Writers always envy artists, would trade places with them in a moment if they could. The painter’s life seems less ascetic, less monkish, less hunched. Instead of the austere mess of the desk there is the chaos of the studio: dirty coffee cups, paint-smudged cassette decks, drawings of the artist’s girlfriend, naked, on the walls… In the age of the computer the writer’s office or study will increasingly resemble the customer service desk of an ailing small business. The artist’s studio, though, is still what it has always been: an erotic space. For the writer the artist’s studio is, essentially a place where women undress." (from Out of Sheer Rage by Geoff Dyer, which has just made my reading list... plus, I love D.H. Lawrence)

This is why making films might work for me. I have all of these imaginary scenes in my head--lives I'd love to lead--and I see them play out in dynamic detail. The film about my life as a painter is bright, vivid, and chaotic--the art of looking lovely while completely falling apart, like an explosion of light and color--like fireworks. The film about my life as a ballerina? Soft-focus and overexposed pastels and floral prints in a quiet, calm room, maybe set on the bay--fluttery, transparent, worn.

Plié and stretch...

So, the sad news is that K has gone "home" for the Holidays (aka to his parents' house) and I am left all alone in our festive little barn apartment. Getting him on the airplane turned out to be quite the ordeal. The huge blizzard that surprised the East Coast this weekend didn't directly affect us here in VT, but his connecting flight in DC was cancelled (one of the problems with living in a small state is that you can't really get out without stopping somewhere along the way). After hours on hold with Delta we drove to the airport to reschedule in person and ended up booking a flight out of Boston for super-early the next morning (all flights out of Burlington were booked until two days before Christmas). Unfortunately, by the time we got back to the apartment the storm had hit Boston and they were getting all freaked out down there and cancelling flights like crazy people. Finally, after hours and hours on hold (again...and I mean hours) he decided to book a flight with another airline and I ended up driving him all the way down to Boston (we only experienced the very tail-end of the storm) and all the way back that same evening. I couldn't even light up the tree when I got home... it was too depressing. I'll be going "home" (aka to my parents' house) tonight to spend some quality time with the family for the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime, I took advantage of K's absence by borrowing his clothes! HA! Shh don't tell:

Sometimes I wish I were taller, but being small does have its perks! I mean, K is tall but he's not a giant or anything... and the shirt is still only borderline inappropriate when worn as a dress (By me. If he wore it as a dress that would be inappropriate in many ways. Not that I don't support men wearing dresses if they're into that kind of thing).

So last night I was a little less bummed out about his desertion (time heals all wounds...) and decided to spend some quality time with myself. I wined and dined (mm yes please leftover fried-bean-curd-in-garlic-sauce chinese takeout):

Hung out in the library:

And watched two consecutive documentaries about the Ballet:

I've been meaning to watch these films for a long time, not just because I have a newfound infatuation with ballet (which I do... although I suppose it's more of a fascination), but because I'm doing "research." I've been frustrated with my creative stagnation for long enough--and while this blog offers temporary relief on a day-to-day basis (like bandaids or tylenol), it doesn't really satisfy my serious artistic impulses. I need to move beyond the quick fix and focus more of my attention on truly finding fulfillment. And so I found myself scribbling notes about ballerinas on a Tuesday night... and that's good! That's a first step, anyway.

I've had many ideas over the past couple of years and never sat down to develop them, but I keep returning to the concept of spirituality and faith in the modern world and the ways in which people create their own sort of "religion" when they are disconnected from traditional religious communities. I know people who have found calmness and completion in religious devotion and faith--people who are generally far more well-balanced and comfortable with their humanity than I will ever be--and as someone who can't subscribe to any particular religious doctrine, I find myself observing the ways in which other people fill that spiritual void.

The development of my potential story began long ago with "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance..." or maybe "What the #$*! do We (K)now?" (a silly movie, but a good starting point for brain-jumping) and moved through Simone de Beauvoir and the philosophy of the individual, mysticism and eastern religion (esp. Sufism & the whirling dervishes), quantam theory, Leonard Cohen's zen Monastery and performance as prayer, the faith of the masses in Obama's political mission and movement, the ways in which romantic love parallels and possibly replaces divine love...

Wow, blah blah blah, right? This is why I need to sit down and "develop," because otherwise I ramble ramble ramble and never really get my point across.

Anyway, that's what I'm working on. In case you were wondering.

PS. I apologize for the disorderly state of my dresser drawers. It's bound to happen when you have one tiny tiny closet and an overabundance of clothes, but I admit I probably could have at least tried to close them.

PPS. If your eyes were distracted from the disheveled dresser by the visible half of my awesome antique singer sewing machine, well played.