Image source Amazon
Read via physical book and Audible (Narrated on Audible by Kristen Potter)
Reading Reflection Written July, 2021
Now I truly appreciate ballet dancers as living masterpieces of memory and repetition.
Their dedication to their art is beyond admirable. I wonder if they ever slouch in private or their unapologetic perfection trickles throughout their entire being. Reading this feels as if I'm suspending time with such supernatural acrobatic grace as the dancers themselves. I somehow feel connected to these dancers, even though I could never do what they do; I’m truly inspired by their dedication. Listening to the intricacies of a performance is a storytelling format which arouses a new type of stimulation. The curtain is lifted highlighting why dancers have continued this painfully-pleasurable tradition for centuries. I crave to travel back to pantomime days to experience the theatrics of ancient performers. Just to fantasise about a world without mobile phones makes me smile, a time where creators and performers were free from social media and all the pressures that come with playing this game. There's something hopelessly romantic about the idea of rewinding through antiquity, to a time where raw-innovative entertainment was the screen-time equivalent. Revolutionary and ballet are not often heard in the same vein, yet how truly poetic that through the grace and wit of ballet, minorities have dissolved societal and political oppression; who ever heard of an abused group of people defeating injustice with performance as their main weapon. This book makes me realise how powerful the vehicle of ballet is and how persuasion comes in many forms.
Read this book when you feel as if your art has no voice. Read again and again when you need momentum.