I came across an article a few weeks ago from the Spectator, named Good Riddance to Literary Fiction, written by Sean Thomas. And I find myself drawing parallels to classical ballet.
The article addresses the decline of literary fiction and the rise of a new kind of genre called “romantasy” (romance + fantasy), bringing up some criticism towards literary fiction on how it alienates the general reader, “the observer notes the increasing imbecility of the modern reader” and “good riddance to literary fiction – it was a silly, self-defeating genre in the first place, putting posh books in posh ghetto, walling itself off from everyday readers.”
And what changed the literary scene was the release of The Davinci Code, which had a cracking good story.
People want story and narrative, and literary fiction had come to forsake story, plot and narrative. And unless one is a spectacular writer, combining proper narrative and intellectual writing, the work just ends up as storyless literary fiction.
I can’t help but compare it to classical ballet. Ballet as a form of dance is old, rigid, doctrinated, with much elitist and hierarchical system and mindsets still in place. From my years of dancing, the rigid form of ballet felt stifling, it’s perfection was frustratingly elusive. For many classical ballets, each excerpt or individual dances hardly has any meaning to it. It was just simply beautiful choreography and beautiful dancing. Especially when compared to newer contemporary ballets, which allows more range of expression and freedom.
And so before I watched the Nureyev & Friends Ballet Gala, that was part of the Hong Kong Arts Festival, I agreed with the article. I felt that classical ballet was lacking a connection to the general public, too unyielding and seemingly elusive for most too fully understand and appreciate. Unless having been exposed to it enough to get over the steep learning curve of understanding ballet, it remains much too foreign to most.
For me personally, after years of dancing, I became almost immune to the beauty of ballet. Being exposed to it every single day without any deeper meaning and ballets being handled without care by people in power, it just lost it’s appeal to me, I lost the ability to appreciate the deeper intricacies of the art form. At the end of the day, when I get home, all I’ve seen the whole day was just beautiful dancing, thats all.
Therefore, before watching the Gala, I was not especially excited, I already had a preconceived judgement on how I would feel after the show, great dancing, no story, nothing that will touch me, change my life, or make me feel anything deeply. I went to the show without checking the cast list or the programme.
How wrong was I.
Maybe it had been the time apart from ballet, dancing, or anything related.
Or it was the star studded cast, and their their incredible technique and ablility to bring out the essence of ballet.
Or maybe simply because I had no expectations of the show.
Perhaps it was a combination of all the factors. But I had thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the performance.
I finally realised the fun in going to the theatre. Back when I was dancing, I never fully enjoyed watching ballet performances. Probably professional skepticism. I was always judging what was good and what was not, what to learn from it, at the same time feeling deflated from my inadequacy and envy.
But now I could fully see the joy and artistry of the art form and the beauty that it brings. I allowed myself to fully relish the performance, and even more so, as an ex ballet dancer, when I pick up the little nuances put in by the dancers.
When the curtain rose, Jacopo Tissi came out for the La Bayadere pas de deux, I was immediately blown away. Effortless clean jumps, cutting through the air during his manèges. When Maria Khoreva entered on stage, beautiful lines, impeccable technique, the pas de deux was as perfect as humanly achievable. And I had to admit, beautiful dancing is still very very mesmerising.
All of the pas de deux that evening were excerpts from ballet, most have little to no story within the dancing itself, which usually quite typical of a Gala, it was about technique, bravado, flair.
However, what really struck me was the pas de duex from Don Juan featuring Alina Cojocaru and Alexandr Truskh and two pas de deux performed by Dorothée Gilbert and Mathieu Ganio, Cinderella and Swan Lake. It was simply sublime, touching and nuanced. A culmination of both beauty and story telling.
As I stated before, I did not check the cast list or the programme, so each time a couple steps on stage, I didn’t now what ballet they were going to be performing, and it took me some time to recognise dancers as well. It was actually really fun.
And so I didn’t recognise the pas de deux from Don Juan, And when I recognised Cojocaru, it was such a surreal experience. I had always watched her through a screen when I was little, and over the years, she almost seemed made up. Seeing her live was almost like a sacred experience.
She has something that mesmerises and holds you, like a great story teller. I had no idea what the pas de deux was about, but I cant help but be drawn into their intimate world and conversation that they were having on stage. Like an enchantress, she slowly pulls the audience in, and you are unable to take your eyes off their mysterious story.
Even without knowing the narrative, her body language, every step, shrug of the shoulder, opens up my imagination, and kept me hooked and wondering, pulling me along their strange conflict, of love, worship, desperation and longing.
By the end, I still didn’t know what was going on, but I don’t care, because I was able to feel something human, something that in our normal lives, we avoid and distance ourselves from feeling. Only when embodied beautifully by another do we seem to confront just a fraction of these immense emotions.
And while Cojocaru and Truskh was raw, human and grounded in their human tribulations, Gilbert and Ganio were lofty, ethereal and glamorous.
Their chemistry was the best of the evening, in my opinion, probably from their years of working together at the Paris Opera. It has been a while since I’ve seen a couple with such similar lines and movement quality.
Although their pas de duex of Cinderella and Swan Lake was not nearly as dramatic as Don Juan, they were able to bring out the sensitivity of each pas de deux with such ease. Almost creating an aristocratic, divine like quality. Gilbert’s use of epaulment was feminine, sultry, nuanced, translated a kind of physical pleasure to the audience.
And so, after the entire show, I don’t think it was just purely beautiful dancing, and that without story, becomes pointless.
Beautiful dancing is still able to create such a spectrum of different feelings, sensations and emotions that transcends the normal human experience. As does ballet and dance, they are able to take the human body and movement, to create such exquisite, elegant art that accentuates the beauty of humans, bringing it to another level closer to the divine. It is something that goes beyond the narrative, creating a sensitivity we did not realise we have and touch a part of us that we buried deeply and probably only feels safe to appear when we come into contact with any of the arts. And perhaps in our over reliance on a narrative, we miss out on the intricacies of many of these beautiful art.
And so, I don’t know about Literary Fiction, but definitely not good riddance to classical ballet.
In Transit 
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