Yet ANOTHER Radio and Juliet Post

This past Thursday, October 27, 2011, fellow sophomore dance majors and I made a trip downtown to the Palace Theatre to see Ballet Maribor's performance of Radio and Juliet. At first, I was not sure what to expect, for I had not heard much about this production nor had I heard anything about this particular ballet company, Ballet Maribor, for that matter. Mostly, I was unsure of how this ballet company could successfully use songs by RadioHead, modern day strange and sometimes morbid music, while portraying the essence of the romantic tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, a seemingly ancient playwright. By the end of the show though I found myself sad that the performance was over and shouting "encore" to the dancers on stage, it was wonderful!

The show started off with a very interesting video clip of a woman; this video clip continued to play at other parts later on in the performance. All together the cast consisted of six men and one woman--a choice made to portray the idea of a woman in a man's world, said a Ballet Maribor representative in a Q&A session we attended afterward. All of the dancers seemed to be trained in the classical ballet technique. Through this obvious classical ballet training, I really enjoyed Ballet Maribor's contemporary twist they added to their production. I found this choice to be much more easily relatable and more appropriately paired with the dark and peculiar RadioHead music and storyline. Overall, I really enjoyed this company's interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. Although it was a very minimalistic interpretation, at times I was unable to follow the romantic tragedy's plot, I enjoyed the very modern day mechanics of the show, from costuming, to props, to videography, choreography, and of course the choice of music.

One thing that I found very interesting is that I noticed myself paying more and more attention to the performers' alignment, especially pelvic placement. Because I would say that my pelvis is the number one item I should be focusing on correcting, I've taken notice to the mechanics and sensibility of the pelvises of others (as strange as that sounds). Although the performer's pelvis always seemed to be properly aligned as a classical ballet dancer, it was also interesting to see much of the movement was driven by the pelvis, two ideas I don't usually pair together. Now I realize that both are possible, I just need more practice!