Kellen Morris
April 1 2019
Staff Reporter
To start this off, I just want to say that I don’t know anything about dance, much less ballet. So at this concert, I was more confused than anything since I’ve never been to a ballet concert. But, despite this, I atendended Misako Ballet Company’s performance of “Momotaro” on Sunday, February 17th. The performance was composed of three acts. It began with two shorter, 10-15 minute routines before going to a 20 minute intermission, and then a final half an hour act to finish off the showcase. Each of the acts had their own unique theme. I could not put my finger on what the theme was for the first act. The theme of the second act seemed very jazzy since their costumes looked like Christmas lights in the night sky. Finally, the third act was based off Japanese folklore, since they seemed to be acting out some sort of Japanese story which involved the kidnapping of a child and then getting the child back in a happy ending.
The best and most amusing part of the entire concert was during the third act when a small child (no older than five) popped out from behind a fruit basket in what closely resembled something you would see out of a viral social media video.
The balance that all the dancers seemed to have was the most impressive part of it all. I don’t have very good balance, so seeing a dozen people who were able to spin on one of their tippy-toes and make no obvious noise when moving around on stage was extremely impressive. The routines seemed very superb, although I literally had no idea what any of the movements meant or if some of the movements were more difficult than others. The movements consisted of mini-leaps, seemingly random jumps across the stage, walking on their tippy toes, and spinning on one foot while the dancers were still on their tippy toes. Additionally, every time one of the dancers went off stage, they would basically do a one-footed gallop off stage with one of their hands up. I’m going to assume this is proper ballet etiquette, but, again, I honestly have no idea.
The second most impressive part of the concert was the lighting, specifically in the second act. It was multi-colored, very impressive, and made it hard to look away from what was going on on stage. It also went along very well with the dancers’ costumes, which, like I mentioned above, were multi-colored with a black background.
The part of the concert I was most looking forward to leading up to the event was the music. However, I was very disappointed since I really did not know the kind of music that they play at ballet concerts. I was expecting instrumentals with a solid beat, but instead very quiet instrumentals with no beat at all was played. I don’t have any right to complain, since me complaining about that would be like complaining about there being a lack of dubstep at a country concert.
Although I do not see myself wanting to go to another ballet showcase, overall, the concert was great. It had a very relaxing mood and tone, and many of the movements were impressive, and it was much better than I expected.
atholtonnews.com 