Going to See Swan Lake!

Hey everyone! Kathleen loves ballet. She’s been painting ballet-themed paintings for the last several months and just had her first performance. Around Christmastime, tickets for the ballet performance of Swan Lake went on sale and my family and I surprised Kathleen with tickets.

Swan Lake is Kathleen’s favorite play. She’s told me so many times how she wants to one day play Odile, the Black Swan.

We saw the performance at the same place we saw the Sound of Music and Kathleen was super hyped. We got to the theater and there was no wait this time to get into the our seats. The usher pointed us in the direct of our seats and Kathleen and I looked at each other, our eyes wide.

Our seats this time were on the right side of the theater, five rows back from the stage.

On our way to our seats, my eyes snagged on the orchestra pit ten feet below the stage. Kathleen and I both stopped and watched the musicians warming up. This was super cool. I had never seen live music accompanying the performance. Sound of Music used music from speakers, and even though the score was excellent, there’s nothing quite like a flawlessly playing orchestra.

We waited for a while, then, after a few announcements from the theater staff, the conductor walked out. Cue the applause, cue the band warming up all together. This went out for about five minutes, then the band struck up their first song and the curtain rose.

Act one was over in a flash. All I remember is being totally transfixed by the dancers. To be honest, I was kind of glad that Act 1 was over because I had forgotten exactly what was going on and wanted to review the plot in the program.

I skimmed my program, stood up to stretch my legs, then proceeded to totally fangirl over Act 1 with Kath. Quietly, in a manner that was acceptable in the theater.

Then, the lights dimmed and we got ready for Act 2.

Scene 1 of Act 2 was what both KAth and I had been waiting for all night. Basically, in that scene, Odile is trying to convince the Prince that she’s Odette. Kathleen had explained the entire scene in detail to me and I was waiting with anticipation for the 32 fouetts Odile does in the middle of the act.

I kept waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

Then, it happened. Odile started to turn. I only counted about twenty-four, but it was still amazing. (flash forward three hours in the future and Kathleen taught herself how to do it. She can’t quite get past three, but still, impressive,)

After the first scene ended, I was breathless. The curtains closed, but the orchestra kept playing.

I could tell that the whole theater was a little confused. Everyone started to chatter a little. The lady behind me started texting.

Fortunately, it didn’t last long. The orchestra got louder and the curtain rose again. It revealed the stage to be covered in a thick fog. The swans came out and danced the stage clean.

After the show finished, we went home and Kathleen and I talked about the performance the entire way.

Overall, I really enjoyed by first experience seeing a ballet. Ballet is more of Kathleen’s thing, though I do get a lot of secondhand learning when she practices at home, so I knew what was going on. Also, Swan Lake comes up in our daily conversations all the time…

Anyway, that’s all for now! Are they any ballets that you’ve seen? If so, what did you think? Let us know in the comments down below.

Also, this is sort of unrelated, but I posted a new YouTube video where I do a drawing using just an eraser! It was super fun to do. If you want to check it out, you can click here.

That’s all I have for you today! Keep on the lookout for new posts!

~Elizabeth and Kathleen