Sensual Nights in Monte Carlo

For those who know me this will seem weird, but I have to confess, I have done it, and done it again. This time it was amazing. I am afraid I have to confess that secretly, without many people knowing, I have been involved in something not a lot of people ever do. If they knew about it in my home town I would have to hang my head in shame, or so I thought till last night.
You see I come from a place where the so called higher arts are for the snobs, and us plebs, who are happy to tread the boards, gig, street perform, sing along, even mime, know nothing and care less, for men in tights.
I can assure what I have been doing lately has everything to do with men in nylons and of course (the phrase demands it) nothing.
In the last year I have been privledged to witness, and victimised to endure, some of the best and not so best, of the world of Ballet. Now, what I know about Ballet you could write on a stamp. So for any indignant readers, just hold on to your tutus for a minute.
What I know about entertaining, engaging the audience, recounting a tale, spectacularising the mudane..... well a post office full of stamps wouldn't be enough that's for sure.
So I have watched sometimes with intense interest, and sometimes with acute boredom(in the same hour), as dancers strectched, contorted and convorted accross stages that were often too fussy, too busy,and too unfocused to make it simple to follow what in hell was going on. Note I said sometimes.
That was until last night on the Terrace in Monaco. Ha! I can hear them, the ghosts of my past are roaring laughing, as they imagine the grand heights I have risen to, Monaco and Ballet,,,,, Monaco and Ballet Ha! and encore Ha!
Stuff them.
Last night I saw the most amazing mixture of Manga, Religious worship, Hentai art, Tarantinoesque tale, Kill Bill scenario, Romantic story telling, I am ever likely to witness in the ever more unusual world of plain ordinary dance, sorry,...sorry,,,, of high art Ballet.
I give you in Memoriam by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (SHERKOWEEE), performed exquisitely by dancers of the Ballets de Monte-Carlo.
words are perhaps a waste in describing what can only be described and spirtually uplifting. I never imagined to see Men in Skirts, Samauri style,(never mind tights) battling with women, in a scene during a ballet, as if it were 'The Last Samuari' itself on show.

It was a choreography to make the most accomplished cinematographer proud, the most adept story teller envious.
I was taken away on the wisp of wind by the interpretation of Gioia Masala. As she flowed accross my vision the lighting flashed over the distant mountains, the cool sea breeze brushed our skins, and Gioia flew.
I was riveted to her connection to the singers from Corsican, and their apparent reverence of her and her partner. Their voices were the ladders by which Gioia and her companion managed to brush the stars.
Now I can truly say, that (apart from Bejart's Bolero,) this is what I have been seeking in the world of Ballet.
The spectacle, the story, the passion and intrigue of life, that is not lost behind an elevated language of the body that few plebs like I understand. Rather an honest heartfelt exploration of what it means to be alive, to love, to live, to be human and perhaps, to remember what it is to be human. Madmoselle Masala, Madmoselle Koike, and Sir Cherkaoui, I thank you from the creative font of my soul.
Thanks to my honey to for bringing me in the first place. ;)