I like to joke that I am very niche. I work for a ballet company, and in my spare time I go to the ballet. For exercise, I take ballet class. As someone told me, I “ooze ballet.”
And so, in a somewhat backwards attempt at broadening my horizons, this year I have attended two events that are arguably even more niche. Go figure.
The first was in February, when I went to a college women’s gymnastics meet at Cal. Until recently, it had never occurred to me that I could go and see gymnastics live. I forgot about it last year but put it on my calendar proactively this time around. I arrived late: traffic, a forgotten wallet, and then poor signage. I debated whether it was still worth it—accustomed to the strict rules of theaters and the performing arts, I wasn’t sure how it worked if you arrived after it had begun.
Well, as it happens, the whole thing is tremendously casual (presumably not to the gymnasts, though). Plenty of people were arriving late. You could sit anywhere. I took a seat that was more or less in the middle and that was opposite the vault. (My initial choice was directly in front of the vault, which I sensed would not make for good viewing of it.)
Because I arrived late, I missed any kind of opening/introductory remarks. It was a bit odd to be plunged into the middle of the meet. But mostly I was completely stunned by how much was going on! When you watch gymnastics on TV, you’re seeing a very narrow and carefully-curated view: you’re seeing what the camera shows you. Which is to say, the camera focuses on a single athlete on a given apparatus. It doesn’t take into account the sheer pandemonium going on in the gym. All around me, people were entering or leaving. Top 40 pop songs were blasting over the loudspeakers—I cannot imagine trying to stay on a balance beam. (Then again, maybe absolute silence is much worse.) Vendors walked up and down the stands, hawking cold drinks and popcorn. And there I sat, completely wide-eyed, taking it all in.
As far as seeing gymnastics in person, it was fun! The meet I attended was Cal against Stanford—the team to see would have been UCLA. It wasn’t nearly as nerve-wracking as I expected, and it was wonderful to hear all the support from teammates cheering each other on. It was, after all, a team who was going to win the meet, not an individual athlete. In person, the vault seemed even quicker and somehow less impressive. The floor routines were much flashier (there are differences between collegiate and elite gymnastics, and one result is that there’s more room for personality). The beam routine seemed shorter, but that honestly could be because I wasn’t sitting there holding my breath in complete silence while commentators verbally cringed over every wobble.
That’s another thing! No commentators. I am here to tell you that commentators serve a valuable purpose to the casual viewer. Unless the person falls off an apparatus or does not stick the landing, I’m not really sure about what I’m watching. I would, however, absolutely go back and watch another meet.
Then, in May, I decided to go see Stars on Ice. I know, I know. It sounds really corny. And it is a bit. But it’s also an opportunity to see some of the best ice skaters in the world in action.
Aside from Disney on Ice, there aren’t a lot of places to watch ice skating as entertainment. [Insert entire debate about entertainment vs. sporting event here.] You can’t subscribe to a season of ice shows with your local ice skating company.
As with gymnastics, I had never seen ice skating live. The two-hour show, with one intermission, consisted of various “exhibition skates” by the individual skaters or teams and a handful of group numbers. Compared to the gymnastics meet, this felt much more like a performance. The lights went down, there were production values, an intermission. I would have appreciated a program, or at least a show order. Going in, I didn’t even know how long it was or if there was an intermission. (Note to Stars on Ice: this is good information to put on your FAQ page!)
My main… criticism? regret?… with Stars on Ice was that an exhibition skate simply cannot compete (ha!) with the competitive programs. I was fortunate to see Nathan Chen perform his short program and Bradie Tennell perform her free skate from the competitive season that had recently concluded. And let me tell you, those programs were so much more interesting to watch. Many exhibition programs seem to consist of a lot of “just” skating around. They don’t have nearly the complexity—or the difficulty. I completely understand why, but as a viewer it can feel like too much fluff. It’s not even about the tricks; it’s about the choreography. A high point was definitely seeing Maia and Alex Shibutani (aka the ShibSibs). One of their programs, while lacking the full intensity of their Olympic performance, was still choreographically interesting.
[Want to compare for yourself? Here’s a video of the ShibSibs at Stars on Ice, and here’s one from the Olympics.]
It feels novel to me to talk about choreography in a non-theater dance context. But that’s what it is. The skaters and the gymnasts were all executing highly specific choreography using their own respective languages of steps. And while I’m not qualified to judge the execution, I can certainly appraise the choreography. I know what I respond to, what draws me in or holds my attention. I like to think I can tell the difference between fluff and substance (even if I enjoy both!).
It’s a funny thing, being critical of sports I can’t do. I’ve definitely taken silent offense when overhearing fellow ballet-goers criticize a dancer. “You try it,” one wants to say. But in this moment, I’m not commenting on the gymnasts or the skaters personally, only their choreography. I can be in awe of their ability to balance on a blade or a beam while still judging the combination of steps. In competition, both sports seek to find the intersection of required components, difficulty of execution, and visual interest. As a viewer, I primarily respond to what’s visually interesting. And that tends to include movements that are more challenging.
I should point out that I feel exactly the same when watching ballet. Just last month, I complained of this while watching Program B of the Ballet Festival (I didn’t lodge this complaint “formally” in my post). Let’s use Two Sides Of as an example. Lauren Cuthbertson and Marcelino Sambé are two exceptional dancers, gifted technicians and performers both. Yet in that short pas de deux, all I learned was that Cuthbertson is flexible and Sambé is a diligent partner. It was highly repetitive, with the same or similar lifts recurring over and over, not in a way that built to a crescendo but in a way that implied a lack of ideas. When I see dancers of that caliber, I want to see them be challenged. I want to see them tackle interesting and difficult choreography, because it’s their ability to do so that has made them the celebrated artists that they are.
The same goes for ice skating: you don’t win an Olympic medal because you can stay upright on the ice. It’s because you’ve mastered the elements to the point that you are in full command of the execution.
During the Olympics, we all become instant experts, watching often obscure sports more than usual in a highly concentrated period of time. After listening to commentators dissect three hours’ worth of ice skating, you feel like you really know what you’re watching. And that, it turns out, can be enough to create a fan. We’re between Olympic years here in 2019. But the 2018 Winter Olympics were exciting enough that I have followed ice skating for the whole of the 18/19 season. Next year we get the summer games, and I will try to attend a couple of more local gymnastics meets to get in the right frame of mind.
What I want to know, though, is this: how do we create that same excitement around ballet? Never in a million years did I think that a single Olympics would convert me into such a skating fan. I can’t have been the only one, either. (Judging by the YouTube stats, at least, skates across disciplines have racked up views in the millions. So have gymnastic videos, such as the one of UCLA’s Katelyn Ohashi that went viral earlier this year.)
So for ballet, what’s it gonna take?
Going to the Ballet 