Ballet- and dance-related dreams (or nightmares!)

[alison]

I thought we already had a thread on this, but can't find it, so if someone remembers where it was, please tell me where!  In the meantime:

 

 

I was at a performance of La Fille Mal Gardée at the Royal Opera House last night.  It was only gradually that I realised that something was up (although admittedly the fact that there was another ballet preceding it and it was followed for good measure(?) by the "gold" pas de deux from the "Orlando" part of Woolf Works should perhaps have alerted me that not all was quite what it should have been!).  They'd cleared all the seats out of the Orchestra Stalls, and the performance was taking place there (although somehow it had changed from a horseshoe-shape to more of a long oval, a bit like when they do performances in the round at the Royal Albert Hall) - although at one point I think it was Lise's friends were dancing in front of the stage curtain as well and distracting me from watching a pas de deux or something.  We had to have an interval between the first couple of scenes, presumably due to the difficulty of manoeuvring the pony and trap (although I don't remember spotting Peregrine). I know I was worried about how it could be financially viable given that they'd got rid of a large number of the most expensive seats!  It had obviously been planned well in advance, so wasn't a last-minute thing, and I think they might have been doing some renovations backstage or something, but I know I hadn't been aware of it.

 

Weird, or what?

[Richard LH]

Does this count as a (free) "performance seen"? 

Hopefully this is a premonition of La Fille Mal Gardée  coming back to the ROH next season. I think we should be OK in terms of financial viability for that one, but I am rather worried about Peregrine's absence......

Edited April 2, 2019 by Richard LH

[JohnS]

Rocinante to the rescue?  Once he’s rested from Don Q.

[Sim]

I dreamed a couple of years ago that the RB had run out of Odettes/Odiles, so in desperation they were getting me ready to go onstage and were giving me final touches to my hair and makeup in the wings, and some final advice about how to do the steps.  At that point I woke up in a cold sweat.....I would have looked like one of the hippos in Fantasia had I gone onstage like that!!  😂

[Richard LH]

2 hours ago, Sim said:

I dreamed a couple of years ago that the RB had run out of Odettes/Odiles, so in desperation they were getting me ready to go onstage and were giving me final touches to my hair and makeup in the wings, and some final advice about how to do the steps.  At that point I woke up in a cold sweat.....I would have looked like one of the hippos in Fantasia had I gone onstage like that!!  😂

 

I wonder how they filled the role, after you decided to wake up.....

 

[alison]

Gulp!  I've never got higher than having to replace one of the corps in Swan Lake  

[Fiz]

I once dreamed that I was going to shoved on the ROH to sing in “La Fille du Regiment”. I simply cannot carry a tune in a bucket and the state of sheer panic that I was in woke me up. It isn’t even an opera I know. Heaven knows where that dream originated!

[bridiem]

13 hours ago, Sim said:

I dreamed a couple of years ago that the RB had run out of Odettes/Odiles, so in desperation they were getting me ready to go onstage and were giving me final touches to my hair and makeup in the wings, and some final advice about how to do the steps.  At that point I woke up in a cold sweat.....I would have looked like one of the hippos in Fantasia had I gone onstage like that!!  😂

 

You never know, Sim - if you hadn't woken up you might have gone on and saved the day, including 32 immaculate fouettes! Brava! 👍⚘

[RuthE]

20 hours ago, alison said:

Gulp!  I've never got higher than having to replace one of the corps in Swan Lake  

 

For some reason that's scarier.  Dancing a solo, at least you don't have 23 other people around you getting it right in perfect co-ordination with one another, just so everyone can immediately see if you don't know the steps...

[RuthE]

16 hours ago, Fiz said:

I once dreamed that I was going to shoved on the ROH to sing in “La Fille du Regiment”. I simply cannot carry a tune in a bucket and the state of sheer panic that I was in woke me up. It isn’t even an opera I know. Heaven knows where that dream originated!

 

I do sing - professionally as a choral/church singer, and as an amateur in opera choruses - and my standard ROH anxiety dream is being thrown on with no rehearsal in a role for a completely different voice type.

[Sim]

10 hours ago, bridiem said:

 

You never know, Sim - if you hadn't woken up you might have gone on and saved the day, including 32 immaculate fouettes! Brava! 👍⚘

Ha ha yes.....and this is how it would have looked:    

 

 

[alison]

On 02/04/2019 at 10:49, alison said:

I was at a performance of La Fille Mal Gardée at the Royal Opera House last night.  It was only gradually that I realised that something was up (although admittedly the fact that there was another ballet preceding it and it was followed for good measure(?) by the "gold" pas de deux from the "Orlando" part of Woolf Works should perhaps have alerted me that not all was quite what it should have been!).  They'd cleared all the seats out of the Orchestra Stalls, and the performance was taking place there (although somehow it had changed from a horseshoe-shape to more of a long oval, a bit like when they do performances in the round at the Royal Albert Hall) - although at one point I think it was Lise's friends were dancing in front of the stage curtain as well and distracting me from watching a pas de deux or something.  We had to have an interval between the first couple of scenes, presumably due to the difficulty of manoeuvring the pony and trap (although I don't remember spotting Peregrine). I know I was worried about how it could be financially viable given that they'd got rid of a large number of the most expensive seats!  It had obviously been planned well in advance, so wasn't a last-minute thing, and I think they might have been doing some renovations backstage or something, but I know I hadn't been aware of it.

 

I have absolutely no memory of this one, unlike the Swan Lake corps one, which still haunts me to this day!  However, last night the Royal Ballet decided to present Sleeping Beauty with at least a very large number of tweaks to the production.  It involved a thrust stage taking up 3/4 of the Orchestra Stalls (so again worry about financial viability), and the Stalls Circle seats had been rearranged to be all facing the stage.  I can't tell you whether it was the current production, just altered, because there was some shiny gold woven fabric up over the ends of the Stalls Circle which I assumed would be lifted once the overture had finished.  (There had been some mention of pelting the director with eggs or something, I think).  The house was far from full, and there were all these young children who decided to upgrade their own seats once the performance started.  Then, fortunately, I woke up.

[Tango Dancer]

Wow you have much more specific and vivid dreams than I do.  

 

I regularly dream that I'm going on stage (unspecified role but usually everyone else is wearing red leotards and tutus) and I realise that I'm not wearing any clothes just red shoes.  I am trying to get out of the line of people at the stage entrance to put clothes on while covering myself with my feather fan but can't get through the crowds. 

 

No idea what the show is or which theatre it is, but the recurrent dream of going on stage naked is really vivid.  When I wake up it always takes me a minute to reassure myself that it didn't happen and I don't have to worry who saw me.  

[Suffolkgal]

I’ve managed to talk myself into drying on stage by worrying about it!

[Anna C]

I regularly dream that I’m about to go onstage at the ROH as an understudy, but I don’t know the steps, so I have to improvise.

 

The bizarre thing is that I’m en pointe, and am dancing perfectly, when in reality I’ve never even worn pointe shoes; I stopped dancing at age 8.  It must be all the years of taking my daughter to pointe shoe fittings, perhaps.

 

I find it fascinating how we can do things in dreams that we’ve never done in real life.

[Angela Essex]

I have two recurring ballet dreams: being able to do front splits effortlessly and also doing multiple pirouettes en pointe with the most perfect balance (up to about ten or so where I can keep spinning round in retire for so long that eventually I just come to a standstill in retire when my momentum runs out). I love those dreams.