Moderne Meisjes
For my third CA, I went to see ‘’moderne meisjes, introdans’’, which is a ballet, performed by 15
dancers. Introdans brought the ‘ grand old ladies’ from the American dance together in the
‘’moderne meisjes’’, with works from Lucinda Childs, Twyla Tharp, Jennifer Muller. There were four
seperate dances, Kilar from Lucinda Childs, Chairman Dances from Lucinda Childs, Bench from
Jennifer Muller and Junk Duet from Twyla Tharp.
I wanted to go and see this ballet because first of all Mr. Glas said it was a nice ballet to go to, and
also because when I first heard of this ballet, it did seem interesting. Well at least more interesting
since I was quite sceptical about ballet as a whole, since I thought it was just girlish dancing around
the stage with jumps here and turns there. But ‘’Moderne Meisjes’’ did seem like a more interesting
ballet as I did some research about it.
Moderne Meisjes brings three of the "grand old ladies" of American modern dance together. Lucinda
Childs' Chairman Dances, is one of the highlights in which idealistic poetry and virtuosity alternate.
The Junk Duet in which Twayla Sharp uses the classic ballet ‘pas de deux’ and here and there some
jazz and tap added.
Before I went to see this ballet, I had no clue what to expect, because I had never been to a ballet
before, and I expected it to be really weird and really dull, so I went there because I had to, but not
because I wanted to. Then when the performance had started I still thought it was pretty weird, and
all I could think of was through how much pain the men had to go to be able to move the way they
did, and I thought that the moves they did were quite impressive, even though it was still a bit odd to
me. Then when the third performance started, I started to like it, not minding the weirdness
anymore, because I got over that by then. I could understand the meaning of this performance more
than the others, and it just constantly kept me interested in the performance. Time flew by during
the third and fourth piece, because it was actually really nice to watch these.
Before I went to see this ballet, I was really sceptical about the whole ballet-bussiness, because the
first thing that popped up in my mind were girls with tutu’s, making all kinds of jumps and turns. But
it turned out to be a lot different from that, so watchin this performance really made me realise that
there is more to ballet than I thought. That it is actually really nice to watch if you understand what it
is about, and if you realise how serious it actually is, because at first we were making jokes about it
because we thought it would just be really weird and funny to see, but it turned out to be different.
The play itsself didn’t make me feel really special or different, I just enjoyed what I saw in the end. It
did not give me any strong feelings like when I went to see the ‘’Gelders Orkest’’. It did however
opened my eyes to the ballet-genre.
I thought it was a very impressive performance, with the finest dancers, who did a great job. I do
however think that I won’t be seeing another ballet any time soon, but it was nicer to watch than I
had expected it to be.