sisters and sparrows

goodbye, so long.

Guys.  Tumblr just doesn’t cut it for a full-time blog.  It’s lovely for a bit of fun and I’ll be back for the gems I find here, but I’m going back to wordpress. 

I know all this to-ing and fro-ing is a pain in the neck, but, well, I’ve never been the most decisive person in the world.

Come and see me at sisters & sparrows, wordpress style.

Danish Dance Theatre

Yesterday, on the spur of the moment, I got a bargain student ticket to see the Danish Dance Theatre (£5 instead of £20 - win).  I happened to get put in the best seat in the house, third row, middle seat - my eyes were level with the dancer’s navels basically, and they were only a few feet from me.  I could hear every breath they made.  They did three pieces; Enigma, CaDance, and Kridt (which translates ‘chalk’).  The first dance was like circles of courtship, couples meeting and parting.  The second was a macho five-man dance fight.  The third was based on Ecclesiastes; a man thinking about his life and what had been, before he died.

Literally - I can’t express how incredible these dancers were.  I never knew humans could move like that.  All of the dancers were classically trained, so the choreography was a mixture of ballet’s grace and elegance and contemporary dance’s stark minimal moves.  Stunning.  GO.

Danish Dance Theatre UK Tour

black swan

Most terrifying film - at a couple of points I contemplated walking out of the theatre; it was just too much suspense. It’s an absolutely horrific portrayal of mental breakdown… and quite utterly beautiful. 

Go here and then pluck up your courage and go see the film.

a Poem for your Sunday

{more of the wonderful work of Paul de Luna}

	Variation on a Theme by Rilke

	A certain day became a presence to me;
	there it was, confronting me--a sky, air, light:
	a being. And before it started to descend
	from the height of noon, it leaned over
	and struck my shoulder as if with
	the flat of a sword, granting me
	honor and a task. The day's blow
	rang out, metallic--or it was I, a bell awakened,
	and what I heard was my whole self
	saying and singing what it knew: I can.
	                                

				 --Denise Levertov

I heart Tennyson

{beautiful photographs by Paul de Luna who is inspiring me like mad and you will definitely be seeing more of… via Coco+Kelley}

So,The Lady of Shalott.  

I had the best seminar ever on this poem, and on Mariana, yesterday.  My word, Tennyson was a genius.  It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?  Tennyson.  Red in tooth and claw?  Also Tennyson.  He is a veritable hero of poetry.

Mainly we talked about whether or not Mariana and The Lady were exploited women in stereotypical roles… abandoned by mankind, alone, unhappy, doomed.  

In The Lady of Shalott the heroine’s doom comes about because of Lancelot: it’s all pinned on him.  She sees him from her tower and just gives up her life.  Now all my seminar pals took this to mean Lancelot is some kind of patriarchal oppressor who effectively killed The Lady by being a chauvinist.  Basically.

I disagree.  Sorry, but Lancelot is sort of my hero.  He can’t be faulted for not seeing The Lady, because he was so blinded by his love for Guinevere.  Had he gone up to the tower and romanced The Lady, all we feminists would be tearing him to shreds for giving up on Guinevere so easily.  Besides, his words at the end of the poem, ‘she has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace’ don’t smack of a kind of ‘wow she’s a hottie, shame she’s dead’ kind of sentiment, but rather a sincere esteem  - it’s ‘lovely’ he says, as in ‘worthy of love’, rather than ‘pretty’ or ‘beautiful.’

Plus, check out Lancelot.  I’m pretty sure I would feel a bit doomed if I saw him riding through the fields and knew he couldn’t be mine:

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley-sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro’ the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneel’d
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.

The gemmy bridle glitter’d free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily
As he rode down to Camelot:
And from his blazon’d baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armour rung,
Beside remote Shalott.

All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell’d shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn’d like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.
As often thro’ the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over still Shalott.

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow’d;
On burnish’d hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow’d
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flash’d into the crystal mirror,
“Tirra lirra,” by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.