La Meridionale Ballerina

I have not been shy about my admiration for a Nashville ballerina, Jennifer McNamara.  I’ll remind you that she was my pilates teacher for a semester and was, simply, the nicest teacher ever.  Nice, fun, humble, and patient.  On top of that, she’s an incredible dancer.  Flexible, technically precise, yet with great emotion and makes it look effortless.  She definitely stands out from the corps, no question.  She’s a ton of fun to watch.

So you can imagine how excited I was to see she’s got the lead in the fall ballet series – an interpretation of the Lizzie Borden story.  I was completely all set to go (had my outfit picked out, had my tickets priced, had resigned to go without the Fiancé since he was working) until I read this article. 

That’s right.  The murder scene is completely nude.

Speaking of not being shy, I understand the whole "nudity as part of art," "I’ll only do it if it’s artistic" bit.  I get it. 

But I’ve seen naked dance before.  I took a history of dance class in college and we had to watch a performance that - and I was not prepared for this - had male nudity.  Like full frontal male nudity.  Male nudity + dancing (specifically petit allegro (read: jumping)) = unpleasantries. 

*Shudder.*

Besides, she’s my ballet hero.  She’s my teacher.  I can’t just go there and watch her dance around naked.  That’s crazy talk!  Isn’t it?

Post Script: I decided to go.  The Fiancé had his old roomate over for a visit this weekend, so I needed to go do some girl stuff.  How to describe this old roomate?  Three facts. 

1.  I have never seen him while he was not watching football or soccer on television (excuse the grammar).

2.  I have never seen him eat a vegetable other than pizza sauce.

3.  I have never, not once, known him to clean his bathroom in the three years he and the Fiancé lived together. 

So I made the attempt to invite him ("hey, wanna go see some naked chick dance around?"), but they opted for (you guessed it) watching football on television. 

The ballet was fantastic.  Absolutely fantastic.  Deliciously creepy, too.  And no, the nudity wasn’t bad - they did lots of lighting and she turned to the side.  I saw a sliver of my ballet’s hero’s derriere.  Even though I secretly really wanted to see her abs, which I imagine are fabulous. 

Not that I’ll tell her that.