Favorite Moments – Dancing with Raymond Van Mason in Gershwin by George – Watching Raymond and Pamela Robinson in Anna Karenina

 

Some ballets are not hard to do but they are fun to dance.
The music of Gershwin is so naturally fluid and brings in the feelings, flows, and emotions of another time and place.

The smoky dancehalls of the 1920s the frilly, flapper dresses, the alluring music that calls to souls to dance, and the picture-perfect moments that seem to stop in time and make us remember times when things were more simple and carefree.

Gershwin’s music can do that all by itself. And there are moments we can create that give us an insight into the mindset of those that lived in such times.

I fully admit that I am a strange person on many levels.
When I dance classical ballets, I know that I have done these before. I clearly was a classically trained Romantic ballet dancer a long time ago. Some things are just too familiar when I do them to not notice.

But it was clear to me that I was not born into the generation of the 1920s. The squealing/wailing trumpets and the elongated and stretched sounds of the jazzy music of that time … are not familiar to my body.
Dancing to certain pieces of music teaches me much about a time, a place, a feeling tone of a generation, and the attitudes and mindsets of those that lived in that era.
Just because something is not familiar does not mean it is unpleasant. But it does become a type of stretch.

I have said before that when a dancer dances to a composer’s music, we begin to understand the mindset, feelings, yearnings, and longings of that composer. It pulls us into a time where souls were reaching for a modern sophistication and a new type of easy-going glamour.

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are immortalized by his pieces that they danced in many movies. They took his music and combined classical dance with jazz and made it unforgettable.
Ballet West performed our version of Gershwin and because it was an easy ballet on a technical level, it was one that we brought to the Ballet West for Kids Programs in the schools.
But I loved it for its type of unique lyricism and flow.

There are moments in a ballet that forever stand out in our mind and this one had many. That was for a variety of reasons but the biggest one was in dancing with Raymond Van Mason for these performances.

Raymond was one of those rare tall male dancers and being as tall as I was, I needed to dance with a tall man. And there is something so very appealing when a man is in a modified tuxedo with a bow tie, white shirt, black vest and pants. It is so very sexy! I love the classical elegance of that combination.
Raymond was a dancer that could allow you to feel very confident in your movements because he always felt very solid and stable in his technique and in his partnering. He was excellent at allowing the women to look graceful, beautiful, and elegant. I am sure every dancer that worked with him in performances felt the same way.

And he had a cat-like ability to know where his body was in time and space, and he also knew where the women’s body was at the same time.

Some male dancers like, Rudi, are very self-absorbed in how they look. But I found Raymond to be highly focused on many levels of flow within sequences and his ability to pay attention to small details that allowed for more stability in partnering … was superb.

He was youthfully exuberant, playful, funny, had a great silly side, and could pull off very difficult lifts in such a smooth way that they could appear effortless. The lifts in this ballet were understated but each time anyone of them appeared, I knew that they would go off without a hitch. He had an instinct about where a ballerina’s body always was in time, space, and gravity. Doing lifts with him, I never even had to think about them or worry about them. That gives a ballerina a type of sublime confidence to let go and follow the flow of the music and moment.
It is magical when one can allow the feelings to dominate rather than the technique.
To do that one has to be completely confident in one’s partner.

And he could do that with every partner, not just me. That is when you know that the skill comes from him and his ability to adapt to each ballerina’s style, flow, size, weight, and ways of movement.
I was inspired watching Pamela Robinson and Raymond Van Mason, dance the leading roles in Anna Karenina for Ballet West. Their movements were inspired and emotionally gripping. They together had a freedom of movement, combined with a wild abandon that is hard to duplicate in art, night after night. Such things are inspired by something within each person and as they combine energies, and then a powerful new energy is generated that carries the audience on a wildly, emotional ride of passion, pain, loss, and love.
Some choreographers have the ability to create spaces and moments to allow dancers to take chances and know how to create sequences that generate wild abandon. Prokovsky was such a choreographer.
I will always remember those moments watching the two of them dance these monumental roles in my mind. They are forever etched into the ethers of those theaters where they performed.

I am grateful to have been able to dance with both of these amazing dancers in my youth and I am so blessed to have shared a stage with all of those dancers that I still to this day consider my spiritual family.

When we all connect, it is as if no time has ever passed between any of us. When we are together it is such a joyous celebration of our lives and the incredible memories that we created.
When we come together, we have no defenses up, there is never any pretense, because we have been so very raw and real with each other in such intimate ways that everything that our society says is appropriate is unnecessary.

When we come together, we are loud, funny, playfully physical, and are emotionally engaged in ways that most people never get to experience in their life.

We were all very blessed that we shared not just a few special moments. We were gifted because we shared hours, days, weeks, and years of that special bond that can only happen when true artists come together and seek to experience edges of expression that few are willing to fully engage.
Dancers don’t know how to do anything in a small way.
We live big, we dance bigger, and we love in a way that few understand or know how to tap into.

I love everyone that I have ever sweat with in a ballet studio or on a stage. I see the drive and determination inside each of them that mirrors back to me that never-ending yearning that cannot help but continue to find new expressions in a world that to us is too flat, too boring, too limited, too fearful, too constricted, and too lifeless.
We can feel that deep within all artists are the colors on the master’s palette. We are the refined brush strokes on a painting that most will never notice. We are the crazy laughter of those who let go of self-consciousness a long time ago. We are the songs that linger in the mind. We are the small movements that awaken the sublime sensuality within souls. We are the powerful expressions of passion that call others to remember the wildness within. We are the expressions of freedom that each soul longs to taste and touch.
We are those that came to remind others that there is more … so much more.

I look at this life and I would do it all again. Mistakes and all.

I see this life as a fully embodied expression of my soul stretching past my fears and into those parts that whispered that I could still fly … if I would just continue to try.

May your life open to the magic that is there for you as well. May my words awaken that artist inside that wants to awaken and fully live.

And may we dance together in other times and places when the music calls and the doorways to wonder … fly open in such a powerful way that together … we can ascend up to the next level of creative expression and subtle delight.
I will meet you there.

~Suzanne Wagner