A much needed repose

Okay, I guess I have to realize from the outset that there's no way I am going to be able to express myself adequately over this. Lately especially, I seem to be running into my own limitations with words again and again and again. But, today was special. Today, we went to the ballet. Maybe you're thinking, ah Houston, a city of first class entertainment. Well, this was not that kind of engagement. We heard about this little show through a friend of a friend, an original ballet done by a tiny dance company that no one has ever even heard of before. But when my mom forwarded me the e-mail, I jumped at the chance to go. Because, you see, this was a production put on by a Christian ballet company, a show called "World without End." And let me tell you something, having seen what I have seen over the past few years and especially during my semester in London, I jump at a chance for Christianity to reclaim its place in the fine arts. I said to myself, I don't even care if this show is going to suck, I want to support this kind of endeavor. And that's how we all ended up piled in someone else's minivan on our way to the Jewish Community Center downtown. I wasn't expecting much. In truth, the setting was actually kind of ghetto. The curtain groaned as it raised like it was about to crash back down again given the least provocation. But the curtain and even the theater were quickly forgotten once the curtain went up. This was no typical ballet. The first dance opened with a regal woman all dressed in white, blowing a shofar. Right off the bat I had chills. Then I realized that the music for this feature was not the orderly compositions of Chopin or Tchaicovsky. There were drums. Just drums. Then the first of just two principals began dancing. She wore a pale green satin tunic over very wide leg, flowing pants of the same color, an ensemble which goaded me to envy. She was an amazingly beautiful woman, with proud posture and wonderful dark skin the color of coffee. And her dancing...well, I don't think I've ever seen anyone move like that. She was amazing flexible, amazingly talented, amazingly strong. Her movements were so tight, so controlled, and so graceful. The other women were all beautiful too, in their own ways. About half of the other dancers were at least over forty. There was a woman dancing up there who must have been at least sixty years old, and she had long, smooth grey hair tied back in a ponytail and a wonderful look of tranquility and joy on her face. She kept up with the best of them, and they were not doing stuff for amateurs either. God, please please let me have the ability to dance half that well when I'm sixty...and seventy...and eighty. As I said, the music was atypical, and so was the dancing. Not just an average mix of Western ballet; actually the staple of the program was something that looked distinctly African to me. There was even a couple numbers of belly dancing (kind of a Song of Solomon, church-as-bride kind of motif, I think you had to be there not to be scandalized). If I ever had any doubts about Katie's theory about Westerner's dancing vs. everybody else, they have been laid to rest. I don't even know how they did it. I have never seen anybody move like they moved (I think I may have already said this). But the looseness, the freedom, the joy, so expressive, yet never becoming sloppy or careless. I don't know how they did it. I think my body might shatter if there was so much power and so much expression coursing through it. But it was so refreshing, such a joy to watch. You know, I may never be able to move just that way, but I am willing to spend the rest of my life trying. It was inspirational really. I have long found dancing (either my own or others) to be a balm to the soul. It was exactly what I needed, considering that the week leading up to it has just been shitty (sorry for the language, but no other word would quite do). It was good to see something so redeeming after a week like that. This ballet was one that somehow managed to express the deepest and highest of Christian truths in a way that would appeal or at least be respected by most modern- (or postmodern?) minded people. I guess my only question now is, where do I sign up?