a trip to the ballet

Last year, New York started a program called NYCid - it's designed to provide identification for everyone in the city, regardless of immigration status or address or anything like that, and it can be used at schools and pharmacies and libraries. It's like a driver's license for everyone (and it's free). To help entice people to sign up, a bunch of cultural institutions gave free membership to NYCid card holders - like the Met, MOMA, the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Natural History Museum, etc. So we signed up for a bunch of those once we received our cards last summer. This year, a few new institutions gave free benefits to cardholders. One of them was the New York City Ballet - so I signed up, even though I wasn't sure about the benefits. After all, you didn't get free tickets to a ballet or anything like that, you just got free rehearsal tickets. But whatever, it was free!

Four months later, I finally got my membership card and started receiving invitations to various events - talks given by conductors, ballet directors, stuff like that. One caught my eye, though - it was a dress rehearsal of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and it didn't count as one of my four rehearsals per year. I decided I should just go and see what it was like.



I really liked it! I had no idea what to expect, but a few things definitely surprised me. The theater was completely packed! The maestro of the orchestra was wearing cargo shorts! When the curtain came up for rehearsal to begin, all the dancers were standing around laughing with each other. It was so different than the vision of ballet in my head, when you only see the performances. It was really interesting to see them repeat parts over and over again. It was funny to see them being silly while wearing super fancy costumes (the show opened that night). It was just cool to get some insight into what goes into a production. In between two parts of rehearsal, we even got to see the stage crew setting up some things for the performance that night. It made me appreciate everything that goes on behind the scenes - it's not just about the dancers (as talented as they might be). I also realized how athletic they all are! In a performance, they look like perfect little dolls doing spins, but in rehearsal, when they do the same part over and over, they breathe heavily and put their hands on their hips and they look like any other athlete who's just finished working out.



Unfortunately, no photos were allowed in the theater, but it was pretty, the sets were pretty, the costumes were pretty. There are a bunch of kids in the production who are little woodland fairies and their costumes were amazing! (Here's a photo from the NYCB website)



Now I just have to sign up for the normal working rehearsals I want to attend! You don't pick what you want to see rehearsed - you just send them dates and they tell you what's available and you see whatever they're working on that day. I think it'll be an even more behind-the-scenes look. I'm also hoping there's another dress rehearsal in my future! I'm glad I got a free membership and get to experience one of the best ballets in the world for free!