Primal Furor

Plaintive
Note carried wailing
Peasant stock stomps
A waltz avant-garde
Discordantly and raw
Snicker
Contagious
What vulgarity is this?
Barbarian bones
At the ballet?
Darkness!
Sacrifice!
Primitive frenzy
Where demure demoiselles should be
No one wants to own this!
Beauty, not revolution!
Chaos in the music
Chaos in the crowd
Riot at the ballet
Art is not there to make you comfortable
Any more than life does



Song Choice: Rite of Spring of course! This particular video tries to recreate the original choreography
This poem was created from a prompt offered by Magaly Guerrero for NaPoWriMo (Day 13: Headlines from 1913. When Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring first debuted it was so shocking that fist fights actually broke out in the theater and it was rumored that police needed to escort people off the premises to calm things down)

20 comments:

  1. OH MY....how I would have loved to have been there lol....doesnt seem possible to us...shocked into violence by a man in tights :D XXX

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    1. It's really funny if you read some of the write ups on this. People took their ballet seriously!

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  2. New band name: "Riot at the Ballet". ;-) Nice write, Rommy.

    I could be shocked into violence by a man in tights too but I'm defining violence in a very broad sense, like buttons coming off of a shirt rather than fisticuffs. ;-p

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  3. Such tender sensibilities they did have! I love the line about barbarian bones at the ballet!

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    1. The piece and performance is heralded as a big point in the development of modern ballet. But yes, it was all too much to take in back then!

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  4. First of all, I LOVE that title! And then, well, I stared to laugh. I don't have to imagine the outrage of a group of actors/dancers: I've seen it. They are fury under make up and wigs. Like Gina, I wish I had a ticket to the event. And you, my dear, should have been the one writing their response to the public, lol!

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    1. That would have been a heck of a show! Onstage and off!

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  5. Wish I had a ticket to see that too!

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    1. Looks like a bunch of us would have had front row seats!

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  6. People can get very worked up about art, can't they?

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    1. In a way, I can see it. Art can feel very personal, and when it deviates from what is expected people can take it personally. Fist fights in the aisles seems a bit over the top mind you!

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  7. Apparently that decade and year was a huge time of change--Magaly picked a very interesting time to send us into--art should never cater to the dictates of an establishment, or exist just to turn a buck rather to turn your mind inside out--;_) --excellent piece and great choice of headlines. At least they weren't being investigated for indecency and White Slavery, like the artists in the subject of my poem. ;_)

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    1. 1913 was certainly an interesting time to be alive! Off to see yours now. :)

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  8. Stravinsky disturbed the norm with his composition,(Rite of Spring) fitting for the French Ballet, Coco would applaud!
    Love your headline choice! Bravo!

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    1. He definitely shook things up with his composition!

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  9. I'm Nuts! I applied the Russian dancer and the French never liked it ....even from its birth.....
    I apologize, sleepy, but love your poem and vision!

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  10. i think opera could use more fisticuffs. or at least, more rampaging newness. ~

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    1. The word fisticuffs should be used more often!

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