Although it was the first time I ever went to see a ballet performance, I definitely realized the appeal of it towards some people. Despite the fact that these acts only took around 30 minutes each, it definitely took many years for the people performing them to master their skills. In The Brahms-Hayden Variations, for example, one of the main performers, Gillian Murphy, was clearly one of the more talented dancers on stage. Upon further investigation, I found that she joined the American Ballet Theatre in 1996, and performed ballet for more than 18 years. In order to have that much motivation, and to continually practice day and night, one would have to love ballet itself. As discussed earlier in class, most people would not want to undergo this grueling, should I say, torture. Only if someone truly enjoys this, would they continue doing it. From that night, it was proven to me that professional ballet dancers do this as a result of their love of this form of art.

As for my favorite act that night, The Green Table would definitely be at the top. Even though it had a lot of dancers, it was somehow easier to follow as a result of its plot. Like many people said, the first act was somewhat hard to follow because of the amount of dancers in it. Although I cannot disagree with this, I can argue against this. By providing a specific story line in The Green Table, the audience was better able to follow what was going on. Because of this reason, I would have to choose this act as my favorite.

Finally, I realized some very minute details which others may not have noticed. In every act, the performers had a different facial expression, which added to the overall mood of the performance. Aside from this, and especially visible with the pianists, the orchestra did not play in a pre-determined rhythm. They always looked at the dancers and determined their own pace from there. Instead of the dancers fixing their pace in accordance to the music, both fixed their pace in accordance to each other.