Quick ballet history -- Margot Fonteyn, and Swan Lake

  Since today is #InternationalDanceDay and since I've been working on a short project for teaching, trying not to turn short summaries into 300 page history books... (heh...)  I thought I'd share the highlights I've gotten down to on the ballet Swan Lake and ballerina Margot Fonteyn, in case you're unfamiliar with these two and find yourself curious, or know both inside and out and just want to see what I ended up covering.  ;)

  Though it's true that Svetlana Zakharova is high up there on my list of favorite ballerinas...

Svetlana Zakharova as Odile, Swan Lake

   

Svetlana Zakharova as Kitri, Don Quixote

  ...but Margot Fonteyn is either tied with Svetlana for number 1, or may be right at the top of my list, so I had to cover a little of her fantastic career.  But also keep it short enough to fit in the space I had.  Drat.

Margot Fonteyn as a Sylph

• Born Margaret Evelyn Hookham on May 18th, 1919, the English dancer took the stage name Margot Fonteyn when she began her career.  She began dancing at age 4, and studied in England and China.
• Her professional career began in 1935, when she was 16, and she quickly became very well-known and beloved, particularly for the depth of acting she applied to each role.
• Choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton wrote numerous roles specifically for her.
• By 1961, at age 42, she was considering retirement.  That year she was asked to dance opposite rising star Rudolf Nureyev, who had just defected from Paris to the Royal Ballet.  Fonteyn was hesitant, especially since Nureyev was 19 years younger than she was, but she accepted.
• In 1962, Fonteyn and Nureyev first performed together in Giselle.  They were a dynamic, smashing success; receiving 15 minutes of applause and 20 curtain calls at the end of the performance.  They continued to dance together and receive great acclaim for their partnering and acting together for the rest of Fonteyn’s career. 
• In 1972, Fonteyn went into partial retirement, then fully retired in 1979 at age 60.  Though she continued to appear in special performances occasionally.  Her last appearance on stage was in September of 1988, dancing in Baroque Pas de Trois with Nureyev.  She retired to Panama and, surprisingly, took an interest in raising cattle.

Fonteyn and Nureyev

Videos:

Fonteyn's 'Sleeping Beauty' Rose Adagio As Odile, with Nureyev as the Prince, Swan Lake 1967

  Then there's Swan Lake.  Such a classic, first of all, plus I love the music and so much of the choreographic style and characterization.  So I tried to keep that one down to fewer-than-I-wanted highlights, too.

• First staged by the Bolshoi Ballet in March of 1877, the ballet was initially considered a failure, but is now one of the most beloved ballets of all time.  Music was composed by Tchaikovsky in spring of 1875.  Most companies performing Swan Lake today base their choreography and musicality on the 1895 revival by Marius Pepita and Lev Ivanov.
• Ballerina Margot Fonteyn was the first dancer to perform the dual role of Odette and Odile in ‘Swan Lake’.  Previously the roles had always been danced by two separate dancers for each performance.  A ballerina from the English National Ballet talks about how the 2 roles must be danced differently.
• Swan Lake relies heavily on the Corps de Ballet dancers to carry much of the story’s texture  and emotional landscape.  In this short interview, dancers from the Royal Ballet talk about their demanding role in this ballet. (...And can we just take a second to appreciate how glorious those green and gold court gown costumes are that show up in that video?!?)
• Based on Russian and German folk tales, it tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by the evil Rothbart.  One night, Prince Siegfried finds a lake, where Odette and her swan maids land and then transform into maidens.  Odette explains her troubles to the prince, and tells him how the spell can be broken.  But Rothbart tries to trick Siegfried by disguising his own daughter as Odette. When the prince realizes he has been tricked, he rushes back to Odette.  Depending on the company, the ballet either ends as a tragedy, or is sometimes changed to a happily-ever-after.

• One of the most famous parts of the ballet is the Dance of the Cygnets; the variation is performed by 4 dancers with criss-crossed arms, and their sharp head movements and footwork are legendary.  The choreography is almost identical across every company, as seen in these 4 versions.

(Pictures and videos belong to their original owners and are shown only for inspiration.  Descriptions here are my own, accurate to the best of my knowledge.)

'Want For Nothing'

  Working on another poem inspired by Scripture and my quiet time lately.  Maybe it will lighten your spirit like it does mine.

Want For Nothing 

By Bree M. M. — written 8.27.18 - 8.31.18

  'With the Lord as my Shepherd,

I will most certainly want

for nothing.

No matter my enemies,

they are as weak as I feel;

we are each only human,

made from the dust.

I am thankful my Shepherd remembers

my fragile frame.

  And as for my adversaries, I will not fear,

no matter the valley I walk through; our loyalties

will determine the outcome.

And I fear no evil.

  But as I walk beside the mighty Father of Lights,

whose face never changes,

well— let evil fear me.

For I know in Whom I have trusted.

  He leads me to good pasture,

and shows me the path of life, marked

with His footprints.

My cup runs over

like a waterfall. He commends me

before men at the right time.

  I seek no light but His face.

No guide but His Spirit.

No praise but His joy.

May I dwell in the safety

of His wings

forever.'

~     ~     ~

I sought the Lord and He answered me;

He delivered me from all my fears.

Psalm 34:4 

(Poem, pictures, and thoughts are my own.  Please do not use without expressed permission.  Thanks!)

Inspired by Scripture poem

  I haven't composed one of these in a little while, but the first half of this inspired-by-Scripture poem started running through my head all the sudden when I randomly woke up at around 3am, while my family was in San Diego this past week.  It was just too clear in my head to let go until morning.  One of those rare, really real moments when the still, small Voice is almost tangible.
  I might re-work it a bit sometime, but thought I would share it as it is for now.  Enjoy it.  It feels a little like warm honey to my soul.

Pre-dawn Anthem

—written 5.28.18 - 5.31.18—

O Lord, be my Everlasting Comfort;

my rear Guard,

my Father, in whom is no variation or shifting shadow. 

My only trust, my confidence;

my ever-gracious Shepherd. My Chaser. 

The unmoved Rock I cling to, 

my joy’s foundation. 

Mighty to save. 

Be the Mover of mountains,

my deep, sure well of strength.

A Guide in the darkness, the Preserver

of my life; a mighty Fortress 

and ever-patient Teacher. 

Move my feet on a level path

and instruct me to dwell in You. 

Be the sun on my face, the dawning Light of righteousness;

my peace, my Healer, a flood

of steadfast Love. 

On Your shoulders carry me

over uncertain places.

Give me trust

knowing You see 

all things; their start, their end, their story—

You remember that I am dust,

but You still see

the rising of our eternal souls,

our truest being, at the Healing 

of all harms,

at the Sunrise of Forever. 

Let me look no where else, for nothing more, with no hesitation—

but full in Your unblinking, ever-loving Eyes. 

Be my All and my Everything,

my very sustenance of soul. 

~     ~     ~

(Poem, pictures, and thoughts are my own.  No sharing without permission, please.)

500th Reformation Day

  Some reflections on this 500th anniversary of  when the momentum of  the Reformation  spun the comfortable on its head, as it turned men back to face the God who had been reaching open arms to them all along.

  Let them praise the Lord for His great love

and for the wonderful things He has done for them.

                       For He satisfies the thirsty

                               and fills the hungry with good things. 

                                                                                           Psalm 107:8-9 

  'We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.'

                                                   --Martin Luther 

  I am the Lord your God, who teaches you

                  what is good for you

                     and leads you along the paths you should follow. 

                                                                       Isaiah 48:17 

  'Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved.'

                                                         --Martin Luther 

  'So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: "I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know the One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also!" '

                                                                    -- Martin Luther 

  I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of Your wonderful deeds. 

                                                      Psalm 9:1 

Hearts of the children

  The older I get, and the more I see children and peers around me growing up and making choices, the more pressing this question becomes:

  Who has the hearts of your children?
                  Who has your heart?

                                             

  Lately, it's been especially evident.  I don't intend to point fingers, but I will at least try to describe what I've seen, as friends and acquaintances making choices year by year has blown a great deal of the "fog" away that has (for many people I know at least) long been obscuring a question along the lines of:  I thought I was 'training my children up in the way they should go' - so what went wrong, what did I miss that's led them to make these decisions?

  Much of the reason behind that, I believe, comes directly out of who has their hearts; who has secured their loyalties in their tender, growing years and young adult years.

  I've heard it inferred at times that the people who should hold their children's hearts are their own parents.  And while that's true to a degree, I think it needs to be taken in a slightly different direction.  Parents should be leading the little hearts in their care to where they can find good and true and beautiful loyalties and loves, but parents shouldn't be the end in themselves; that would mean that when parents fall short and make mistakes, their children's little spirits would be crushed, beginning to despair in thinking that their loyalty was in vain.

  No, it would be far betting to have molded and tuned their longings, desires, and allegiances to good and true things that will, when followed and sought after in making good and wise decisions, continually lead them to the feet of the only One who can ever satisfy the things they long for eternally -- the One you introduced them to, but could only hope in the end that they would truly surrender to for themselves.

  Now before I go any further, let me clarify 2 things:

---First, I'm not in any way saying that this training of desires and loves is what leads to a child's salvation.  It's absolutely and certainly only the Holy Spirit who is capable of bringing that about in anyone.  Ever.  But I would venture to say that the 'where your treasure is, there your heart will be also' principle doesn't only apply to material possessions.  It's always possible to follow the letter of the law without any of the spirit of the law; just because it's right, not because you desire to obey.  It's always possible to surrender yourself to God, but live every other minute of life barely on the edge of the narrow road that leads Home, with almost no idea and hardly a care Who is at the end of the road; essentially as the people who will barely enter our Heavenly home in the end with the smell of smoke on their clothes for how close they came to being lost.  (Or the worse extreme: to live by "the rules" and make sure to be a legal, "good person", with the illusion that that will act as your ticket into Heaven in the end, with no desire to know the God you'll spend the rest of eternity with.)

  I believe that it's the guiding of the loves, passions, and devotions of young hearts that eventually leads to them falling a little more in love with our Creator with each wise decision made for good and true things of every size.  Because each of those good decisions is tuning the soul to strains of music, beautiful sights, powerful revelations -- captivating glimpses of the Devine.  And the more we see of Him, the more we fall in love with who He is and begin to do things and make choices out of a (sometimes subconscious) longing to love Him back and see more of His character.  Because we then treasure what we have seen, yearning for more drips of the Holy to sooth and strengthen and awaken our cracked, dry hearts.

---Secondly, before reading another word, don't slip comfortably into over-spiritualizing all this.  Nodding or thinking deep thoughts or even saying great things does not mean you or I have actually done any part of them, no matter how wise and profound and holy the thinking and long words can appear, followed by the feelings of "if only everyone else would ______ ", as if we somehow have it all figured out.  Just because you can think it or tell yourself or your kids about it does not mean you can "check that one off your list" and move on.

  It's a life-long climb, whether you're teaching children (your own or students), or you're working on yourself.

  I don't think I can explain very well what exactly I'm meaning with this guiding of souls to love truth and goodness in this one already long post -- that'd have to be for another time and a lot more thinking.  ;)  But in short, I've seen the most long-term impact in learning to love good things (or the lack thereof) in myself and people around me from at least these specific things:  quality time invested with parents (obviously hard to make up for when someone's already an adult or has a strained relationship with parents); value for and talking often and naturally about Scripture in the family; fostering a love of quality stories and books (notably those with a Christ-following authors, whether or not their faith is directly evident in their writing); avoiding movies that celebrate almost-right (aka "only slightly bad but with a good heart") or easy-to-sympathize-with bad guy characters; teaching to and taking joy in the natural world; encouraging and helping to hone in on each person's individual created purpose, what makes them light up and stirs their soul; and tuning spiritual ears to recognize the voice of God.

  I'm sure there are many more wonderful ways to guide hearts -- but the two that bug me the most among people I observe, are not helping children enjoy literature (in whatever way each child can - of course everyone's a little different), and watching any and every movie and tv show that ever tickles a fancy, regardless of if it's hiding one or a dozen lies inside something that looks like truth but slowly twists it into something distorted but sympathetic, so you feel compelled to "understand" and excuse wrong.  Of course everyone's standards are different, but that can't be used as an excuse to just watch whatever we want, even though it's steadily tuning our hearts to static and away from melodies of our God's hand at work.  But that's a whole other difficult topic that's not for right now.  :P

  Anyway, I'm sure all this could be pulled apart and expanded and explained much more and much better than I'm doing here; but it's such a gigantic subject.  I'm not really even sure how to wrap the thought up.  But it's been paining me to see how easily acquaintances and peers slip away.  And usually because their heart's strings were being tied, one by one, to a million little sins, or lies, or hurts, or confusions, or "safe rules", that grow and expand with passing days, until they make some decision you never thought they'd make.  It becomes clear, though, if you're looking closely beyond the surprise of it all, that the only things their hearts were tied and trained to, were fallen logs or broken bricks; nothing that can hold them firm and teach them to swim when floods come.  And I think the words of this well known hymn, one of my favorites, says it quite beautifully:

  "Oh to Grace, how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be.
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wondering heart to Thee--
Prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it!  Prone to leave the God I love!
Here's my heart, Lord; take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above!

  Come, Thou Fount of every blessing; tune my heart to sing Thy grace.
Streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above--
Praise the Mount; I'm fixed upon it, Mount of God's unchanging love."

                                                                                              (—'Come Thou Fount', traditional)

(As always, all pictures and quotes, etc. belong to their original owners, and are here only for inspiration -- all other thoughts are my own.)

Biblical heroes - who is yours?

  A thought for you to ponder today...

                      Who is your Biblical hero?

  Now wait, before you answer — don't just pull out the name of the one you liked best years and years ago in Sunday school.  Who is your Biblical hero now??  And more to the point: why?

  I'm not thinking about this because it's an interesting question.  I really think every Christ-follower should have a Biblical hero; and who that ends up being may change a few times as you and your faith grow.

                                                 
  When I was younger, I probably would have said my hero was Esther.  Because...she has an amazing story, and she became queen, and she saved her people, and she's one of the heroes girls are supposed to choose from, and... stuff like that.  Sure, many of those reasons are legitimate, and some I'd even keep today; seriously, Esther was an amazing woman.  She'd still rank among my top 10 in Scripture.

                                 

  But the person in the Bible I was really most inspired by at that time was Joseph.  His story was riveting.  And despite everything, despite a whirlwind of terrifying situations and seemingly hopeless outcomes that stretched over many years, he didn't push God away, or turn to bitterness, strain for desperate self-promotion, or turn to pride when his life finally began to take an upward turn.

  Joseph is a fantastic example of how our God refines us like silver.  Silver naturally has impurities that need to be removed. (*cough*...young Joseph's little ongoing thing with prideful bragging and such... *cough*)  The silversmith has to take extreme care, holding the silver over the flames at just the right distance to achieve the perfect heat; too hot, and the silver will burn and be unusable, but too cool, and the silver will remain unchanged and retain its impurities.

  ...But God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted any more than you can take.

                                                                                     1 Corinthians 10:13b

  As the silver slowly softens and liquefies, the impurities float to the surface where they can be carefully removed.  All the while, the silversmith watches with rapped attention, until at last, instead of cloudy grey, he can see his own reflection in the now-pure silver.  And so it is with us;  slowly, slowly being refined while under fire until we reach Eternity and finally reflect our Maker.

  I'm still very inspired by Joseph.  I always will be.  But since my late teens, another set of Biblical heroes has been seriously impacting and inspiring me.

  Daniel and his three friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.

                                                 

  Yeah, a lot of things about being a teen or young adult (or any age, really) in America are hard today.  But none of us has faced what Daniel and his friends were thrown into;  captured in their early teens and taken to be indoctrinated -literally- in a culture that was completely hostile to their faith.

  Yet instead of raving angrily, or trying to escape and run home on their own strength, or taking the easy rout of giving in totally, or "blending in" and going along with the Babylonian culture "but not really meaning it" (however that kind of argument is supposed to be better), they held their ground.  For year after year after year.  All their lives.  And God honored and used and blessed them mightily for it.  They were diplomatic when they had to resist, they honored authority, they were diligent and excellent in the skills and gifts God had given them, and they were unshakeable in their faith and convictions.  Even when it meant they would be thrown to ravenous lions or tossed in a molten furnace.

  ...If you do not stand firm in faith, you will not stand at all.

                                                                            Isaiah 7:9b

  Their courage and wisdom in such hostile conditions spurs me on to learn to be unwavering and wise and faithful in any situations I come up against.  With that kind of inspiration, I have no excuses.  And a million fears are quieted.

                                             

  So then—  who is your Biblical hero?  How about Paul?  Or Timothy?  Or Noah?  Or a guy named Benaiah, one of David's Mighty Men, who actually chased a lion into a pit and killed it - how about him?  Or what about any number of the un-named but nonetheless important people who appear all throughout Scripture — is one of them your hero?

  I'd like to submit to you that you need to find a person in Scripture who inspires you;  you need more than fictional story characters to call you out and inspire you to greatness.  You need real people who actually lived, too.  I think that's one reason the Bible is full of them; to urge us on.  Otherwise we get stuck thinking it'll be fine to live out our lives just "holding down the fort" and being a good person.  Sorry, not going to fly.

  'God is our Refuge, our Shield.  But He is also our Banner — the God who goes before us, the God who fights for us!

Jesus didn't die to keep you safe.  He died to make you dangerous!

...So do what you were destined to do.  Chase the lion! '

                                                                            —Mark Batterson, 'Chase The Lion'

  I want to challenge you to find yourself a Biblical hero this year if you don't have one already.  And not just one you pull out of a hat.  Find one that lights a fire in your soul because of who they are, what they did, and what God did on their behalf.

  And if you already do have a Biblical hero, read their story again in the coming months.  Take some time, even just a half an hour, and define what it is that inspires you about them.

  I know I need to do this more often myself, with all different characters in Scripture — to help me keep my eyes on the 'further up and further in', beyond the comfortable, dangerous rut of seeing only the 'now'.  That's one of the ways we become dangerous salt and light against the enemy, one of the ways we learn how to (as wordsmith N.D. Wilson puts it)  'pollute the shadows.'

  So friends, let's find us some real heroes to emulate.

  "And did they tell you stories 'bout the Saints of old,

stories about their faith?

They say stories like that make a boy grow bold,

stories like that make a man walk straight."

                                                           (—Rich Mullins)

(As always, all quotes and images belong to their original owners -- they are displayed here for inspiration only.)