Twilight Egret Dance© Scott Pehrson | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Gelsey Kirkland & Mikhail Baryshnikov Dance Balanchine

I had a few free hours in Boston yesterday, and so I headed to the library.  I happened upon an analysis of Leonard Woolf’s “Life in the Jungle” set in Sri Lanka in the first Modern Fiction Studies I picked up (some things are just given to you as gifts from a mystery) and Robert Gottlieb’s giant book,  Reading Dance.  I found Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers as Arlene Croce saw them,  and about Mikhail Baryshnikov.  Later this week, I will fulfill a long-held dream to see Baryshnikov on stage.  He won’t be dancing,  but acting in a play, Man in a Case, which promises to be exuberant and fun.

When I came into Boston that morning, I saw a black stretch limousine drive by, and I idly wondered if it was a politician, though there was no surrounding entourage (I have been watching The West Wing on Netflix.) In the library, I wondered if it was Baryshnikov, arrived from the airport, ready to rehearse around the corner.  As I leafed through the volume on dance, I realized I was in a way, reading a fan-zine.  More to the point, I realized I am a fan.

 Cheek to Cheek, Astaire & Rogers

This morning when the cats woke me too early, I drank coffee and  watched the above videos, and my words cannot capture my sense of joy at watching master dancers dance.  My kitten can.  She leaped into the air to bat at invisible things, and as I watched, stretched a paw out as we presented a still-life pas de deux, watching Baryshnikov dance.

Kennedy Center Honoree Baryshnikov