Catching Up with Art --- Days 15/121-128

Walks: Hood, Presidio, SF Ballet, Opera Plaza Cinema

Average: 4 miles

So, Ciwt was finally released from the pop up UPS and home contractor hub her condo has become and was able to walk to two first class productions.

San Francisco Ballet 'Mere Mortals'

As Ciwt readers can see above, SF Ballet's entirely original production Mere Mortals is not your (great) grandmother's classic ballet. It's an acquired taste for many.  Minor ballet maven Ciwt herself had to see it three times to appreciate it. The first time she was utterly repelled, the second a little more forgiving and this third time finally able to be stunningly appreciative of all aspects of the production.  

Starting with the dancing which is utterly nonstop and perfectly coordinated footfall by football, high leap by high leap, head nod by head nod often with the entire company on stage. Just extraordinary dancing. The (frightening) stark costumes are a perfect compliment to the dance 'plot' as well as the combination symphony/electronic music.  Unlike Ciwt's slow take, Mere Mortals was an immediate classic for the young, techie, AI-creating members of the audience.  So much so that the Ballet mounted an unscheduled repeat performance which was immediately sold out.  And so, in spite of 'grandmother' holdouts, art forms continue to evolve with the times.

Michaela Coel and Ian McKellen in The Christophers

But not all artists evolve as the great Ian McKellen demonstrates so perfectly in his role of a passe 80's bad boy artist who now hides out with his unfinished canvases in his two London townhouses.  He is everything Ciwt remembers from McKellen's Acting Shakespeare, a traveling  one-man show of Shakespearean monologues interspersed with theatrical anecdotes devised and performed by Ian McKellen in, yes, the 1980's.  Except he just might be even better in The Christophers.  

It must be quite a challenge to act with McKellen, and Michaela was totally equal to it  Her steadfast  erudite presence is a perfect foil to McKellen's bombastic verbosity.  And the entire movie is full of humorous, witty truisms about the art world, being an artist, the price of art.  Ciwt only wishes she could have a copy of Ed Soloman's script for The Christophers so she could catch up with some of the clever King's English dialogue that flew by her..