Free Writing – Ballet vs. Cougarettes

My wife is a dancer, and she likes to watch other people dance. I like to make my wife happy. Put these together and sometimes I have the privilege of going to events such as ballets and dance concerts. Two weeks ago BYU’s ballet department put on their winter show, and last week the Cougarettes were performing their annual concert. Lucky me, I had the chance to go to both of them. After watching both of these concerts I thought I would take a minute and make note of some of my observations from each – a comparison if you will.

Ballet Concert

The ballet was okay. I thought it was cool how they could stand on their toes for so long and spin so much without getting dizzy. One girl spun around 36 times in a row without showing any type of disorientation. My brothers and I used to have competitions to see who could spin the most and I don’t think we ever reached 36 times before we fell over. Some of the dances were very beautiful, and my favorite was a dance to Pachelbell. One thing that is normal in the dance world but that I thought funny was the pants that the guys were wearing. Let’s just say that they didn’t leave much to the imagination. This made me laugh every time they were out on the stage, and my wife had to shush me a few times. Besides these things, the show wasn’t all that compelling. Their timing wasn’t very good and I thought most of the music they used was boring.

Cougarettes Concert

This was a different story. I loved just about every minute of the Cougarettes’ performance. Their timing was right on (which you would expect given that they have won seven out of the last eleven national championships) and their music covered the spectrum of cool and funky to soothing and beautiful. They also used cool props to dance to, such as a ladder and chairs, as well as a cube made out of pipes. One of the things I noticed about the Cougarettes is that the girls are not as skinny as the ballet dancers. None of them were fat, but they were strong enough to do their own lifts and use all the props with ease. I liked that about them. I left the Cougarettes concert feeling like I would gladly pay another $10 to see it again, which is a tribute to them. My wife liked it much better too, so it turned out to be a much better date than the ballet concert the previous week.