First, Know the Rules
Posted on Wednesday, October 18, 2006 by Frank Roche
First, know the rules. Then you can break them.
Sheryl and I went to the Pennsylvania Ballet on Saturday night and watched “Romance & Revelry,” which was a three-part show of Jerome Robbins choreography. Fancy Free, was a modern dance with ballet elements. In the Night was classical ballet. The Concert was pure slapstick…and loads of fun.
In The Concert, dancers stumbled. And fell. And goofed. The audience loved it! I mean, they went nuts. The dancers loved it. We were all over it. Why? Because classical dancers can dance, and they proved it. By breaking the rules.
I was thinking The Concert wouldn’t have been much fun if it had been staged by a bunch of hacks. Or non-dancers. What made it compelling was that great dancers were able to play around, and then show flashes of brilliance. Breaking the rules without knowing the rules is for amateurs. Knowing the rules, then breaking the rules, that’s for the truly talented.
