Houston Ballet at Home series sparks tears and laughs
Houston Ballet principal Yuriko Kajiya appears for about a second in Misty Copeland’s pandemic fundraising video, “Swans for Relief.” She’s one of 32 ballerinas from 14 countries who performed for the compiled solo that was released on social media May 6.
As her part flashed by, I recognized Kajiya’s elegant, minimalist, light-filled living room. She’s been dancing there since late March, posting videos on Instagram to participate in a “music box challenge” that has made the rounds through TikTok. Her excruciatingly slow, 360-degree turn, with one leg up in an attitude derriere — without a wobble — will make your jaws drop.
Kajiya, who is shy, also displays that balance during a segment of Houston Ballet at Home, a social-media video series that welcomes viewers into the offstage, downtime lives of the company’s dancers.
Running less than 2 minutes to nearly 5 minutes, the clips range from elaborately staged comedies to time-lapse cooking lessons and exercise demonstrations by the dancers. There are lovers and roommates among them, along with domestic goddesses and folks who live more bare-bones.
This is what watching ballet has become in 2020, the Year of Isolation. With companies on hold and theaters shuttered, dancers everywhere are performing their hearts out for audiences they can’t see or hear. Missing the close contact of studios, they patch their bodies together on Zoom, creating split choreography to shared music. Kitchens, garages, back yards and parks have become their stages.
In a theater, under the lights and in costume, a great ballerina can make us forget she is human. At a kitchen counter in socks and pajamas, maybe with a dog at her feet, she is something else. A little lost even in her own home. This is both the charm and the heartbreak of the Houston Ballet at Home videos, even though they are upbeat. Ballet careers are so short, in the scheme of things. Losing most of a year, if that’s what this turns out to be, costs dancers dearly no matter how many hours a day they practice at home.
Dancers wear costumes for some of the company’s virtual remakes of popular dances from its repertoire. Some create their own videos as well. Oliver Halkowich has emerged as the zaniest, most elaborate storyteller, creating comedies with his sister, actress Phoebe Mar, at their father’s Technicolorful home in Florida. He also hosts the “Tea with HB” series at 4:30 p.m. Thursdays. In the funniest episode yet, he splits the screen with Melody Mennite to perform a “Don Quixote” solo with his torso and her legs. Mennite also hams it up in her own short films.
No one expresses the cagedbird yearning as eloquently as Kajiya during her own, full “Dying Swan” for Instagram. Although ballet’s most parodied solo is so familiar that even people who have never attended a live performance may flap their arms when they hear Camille Saint-Saëns’ music, Kajiya restores the dance to the sublime.
On her balcony at sunset, silhouetted and visible only from the waist up, she stands in place, as if her legs are paralyzed. In a way, they are. A breeze rustles treetops in the distance as her “wings” flutter. I bawl.