Royal Ballet in Cairns

Thursday, 13 July 2017

Sleeping python

Moon rise

Before we became wet

Raining ...

Drying the stage

All dry and waiting for the politicians

It has been a very hot week, consequently there hasn’t been too much in the way of energetic activity, apart from some walks through the rainforest alongside the creek.  It was on one of these walks that Himself suddenly noticed (and scared the life out of Herself!) a python curled up asleep right beside the walking track!  Fortunately, the snake was sound asleep and not the least concerned out us.

We have also been treated to a sausage sizzle at the caravan park one evening, which was a good chance to watch the full moon rise over the mountains – always a spectacular sight.

After arriving in Cairns, we purchased tickets to attend a performance of the Royal Ballet, the first time the company has performed outside a capital city in Australia.  As the new civic centre and theatre is only half built, the performance was scheduled for the Munro Martin park, with its large stage and plenty of room for chairs and picnic blankets, as well as some even more expensive reserved seats on the flat in front of the stage.  We opted for general admission and our own seats so we could sit on one of the tiers.  The stage had a roof over it but the front and one side were open to the weather.  Naturally, guess what?  The fine weather of the last couple of weeks suddenly disappeared yesterday and by the time the gates opened at 4.00 pm, it was raining.  Two of the local dance schools provided “warm-up” entertainment until the Royal Ballet performance at 6.30 pm.  Did it rain?  Yes.  Did it pour?  Yes.  Was it torrential?  Yes.  Did we get wet?  Yes.  Shoes full of water, long pants wicked water up to the waistband.  Waterproofs leaked water through the enclosed zip and water also wicked up the sleeves.  Cardigan and t-shirt wet nearly to the armpits, right down the front and up the back to the shoulder blades.

Between showers, an army of stagehands would appear with lots of towels and crawl around the stage drying the water and they had the stage dry by 6.30 pm and the rain had stopped for a short while.  Instead of the dancing commencing, the Cairns mayor and the Queensland premier appeared on stage to tell us what a wonderful job they were doing and twenty minutes later when they finished, the rain started again.  The eleven items performed by the twelve principal dancers of the company were interrupted after every couple of items to dry the stage.  However, the dancing was superb and was a wonderful experience to see.  The programme was varied, with many of the traditional classical ballet pas de deux, as well as a few newer and more contemporary dances.  Apart from one solo, all items were pas de deux.  Did we enjoy the dancing?  Most definitely.  We could only wish we were at Covent Garden!