Larry M. Coleman

If you don’t know what story cubes are, see the introduction to the story cubes series.

To see the original roll of the story cubes, see yesterday’s post.

Costumes, masks, and tutus bring smiles to everyone around me, from the septuagenarians seated to our right to the three girls seated in the row in front of us, eight, ten, and twelve.

Power radiates from the stage, from the story, from the dancers themselves who have suffered for their art: long days in the studio, aches and pains of struggle and work, braving the slings and arrows of creating art in an inartistic world with a body being asked the impossible.

As the distractions of instant gratification and streaming binges have burrowed their way into the world, the struggle is no longer just one against physical limits but also to attract the funding necessary to let costumes, masks, and tutus bring smiles to everyone around me.

I got both the smiley face and the frowning face on this roll. It would have been perfect for something about the theater, but this one had to be about ballet. Still, I like how the smile at the top right gets reflected in a frown at the bottom left. I also got the alien yet again, but this time a little creativity turned it into a mask. The semicircle off to the side loops back up to the top, so this week’s flash fiction ends with the beginning of the opening line.

I give myself bonus points for working a Shakespeare allusion (“slings and arrows” comes from Hamlet) into something inspired by the ballet I just saw. I picked this one specifically for this week because Friday I went to see the Cleveland Ballet’s performance of Romeo & Juliet. I’ve seen the Royal Opera perform it on video, but seeing it live is so much better. They even managed to work some of the scenery on the stage into the action in a very creative way. (No pictures allowed during the performance, unfortunately.)

If you’re not from Cleveland, all you may know of it is that our river caught on fire in 1969, but we actually have a world-class artistic legacy left from the days of the Carnegies and Rockefellers. Our art museum is one of the best in the country, our orchestra is arguably the best in the world, our Playhouse Square is the largest outside of New York City (when many performances wrap up their time on Broadway, Cleveland is their first stop), and we have an excellent ballet company, too.

After the show, some of the dancers gave a short question and answer instead of heading straight back to the dressing rooms for a well deserved rest. From left to right, they are Timour Bourtasenkov (Artistic Director), Johan Mancebo (Romeo), Levian Mondville (Paris), Madison Campbell (gypsy street dancer), and Svetlana Svinko (Juliet). I appreciated the extra time they spent to connect with the people who came to see them.

The comments section is the perfect place for what you came up with. I’m sure you did better than I did this week!