tv – Rebel Prince

‘Swan Lake’ on ‘DWTS’

I’ve pretty much stopped watching Dancing with the Stars with this season, but now that I’m getting back into ballet I did catch this segment from last night’s episode, a piece “inspired,” if you will, by Swan Lake, featuring Lorena Feijoo (San Francisco Ballet), Lorna Feijoo (Boston Ballet), and JosÃ© Manuel CarreÃ±o (American Ballet Theatre). Swan fight!

I will give DWTS credit for continuing to showcase diverse dance styles in their Macy’s Stars of Dance performances. Ballet on prime-time network television? Thank you!

Though, I do realize they’re riding the Black Swan wave. For some reason I’m not completely digging Swan Lake in this setting. I’m not saying that ballet needs to be compromised for a mass audience, but that I would’ve preferred maybe a more modern piece (or even just costuming) that pushes away from the frilly classical-ballet stereotype.

Dueling country roads

I thought last night’s episodes of The Office were just OK, but Dwight and Andy’s dueling performance of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” (to impress the new receptionist) was pretty hilarious. “In German! Das Leben ist alt dort…”

Aside: That song will always remind me of our vacation in 2007 to, of all places, the Philippines. A bunch of us were having drinks at the Taal Vista Hotel in Tagaytay, being serenaded by a roving trio of guitarists. We talked to them a bit, and when they learned that Thom was from Virginia, they broke out into “Take Me Home, Country Roads”! Ha! We were all singing along; it was great.

Oh, wait, I just dug through my photos of that trip (which I still haven’t uploaded completely to Flickr!), and found one of the players: so it was two guitars and a bass. That’s my uncle and cousin in the foreground. Good times.