#Symphony in C

[miss-mollys-ballet-blog]

Megan Fairchild and Joseph Gordon in Symphony in C.

[balanchine-ballet-master]

Unity Phelan and Alec Knight in the second movement of Balanchine's Symphony in C, October 15, 2023. Click/tap to enlarge.

Photo: Erin Baiano

[alarici]

For Meronia ballet AU, maybe a back stage moment or something? As a prompt I mean (: Love Reading your stuff!!

content: injury, word count: approx 500

It's the middle of dress rehearsal. Near's demi-solo is almost finished. She's collapsed in some soloist man's arms, not a finger out of place, languishing in the scattered applause. Catching her breath for the coda. Mello watchers her from the wings, as she has for seven years and counting. She's still captivated, as is everyone else.

The final chord drifts out of the orchestra pit, and then the string section begins again--and Near is alive, again. Most of the coda is a petite allegro. Small jumps, precise, exhausting. Even if Near's perfect, this is one thing that has never been her specialty. Where Mello's athleticism lends to her explosive jumps, her dynamism; Near's technique is impeccable, but Mello can pick out every moment here Near could jump higher, could move faster, could do more, more, more. Yet it's undeniably good. And Mello is lost in the sight. Near's eternal gentle smile--a delicate interpretation of the role. It fits.

Still riding off of the high of them both being promoted to the corps de ballet--no longer under threat of being a probationary apprentice (dancing every night, dead on their feet, the treat of 'there's only room for one of you here' looming in the spring, than then a revelation: we want you both, don't ruin it), Mello isn't fixated in her anger. They're playing the same part--corps in one cast, soloist in the other. Maybe, for this ballet at least, their opposite interpretations can coexist, and Mello will practice her breathing exercises, and they will keep a tally of who prefers whose version of the part. The ballet mistress likes you. The critic liked me.

The worst is yet to come, someone pulls at her, a prickle in her spine.

Mello bites her lip as the end of the coda draws near. It's a nerve-wracking sequence to perform. Mello's dress rehearsal was earlier that day, and she'd scrapped by with a few, small, inexcusable errors in the exact same routine.

The fantasy of a moment of peace, a truce, an intermission of repose rips ugly four counts before the end of the sequence. Mello hears it and can't look away as Near crumples to the stage, barely catching herself with her arms out in front of her.

Mello's seen multiple bad landings. Jumping is always a gamble with god. A gamble they make hundreds of times every day. Near's misfortune finds her limping, instead of running of the stage, one more act, forty minutes, in the dress rehearsal left to go. In the opposite wing, she looks ready to run back for the mid-show bow.

Mello doesn't think. She runs. The vast area behind the stage narrows to the opposite stage door. Mello sees her, sitting standing on one leg in the corner. It looks bad.

She takes the razor out of its place in her character shoes, wrapped in cardboard and thin cloth, sitting against the knuckle of her big toe--a trinket for luck--and feels Near's ribbons tearing under the blade, Near panting, weak arms protesting at Mello's elbow. It's the only way Mello will know Near won't go and try to dance on a broken foot--you can't dance without your ribbons. It's over.

"You cut me," Near says. A grimace of pain, well hidden. A small prick of blood expands on her white tights from where the ribbons gave.

"You're not going back out there." Mello can't look at her, can only stare at her swollen foot, limp on the ground.

"Now, I'm not." Mello would appreciate some anger. Instead, all she sees is nothing. Grief? Leave it to Near to start caring now, of all times.

-

It'll take Near five year to thank her for it. When they learn that the artistic director would have been happy to see Near ruin herself, her shattered sesamoid, that very night.

[miss-m-calling]

Marianela Núñez and Reece Clarke in George Balanchine's Symphony in C (Royal Ballet, 2025)

Photo by Tristram Kenton

[balletthebestphotographs]

Maria Yakovleva Мария Яковлева

Maria Yakovleva Мария Яковлева,��“Symphony in C”, choreo by George Balanchine, music by Georges Bizet (Symphony Nº 1 in C major), costume by Barbara Karinska (Varvara Jmoudsky) and Stephanie Bäuerle. As part of the program “Im Siebten Himmel In the Seventh Heaven” (“Marsch, Walzer, Polka” by Martin Schläpfer, “Fly Paper Bird” by Marco Goecke and “Symphony in C”), Wiener Staatsballett Vienna State Ballet, Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna, Austria (June 3, 2024).

Note I: This blog is open to receiving and considering any suggestions, contributions, and/or criticisms that may help correct mistakes or improve its content. Comments are available to any visitor. Note II: Original quality of photographs might be affected by compression algorithm of the website where they are hosted.

Source and more info at: Photographer Ashley Taylor Website Photographer Ashley Taylor on Instagram

via Maria Yakovleva on Instagram

[zorishy]

Ode To L’Manberg: It’s Not Your Time to Die

Here is the third work in my series presenting story of L’Manberg in my main DSMP au (Symphony of Gods and Dreamers). The lore dumps I have posted about this au can be found under the “Zorishy’s Bursona Lore” tag.

This poster covers the events of the New L’Manberg/Exile arc.

AU specific details:

• Tubbo gets a custom green L’Manberg uniform

• Dream manipulates Tubbo into exiling Tommy by framing him for helping wilbur blow up L’Manberg

• after Tommy’s exile is announced, Technoblade tries to attack Tubbo, fights and scars Quackity, and then runs off

• Butcher army never finds Techno, they try but never do

• Techno arrived on the SMP in the Technoplane

• Ghostbur doesn’t get his stab wound until the first revival attempt

• Fundy has been aged down, he’s around 3 here

• Wilbur actually has a grave!

•Tommy successfully kills himself by jumping off the tower

• Dream revives Tommy after he jumps off the tower

ADDENDUM: there is an aspect of this poster that is now inaccurate to my au. I changed it so Quackity is the one to adopt Fundy instead of Eret. Why? To fuel tntduo rivalry and also because c!Fundy is part of Las Nevadas.

[the-crow-binary]

I'm not fully satisfied... but drawing Alucard horrified is kinda fun tbh ❤️

Maybe I'll redraw it at some point in the future. Because that fight is horrible and I love when Characters are in pain ❤️

[aphelionatseven]

THE SHELF LIVE OF THOSE FANTASIES HAS EXPIRED!

peter — taylor swift

[symphony-of-smoke]

Hello!

I'm 🚬Revbur, I use any pronouns(he/it/she mainly), bodily an adult, gay, autistic, disabled, and co-host of our DID system the Analog Collective.

if it's not obvious enough, I'm a DSMP fictive, and I'm looking for others like me(source or not, kins and doubles welcome) to be friends. so hey, if you want to chat, shoot me a dm! I might come off weird but hey that's to be expected right lol

[mikrokosmos]

Robert Schumann

( 8 June 1810 – 29 July 1856 )

Happy Birthday, Robert!

[miss-mollys-ballet-blog]

Ekaterina Kondaurova after Symphony in C.

[desceros]

I must enquire, what shenanigans were the turtles up to in the background of symphony chapter 28?

wouldn't you like to know, weather boy

[alarici]

More ballet AU (warning my inane style :> )

Near is the darling of the ballet school. As it is, nobody speaks to her.

Scooped from her local program at age 11 and placed in the third-highest level, a year shy of the next-youngest girl in the class, she was said to have regarded the switch with not a blink, a twitch. As though she hadn't moved from a girls' home in Liverpool to a special suite in Lower Manhattan.

The mythology about her is threefold. One, she's a savant. Two, she doesn't speak. Three, she's immune to the world of theirs. No stage fright. Never envious or cruel. Learns everything immediately. No questions asked. Wears the same pleasant, frozen expression day in and day out. They say she's cursed, or traumatized, or just plain odd. A freak of nature that the mortals shouldn't ask after.

Nobody asks if she's lonely. She's wonderful, why would she be?

At age thirteen, someone finds her wanting. It's probably the worst thing to happen in her life. Orphaned at four. Abandoned, and abandoned again. Placed in a little glass box, an empty studio, an empty room and told to wait. Her time will come. Told to never change a thing, you're perfect. And the worst thing to fall into her life is another girl, a little older, a little taller, with thorns in her back and a fast-burning fire.

It would take her to realize what she felt was something deeper than loss and stronger than nonchalance. More insidious than acceptance and less virtuous than tolerance.

The violence of her life is thus--she knows (through others, never herself) that she will be a gentle, effortless creature in a world of blood, sweat, tears, and broken bones. For years she operates off of the word, the belief, that she'll be chosen first and her life will be settled. She will join the best ballet company in the United States, she will be promoted through the ranks in time, and she will replace the last prima ballerina, and then what?

Mila comes from Kutaisi by way of St. Petersburg and tries to make her fight for every inch.

I'm drawn to you because you know. Because you are me and I am you. Or--there is something missing from me that the universe gave to you. I think we need each other.

The hardest part is knowing from the moment you meet her eyes (and look away, at her ears, her beautiful hair) that she hates you. But hate is so much better than resignation. You're wanting for it.

The first day Near wakes up sore, Mila is sleeping in the next room. Sleeping or staring out the window in the beautiful country they find themselves in, stuck together like rats in a trap. New York, New York.

And then the screaming starts. And Near realizes her voice may be her own.

[liminally-spaced]

[hopecomesbacktolife]

Star-Dust by Michael Giacchino from the Rogue One soundtrack 🤝 Mahler Symphony no. 5, Adagietto, sehr Langsam

doing absolutely transcendent and heavenly things with strings and harp while hanging out on a middle C

[zorishy]

Ode To L’Manberg: Independence or Death

This is the first in a series of works I am making for my high school art class. The series is meant to present the story of L’Manberg as written in my main DSMP au (Symphony of Gods and Dreamers). The lore dumps I have posted about this au can be found under the Zorishy’s Bursona Lore tag.

If you do not wish to read all that, here are the au specific details shown in this poster:

Schlatt and Quackity were part of L’Manberg when it was founded.

Fundy has been aged down, being only 2 during the war.

the button in the final control room would have blown up L’Manberg if Schlatt and Quackity hadn’t prevented Eret from pressing it.

Dream stole the revival book from Mumza long before the beginning of the SMP and has been corrupted by its power. (Not that he wasn’t already evil to begin with)

The original L’Manberg army was much larger than in canon and made up of defectors from Dream’s early colonies on the SMP.

Sally is a shapeshifter