Ballet is DEAD or Black Tie Meets Tie Dye...

BACKGROUND to this tale...

Act I: Meet the Dancers

I went looking for “Grateful Dead ballet” to send a greeting to one of my former Sunday school students who, along with his wife - Grace Morton, is a professional ballet dancer. Today is their wedding anniversary.

As a Sunday school teacher for nearly 30 years, I can say that parents Charley and Reine raised wonderful children...I had the pleasure of spending time with several of them.

The dancers' bios can be found at BalletAustin (Texas).

Dancer Ian J. Bethany: How I spent my summer - 2019 (02:21)

Reclamation No 4 at Lincoln Chapel (Dancers) (05:29) on Vimeo

Entr'acte

noun

The interval between two acts of a theatrical performance.
Another performance, as of music or dance, provided between two acts of a theatrical performance.
The interval between two acts of a play or an opera.

Dixie Cups - CHAPEL OF LOVE ('Shivaree' 4-10-65) (03:07)

Act II: Meet a DARK STAR...and her Grateful Dead Ballet

And to help us ordinary folks mix with “high” society…here’s something I just found…🤔 or found me???Read on...the music follows the words...Hmm? Or do the words follow the music??? Here's the text of the comments I added to their online offering:

Cooooool! Went looking for “Grateful Dead ballet” and was AMPly rewarded with this find. Lemme ‘splain…

I wanted to send a greeting to a professional ballet dancer and his partner/wife. Many years ago, I was his Sunday school teacher. “Who knows where the time goes…?” I’m now a 75-year young Friend of Jerry…a JERRYatric if you like …but still able to move and shake dem bones…thanks in part to kundalini yoga and Tai Chi…

I really enjoyed your interpretation…improvisation…jam…And your venue…like far out…

So, I’m gonna send Ian and Grace a link to this video…

Happy Anniversary to them…

…and to you…y’all…Keep on dancin’

Viewer: The masks were mandated for COVID...

BalLED...

Charlottesville Ballet - Darkstar (Grateful Dead) (02:58)

Act III: Black Tie Meets Tie Dye

Bob Weir on how his long, strange trip turned classical - CBS Morning Show Nov. 26, 2022 (Facebook)

Grateful Dead's Bob Weir took the stage with the National Symphony Orchestra - Oct. 2022

[from this article]

When Jerry Garcia died in 1995, it closed out a 30-year run of the Grateful Dead. Bob Weir began the band with Jerry Garcia in 1965, and now he's found another way yet to explore the band's legacy. Earlier this month, that project took center stage at the Kennedy Center. Felix Contreras is NPR Music's resident Deadhead and has this report.

ON WITH THIS SHOW...

Listen as the conductor tells us that this is the FIRST EVER collaboration between a JAM BAND and a symphony orchestra...After his excited opening remarks, he said, "Without further adieu..." ...and I mused, thinking about another song I like...Maybe some day he'll say,

"Without FURTHUR adieu...Here's some MORNING DEW..."

(Click here for a haunting version of "Morning Dew" from Robert Plant)

"Sometimes the light's all shining on me..."

China Cat I Know You Rider Bob Weir Wolf Bros National Symphony Orchestra 10/8/22 Kennedy Center DC (16:19)

Act IV: Dark Star Orchestra at the "Cap"

Dark Star Orchestra - “Althea” Live at The Capitol Theatre (May 14, 2022) Spring 22’ Tour (08:00)

Ticketmaster (a.k.a., "Scalpmaster") for their 2023 gigs

Let's give thanks...They'll be on Long Island Thanksgiving weekend:

Intermezzo: And now for something completely different (a.k.a., "the circus is in town")

Opera intermezzo

The intermezzo, in the 18th century, was a comic operatic interlude inserted between acts or scenes of an opera seria. These intermezzi could be substantial and complete works themselves, though they were shorter than the opera seria which enclosed them; typically they provided comic relief and dramatic contrast to the tone of the bigger opera around them, and often they used one or more of the stock characters from the opera or from the commedia dell'arte. In this they were the reverse of the Renaissance intermezzo, which usually had a mythological or pastoral subject as a contrast to a main comic play. Often they were of a burlesque nature, and characterized by slapstick comedy, disguises, dialect, and ribaldry. The most famous of all intermezzi from the period is Pergolesi's La serva padrona, which was an opera buffa that after the death of Pergolesi kicked off the Querelle des Bouffons. SOURCE: Wikipedia (with my emphases)

Weekend Update: Emily Litella on Television Violins - SNL (01:20)

1986 Steve Martin Skits: Ballet Parking & The Skier & Camping In The Woods (Ballet is in first 01:40 - other skits follow)

...some have said Mel couldn't do many (most???) of his movies now...

...his parody of men who dance uses terms I find demeaning and offensive...BUT, our Mr. Brooks is also simultaneously doing a send up of these masculine men...

"You gotta be a man to wear tights..."

Men in Tights Song (01:33)

and just for the halibut...

Monty Python - The Fish Slapping Dance (00:23)

That hilarity prompted this classic...

Marx Brothers: Horse Feathers - Swordfish (02:21)

I Give Opera High Marx...How 'bout you?

Mel Brooks On The Marx Brothers & A NIGHT AT THE OPERA - American Film Institute (00:55)

CAUTION: If you still believe that a bearded old man in a red suit delivers presents...Please disregard the closing comments in this video clip.

See below for proof...of delivery...and SANITY...and this should reinforce your FANTASY...

Marx Brothers - A Night At The Opera - The Party Of The First Part (04:19)

Even Santa uses PRIME...

Act V: Continuing the Operatic Vibe...

Opera's Three-'Ring' Cycle - The Washington Post (June 17, 1985)

[from this article]

Surely, nothing more dramatically typified the civic operatic spirit than Grateful Dead lead bassist Phil Lesh, a serious Wagnerian who canceled two of the group's Sacramento, Calif., concerts so he and three other band members, Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart and Bob Weir, could attend the first "Ring" cycle. Lesh's San Francisco Examiner photograph backstage with bass baritone Morris Stewart (The Wanderer, Siegfried) became the sort of anecdote cab drivers pass along with racing and restaurant tips.

How Hippies Saved the Lord of the Rings (26:18)

Meet our host and guide...

Grateful Dead Live at Kiel Opera House on 1970-10-24 - Internet Archive

--listen to all 16 songs

Grateful Dead: Feelin' Groovy Symphony (with high-speed cloud video) (51:46)

A mashup of ten live Grateful Dead performances of the Feeling Groovy jam...

Post "Foot" Notes

Ken Kesey and the Grateful Dead's unrealized ballet

Ken Kesey and the Grateful Dead's unrealized ballet "The Sea Lion," Ken Kesey's tale based on the mythology of the Northwest Coast Indians, wound up as a children's book, the author originally intended it to be a three-part rock ballet scored by the Grateful Dead.

The Sea Lion: A Story of the Sea Cliff People - Goodreads

"Although taunted for his small size and bad leg, Eemook proves his worth by saving his tribe from an evil and powerful spirit that comes visiting one stormy night."

Ken Kesey was American writer, who gained world fame with his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962, filmed 1975). In the 1960s, Kesey became a counterculture hero and a guru of psychedelic drugs with Timothy Leary. Kesey has been called the Pied Piper, who changed the beat generation into the hippie movement.

Read the rest of his bio here...

...and to all a Good Night...

Episode 235: And to All a Good Night - Muppet Wiki

Bear in the Big Blue House - Episode 39 All To A Good Night - Internet Archive (24:01)

We Bid You Goodnight (2 cam) - Grateful Dead - 10-8-1989 Hampton, Va set2-11 (03:19)

Oh! Hold on...Just found out there's an AFTER PARTY goin' on...

Younguns: That's a jukebox in the center of the screen...Consider it a predecessor of your iPhone...or anDROID (see below for HOW it capitalized it)...it only a lot LESS music...

You fed coins into it's always-open mouth and then oh so carefully selected THAT certain song you wanted a special other person to hear...and hoped she'd be your partner...tonight...

Status Quo - Anniversary Waltz Part 1 (05:40)

Status Quo - Anniversary Waltz Part 2 (05:31)

This was the table-top version common in diners...see bottom image...

Sorry to say...but it looks like this music-filled tech didn't make it into the future :(

HAY AY! (AI) Note Dex's remarks about a shortcoming of DROIDS and what's they're capable of...the difference between KNOWLEDGE and WISDOM...and "if Droids could think, there'd be none of us here..." Hmm???

One more...it's thumbnail got my attention...