60 Going On 16

Jingle jangle morning

It was London, 1965; I was 17, in love for the first time, and passionate about, oh, all sorts of things. Dylan released this wonder of an album:

I heard this song and I experienced what I can only describe as a seismic shift of the soul. The boyfriend and I played it over and over. Nothing was ever quite the same again.

Seventy eh? Who'da thought it? Just hope you're dancing somewhere beneath the diamond sky today, Bob. We're still following you . . .

Libertango

What can I have been thinking of? There has been too little music, far too little dancing and even less music for dancing here on 60 going on 16. And, yes, I am back to dancing, even if it's only around the kitchen, watched by perplexed dogs.

If you've been visiting for ages, you'll know how much I love both music and dance and sometimes, a fragment of music will have me up on my feet, especially if it's tango. A piece of music like this, the haunting Libertango by Astor Piazzolla.

But imagine, if you will, many, many more feet dancing to Libertango - because this video has received almost five million hits on YouTube. Yes, five million - imagine? It may be because the opening bars provided the soundtrack to a recent car advertisement. I'm not sure what this did for the car manufacturer's profits but I'd like to think that sales of Piazzolla's haunting music soared.

Result!

Cartoon courtesy of  www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au 

I've been trying since yesterday evening to find a quiet moment to post this. Who knows where the time goes . . . ?

The cartoon says it all really. My brilliant surgeon came into the consulting room beaming. 

"It's good news! Very good news!"

In other words, the Massive Inconvenience - in fact, a very tiny 8mm nonentity - gone (with a good, clear margin), lymph nodes clear, blood vessels clear.

So a few more tears but far more smiles and some jokes. I do like a jokey surgeon. And then, before I know it we were heading back home, via Waitrose, to stock up on organic goodies to keep me going for the next few days.

I'll have three weeks of daily radiotherapy starting in November and the hospital is arranging a car to pick me up and take me home again each day. Just me - no shared rides - the nearest I will ever get to a chauffeur-driven life. And I will be checked and monitored regularly throughout the official five-year recovery period.

In the meantime, I will continue to do the very best I can in terms of diet, exercise, and support therapies to give myself the best possible chance of being around for a very long time to come. The tumour was oestrogen-receptive so alcohol is now a no-no but I rarely drink so this isn't a problem. But, even if I did, giving it up would be a very small price to pay for good health. And I'm now almost a month down the dairy-free road and do not miss it one bit.

Today was the Dear Daughter's last full day here, after a fortnight's stay, so we did sensible things like checking that I was safe and secure behind the wheel again and that I could drive as far as Dulverton on Exmoor, our nearest town. It was a genuine pleasure to see people we knew and give them the good news.

So, let's just leave it to the Mavericks to sum up the mood here at the old homestead tonight.

"A dying fall . . . "

I'm trying not to reflect too long or too hard on 2009. For my family, it will always be remembered as the year we had to say goodbye to two of our much loved canine companions, the dear old Rough Diamond and the Divine Miss M. The remaining two of a trio of dogs who truly did transform our lives in so many ways. And there were other, more private sadnesses too. But enough, already, tears are welling. 

Best, perhaps, to say goodbye to 2009 with a thing of beauty, a last dance post for the year. A rare and flickery piece of archive footage of the incomparable Anna Pavlova in her most famous role, La Mort du Cygne, choreographed for her in 1905 by Michel Fokine. 

When I was a child, Pavlova's biography, Dancing Star (written for young readers by Gladys Malvern) helped to fuel my lifelong passion for dance. And Pavlova's life was extraordinary, although I had to wait until I was an adult and read Oleg Kerensky's less sanitised biography before I fully appreciated just how extraordinary.

Pavlova died in 1931, her swan costume in her arms. She was 49, had been diagnosed with pleurisy and had refused an operation that would have saved her life - because it would have prevented her from dancing again. For the woman who took ballet to the furthest corners of the world, a life without dance was beyond comprehension. 

So we'll let Pavlova dance us to the end of 2009. After all, and with apologies to Scarlett O'Hara, tomorrow is another year.

"A pair of star-crossed lovers"

 

 
There has been little time to write anything, let alone produce a half-way reasonable post over the past week. Just the odd Tweet . . .  

While this is not an excuse (2009 was supposed to be the Year of Dance on 60 Going On 16, after all), last week was something of a ballet-fest on the box for dance lovers, starting with BBC4's Margot, based on part of Meredith Daneman's superb biography. If you're still wondering, all these years later about the nature of the relationship between Fonteyn and Nureyev, this might fill in the gaps. On balance, I'd go with the biography - for the life in full and to put this brief period in Fonteyn's life and career into context.

BBC4 also screened the 1963 film of Marguerite and Armand, choreographed for Fonteyn and Nureyev by Sir Frederick Ashton. On Friday the same channel had a rerun of its 2007 programme, Nureyev: from Russia with Love, about the dancer's early years in the then Soviet Union, as well as  Kenneth McMillan's Romeo and Juliet, filmed not entirely successfully in 1966 by Paul Czinner. Ballet and film have an uneasy relationship . . . 

But, imperfect as the film was and remains, it still captured something of the essence of the Fonteyn-Nureyev partnership and the magic that they created when they danced together. Anyone who was fortunate enough to see them on stage, knew that they were watching something truly remarkable and that they would probably never see anything quite like it again. Nureyev was, well, Nureyev, and Fonteyn, while lacking the athleticism that is now the norm for so many ballet dancers, had a lyricism and musicality to her dancing that was unsurpassed. 

It wasn't simply their dancing that marked them out. As theatre director Peter Brook observed, they were: "Extraordinary actors who lend depth to every movement, which suddenly makes the most artificial of all forms become natural and human."

So ignore the poor quality, the frustrating camera angles and the judders and jumps: here's the balcony scene. It's the moment when he clutches at the hem of her dress that always gets me.