Spandex alert!

For the past two nights, I have been immersing myself in culture and beauty. In the gayest way possible, of course.

Cirque du Soleil's OVO show is in Houston. The show opened tonight at Sam Houston Race Park, but a friend of mine works for a web marketing company and runs the website for the park, so she scored free tickets to the invited dress rehearsal preview (tickets that, we overheard at the show, were going for $200 through the local PBS telecast sale). She was unfortunately out of town on business, so her boyfriend gave me the extra ticket. Far be it from us to let something free go to waste.

I had never been to Cirque du Soleil and didn't know what to expect, other than a vague idea of ridiculous acrobatics. And OVO definitely delivered. The very first act involved a man holding himself up with one hand upside on a pole and then contorting himself around and slithering to the ground. There was also an act involving a rock wall and my mind is still completely blown.

The story of the show is "an immersion into the teeming and energetic world of insects." The costumes were bug-ish, which made them all rather androgynous. They incorporated the bug costumes into the act only slightly; one act has a group of five girls dressed as ants who juggle plastic food pieces with their feet. And also, they toss and catch each other. WITH THEIR FEET. The interlocking plot, however, involves two bugs that are falling in love. I guess. I don't know, I honestly wasn't paying much attention to the parts that didn't have people bending their backs in half or doing a trapeze on their head.



Tonight was the opening night of Houston Ballet's "The Sleeping Beauty". I love Sleeping Beauty. It's possibly my favorite Disney movie and one of the main reasons is because of Tchiakovsky's score. I love the music and really wanted to see the ballet. Tonight was the only night I could see it due to Spring Break plans, so my friend Aerin braved the nosebleed seats with me (for $18 I will sit anywhere).

It was gorgeous. I'm pretty sure I annoyed Aerin with all of my excited faces and gasping, but I truly loved it. The dancing was incredible, the music was wonderful, and the ballet had wonderful visual effects -- there was a scene where the evil fairy Carabosse disappears from the stage and I still don't know how she left but I'm pretty sure there had to be magic involved. And honestly, ever time I heard a piece of music I recognized from the Disney movie, I turned into a five year old.

Both events had me marveling at the levels of athleticism and talent that they all possessed. I mean, I can't even complete a whole push-up. I push down, but then I can't really get back up, while Cirque du Soleil has people doing handstands fifteen feet in the air on a trapeze. And, though I danced for 13 years as a child, I almost twisted my ankle tonight as I was flitting around the lobby, looking more like the hippo from Fantasia than Aurora.

Lesson learned -- men are good. Flexible men in spandex are better.