Modern Ballet

A few days ago, I went to Raiford Rogers Modern Ballet with my family at a local community college.  My ballet teacher had tickets for some of her students to attend. We also invited my cousin Luba to come along. She also dances ballet and is already on point.  We had great seats right in the second row. We were so close that I hear every squeak of their shoes and could see every little mistake and even the dancer shaking while holding there leg up high in the air. When the curtain went up, my younger brother asked if the dancers were real. They looked so spectacular.

What was so interesting is that they danced to classical music by Bach, and Liszt. Usually modern ballet is danced to modern songs.  However, dancing a modern ballet to classical music actually looked and sounded really good. 

The difference between modern ballet (also known as contemporary) and classical ballet, is the way the body moves. Classical Ballet is very emotional and has dramatic movements that tells a fictional story, like my favorite The Nutcracker and Swan Lake.  Contemporary  is very free and expresses the emotion of the music. These contemporary dances were very graceful and dramatic.  Everything they did was in unison and musical. The men and women were extremely flexible, and the men were very muscular. They were able to lift up the women up with great ease and grace.  It was a wonderful performance and I would love to see another modern ballet.

Have you ever seen a modern ballet performance?
Which do you prefer, modern or classical ballet?