Simon Messmer
I would first include her in a list of the current great Actress ballerinas. Others that come to mind are Alina Cojocaru, Diana Vishneva, perhaps Natalia Osipova, and definitely Veronika Part, although she is much harder to categorize. Simon Messmer, like Alina Cojocaru, I believe could have a great career as an actress. Alina Cojocaru has expressed her strong interest in this sort of thing.
What makes the actress ballerina special is that she must perform in the context of dance. Her expression must also translate into physical movement and words are never used. Physical expression is everything. All the dancers that I listed above, I believe, excel at this.
As Gamzatti, Simon Messmer was hypnotic. Her facial expression was so into the character, wonderful in every nuance, and nuanced so completely and so appropriately. I was sitting about ten rows from the stage and I still used theater glasses as much as possible to keep track of her every facial gesture. Doing this added greatly to catching every subtlety, and subtlety was as evident and meaningful as her impossible to miss expansiveness.
For instance when she was sitting with her father, the Radjah and Solar, her fiancee, watching Nikiya dance for their wedding celebration, she had several distinct personas, as she looked at her father nobly and correctly, Solar and Nikiya in emotional and psychological dimensions worthy of any great Shakespearian delving into the complexity of extreme human existence.
This translated equally into her total physical expression and specifically her dancing. The dance and the character were Totally Unified.
Simon Messmer is certainly a major phenomenon of the stage, who I hope will be given every chance possible, as often as possible, to shine for us as the Compelling Wonder of Expression that she is.
Last edited by Buddy on Sat Feb 04, 2012 10:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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