Starting to see a pattern

On Saturday night, I went to the ballet with a few friends. We planned and Argentine night--ballet at 9, followed by dinner and dancing. Well, we're all a little too old to hit the boliches at 2am as custom here dictates, but we still managed to stay out til 3am, and we had a great time.

The ballet was pretty good. There were three different little one-act ballets. The first was really weird and modern, but the dancing was amazing. It was a bunch of women, and one seemed to be controlling all of them and making them dance--one in particular, who contorted herself in all kinds of insane ways that even at my most flexible I never could have done. You could see all her muscles working together--very amazing. But then at random times, Naked Yoga Man (as we dubbed him) would appear behind a lighted scrim to dance and contort himself. Then, at the end, Skull Woman (there was this whole part where the woman who controlled the other women danced around with a skull in a plastic globe, very postmodern Hamlet) went back with Naked Yoga Man and the woman she was controlling who had apparently died came back to life after the other women sprinkled salt on her. Beautiful dancing, incomprehensible plot.

The other two were more normal, and also very beautiful. The second was a bunch of people dancing to different songs--very artsy but more comprehensible, and also more traditional (but very modern nonetheless) dancing. Less contortions, more arabesques.

The final dance was just your standard string of modern ballet dancing, but absolutely stunningly beautiful. Lovely music, beautiful costumes, great light--everything. There was a traditional pas de deux with two men, which I thought was very interesting and very well done. It made me wonder whether dance companies in the US do that kind of thing. I will have to go to more ballets to find out.

During one of the intermissions, I chatted with the people sitting next to us for a bit. They were very nice. We talked about the ballet, blah blah blah. They they asked where I was from. Once again, they were shocked that I was from the US, and once again, like the cab drivers, like my language partner, they asked, "No estas de Bush, no?" It makes me wonder first, why no one thinks I am American, and second, just how much the really negative perception of Americans that I keep encountering has to do with Bush. I suppose there is nothing to be done but to wait it out and hope that everyone keeps giving me a chance to explain.