Round about the time I was 14 or 15, there was a great conjunction in my own personal sky which resulted in my reading through the entire ballet section of the local library (remember the days when card catalogs consisted of cards, and interlibrary loan required clairvoyance and immortality?), a long-held belief that I had Made It All Up, and a sprained foot.

We shall not be speaking of that last one.

ANYhow.

1. After seeing the Baryshnikov/Kirkland Nutcracker approximately 4000 times, PBS played a different version this one by the Royal Ballet, with a markedly different storyline and this dude who dances with the Sugarplum Fairy.

“Great googly moogly!” says I. “That man looks exactly like a fairy prince should look. Lo, I am swooniful.”

Off I went to the library to dig up every grainy black-and-white picture I could find of Anthony Dowell (now Sir Anthony, an it please thee). My favorite book had plot synopses of gobs of ballets, plus photos – which was about all there was in 1985.

Over the years, I got it into my head that I had confabulated ballet photos with the Royal Shakespeare Company photos from a book at home, and no one could possibly actually have a face like something out of Lyonesse.

Not much after the Nutcracker episode, my piano teacher lent me some Stravinsky records right about the same time that I caught the movie Valentino on HBO and developed a bit of crazy for Nijinsky (and Nureyev). Stravinsky will blow the lid right off a little mind what’s ready for it.

And gosh: didja follow that link up there, perhaps notice who played Nijinsky in Valentino?

Yup.

The funny thing is, I just made that connection yesterday. Over the weekend Netflix sent me Manon, one of the many ballet videos I have scattered on my list, and I was happy to discover that Lovely Otherwordly Man was not only NOT made up in my head but in fact one of the very best dancers of his time, director of the Royal Ballet for many years, and a respected and beloved teacher.

The inside of my head is its own special backwater, I guess.

And now, thanks to the magic of YouTube and the internet, I can watch grainy low-def ballet videos all day long! I can discover how weird and out of the loop I actually was! (I was a little buried in my sheet music, notebooks, and scripts.)

And Manon, for all that it’s a ballet on The Behavior Your Mother Warned You About, is just gorgeous and brutal. Check out the partnering here, from about 2:19 to 4:30: the way the men pass Manon back and forth is beautiful but stomach-turning.

Later, in the ballet, from 1:30 to 2:55, this: lovely music going on in the background and utter brutality onstage. No nudity, no overt violence, but I shuddered in revulsion.

I don’t envy dancers. Ballerinas, I think, must accept a special level of pain to perform acrobatics on their toes.

And male dancers – well. Ginger Rogers may have had a point that she did everything Fred Astaire did backwards and in heels, but a male dancer has to be capable not only of this but also of ridiculous, insane lifts: here, again, 5:48, 6:30, 6:42, 7:02.

Here is the thing that I just now learned about my friend Sir Anthony that my 14-year-old eyes would not have noticed: the woman never wobbles.

In Month in the Country, starting around 2:24, over and over he sets Makarova down on her toe with just the slightest pause before landing so that she  lands utterly softly (see also starting around 3:18). (Ooo, I surely do hate that costume. But love Turgenev.)

In Romeo and Juliet: the one-armed lift at 4:37, the held pose at 4:55, the slow set-down at 5:27, and the Thighs of Steel demonstration 5:47 – 5:56. Look closely at the section from 6:40 to 6:57. It looks like the easiest thing in the world, but watch her feet: he’s taking her weight and setting her back upright, all from below her and at an angle.

I mean, really!

With Makarova again, in Swan Lake (terrible video quality): stillness and flow, and not an un-gorgeous line in the whole piece. See 1:48, 6:14, and every one of those perpendicular, slow turns.

And my mouth hung open during 5:28 – 5:54 of Cinderella: check out that for a lift. You try to set a woman down that slowly after carrying her down some stairs  and across the room.

I haven’t even seen his breakout role, as Oberon in The Dream, yet.

So, clearly: stronger than the average Olympian. And I don’t know whether he has enormous hands, but don’t they look it? The women always,  always look secure with those arms wrapped around them. There is not one moment of inattentive or workmanlike partnering – every touch has purpose and care to it. Here is more Swan Lake: check out those 900 perpendicular pirouettes all in one spot starting around 3:30 (during the “anything you can do I can do better” section of the pas de deux – go back and watch the clip of the first part too: gorgeous). At 4:42 there’s a fabulous little throw.

Add to that the lips-parted, heavy-lidded “oh could be kissing you but no I’ll just fling you into the air instead” thing and oh my! One has a little Fan Moment.

Oh, and legs that span western Europe. Right, and enormous freaking talent.

Enjoy yourself some ballet.