Reading and Dancing

I finished reading Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide at lunch today. It was a fine hour of uninterrupted reading. The Hungry Tide is set in the Sundarbans, an archipelago in the southeast corner of India. The story is about islands, tides, mangroves, tigers, river dolphins in jeopardy of becoming extinct (they are already extinct in China), cyclones, culture and history. At times it wasn’t a smooth read for me. I found myself skimming some of the mythological tales the author had a couple of his characters relay to the reader. I wanted to get back to the characters and their intertwining lives. Overall, however, it was a very enjoyable read and I learned a lot about the Irawaddy river dolphin. If you are a cetologist, I now know what you do (a marine scientist who studies whales, dolphins and porpoise).
I went to see the Russian Festival Ballet last night with friends. It’s the last dance event in the series. They always save the Russian dancing for last. The dancing was very, very good but I’m no ballet expert or anything. In fact, of all forms of dance, ballet is probably my least favorite. I’d much rather see modern, interpretive, jazz, etc. The dance group that performed at the Academy Awards this year is called Pilobolus. They made amazing shapes such as a van, a gun and a shoe with their bodies behind a shadow curtain. They came to Knoxville last year. They were amazing.