In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

Alessandro's room was similar to hers, but for a tall bookcase
stuffed with books on top of books. On a chair was a carcass of lute,
no strings, slats of wood held together with strips of white cloth tape
and the Francesco Canova da Milano scores. Above the marquetry desk
were three antique photographs of dancers, a ballerina on toe with her
arms above her head, and two of a male dancer, one of Stravinsky's
Pierrot with his head and arms at angular opposites, the other
Debussy's Faune holding an Isadora Duncan style scarf.
"Nijinsky, the greatest dancer of all time, who went mad, in the
winter of nineteen nineteen, He was the favorite of Diaghelev, you
know, of the Ballet Russes. Igor Stravinsky and Debussy wrote the
music to these ballets. The Pavlova here in the Dying Swan was his
favorite."
"Saint Saens, sure. This one's from Petrushka and that one
Debussy's Faune.”
"Brava! The Petrushka is the one with the black gloves, it is
said the white glove Petrushka is better, because his hands were so
expressive. Sad that he was never filmed. My nonna Tivoglio saw him
leap across the entire stage in Le Spectre de la Rose in Monte Carlo as a
girl. She had big dreams for us. Heh heh, my father never forgave her."
Saying that, he pulled a dog-eared book out from the shelf: Balanchine's
Stravinsky.
"Now, Balanchine did not understand Stravinsky at all. Where
is the humor, the madness? It is all black and white, abstract. Nijinsky
went mad, he knew life was a big terrifying, wonderful mess. He
understood about ecstasy, and about living as an alien being on this
earth. The real modernism of his ballets was his use of movement as
heightened gesture, distilling the essence of emotion. The true
expression of feeling, this was his philosophy. For Balanchine 'form
follows function,' it is the body as machine, and most dancers now
consider the body a machine, as athletes do.
"Ula wants go further, using holograms. Salvador Dali made a
piece of a pirouetting ballerina, a tiny hologram, like Princess Leia out
of R2D2. This got her interested, but then it was impossible. Still is, but
Ula wants to be immortal through the holograms and by then she says
it will be everywhere. Deus ex machina. So now I study the virtuality
for a piece. A corps of holograms, projected for the spectacle. Or VR."
He carefully replaced the book in the shelf.
"Yeah, so why violate your holistic position just for her?"
"For my benefit. I will use her to make commentary on the
116