David Robinson-Slemp, Storyteller

DAVID ROBINSON-SLEMP, Associate Director of Development, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center

In 2009, I attended The Royal Ballet’s production of A Month in the Country by Sir Frederick Ashton. This was the first ballet that I had attended since childhood and one of the few I had ever attended willingly. The performance took place at the Kennedy Center only a day after a horrible Metro crash in D.C. that killed nine people and the company dedicated the performance to those who had died.

The dancers performed with incredible grace and finesse, as well as with “superhero-like” agility. I would later describe their synchronicity as almost transcending human ability.

A Month in the Country was performed as part of a mixed repertoire with two other selections of modern choreography, but Ashton’s piece stood out. I sat among total strangers, including one British family with whom I shared a box. I was totally transfixed. The dancers performed with incredible grace and finesse, as well as with “superhero-like” agility. I would later describe their synchronicity as almost transcending human ability.

After the performance — and the emotional overtures by several audience members, including myself — I thought that perhaps once, along the path from boyhood to adulthood, I could have learned how to pirouette, and then possibly how to fly…