ManicDDaily

I know I said I wouldn’t  (see post re not watching the Teen Choice Awards) but I did just watch a couple of clips, very brief ones, with you know who.  (I’ll give you a hint–not Voldemort.)

It’s an interesting lesson in charm.  (I couldn’t stop smiling.)

Yes, I’m sorry, it’s ridiculous.  (See, e.g. post re why my feelings for Robert Pattinson must be strictly maternal.)

Still (watch me try to turn this into an academic issue), I find the whole thing fascinating.  What is it that makes for charm?  Charisma?

In Pattinson’s case, there’s the face, of course.  And body.  And disheveled, hand-raked hair.

But a lot of the actual charm, I think, comes from  (i) his genuine (seemingly genuine) amazement, the fact that he still looks flabbergasted at all the screaming.

(ii) there’s also the seeming politeness.    He put his arm around Megan Fox in a manner that didn’t appear to be the normal gush of Hollywood overfamiliarity, but was friendly, gentlemanly, supporting her as they walked to the stage in the way that an older-fashioned man might take a woman’s arm crossing the street.  (No, it wasn’t  patronizing and yes, I’ve always been very naive.)

He pointedly thanked the fans,  Catherine Hardwick, and Stephenie Meyer.   (All with that same air of Britishy self-deprecating amazement.)

So there’s the charm.

Now the charisma.

Okay, my eyes are drawn to him for some strange reason.  (See again e.g. post re maternal feelings.)   But I don’t think this is just because of the face (or the body).

There is also such a quality as stage presence.  When they flashed the images of the “teen hotties” –what a term!   (see again e.g. post re not watching Teen Choice awards)—I was struck by the fact that the other male choices couldn’t hold my glance even when they were the only ones on the screen.

This evening I was lucky enough to catch the last few minutes of a South Indian dance performance in Battery Park City.  There were two female dancers, both excellent.  Both held their fingers in lotus-like extensions, both flexed their feet, strutting about rhythmically, both opened their eyes wide wide wide.

And yet I found myself focusing almost solely on one.

At first, I wondered if it was because she was on a more convenient side of the stage for my gaze.  (I was sitting at an angle.)  But when the dancers changed sides in the second half of the dance, my focus changed sides as well, my eye still drawn to the one dancer.

I couldn’t understand why.  Because her movements were sharper?  Maybe.  But I could never keep my eyes on the other one long enough to be sure of that.

Were her eyes more animated?  Was her presence more authoritative?

I tried to compare the two dancers, but the only difference I could be certain of was that the one I watched was shorter.

But (as I discovered when she thanked the musicians), she was also the leader of the troupe.

One of the first times I was truly conscious of stage presence was years ago when I was lucky enough to go to the ballet fairly frequently.  I saw Nureyev dance repeatedly.  Your eye (my eye) simply could not leave him when he was onstage.  Even when he was just standing quietly to the side, I watched him, unable to pay attention to the rest of the action, the troupe, even the ballerinas.   Charisma radiated from him like light from a supernova.  He wasn’t a very big person, and, of course, he was dark, his hair dark, the shadows below his cheekbones prominent.  Still, he captured all the light on the stage.

Baryshnikov also commanded the stage, only his charisma seemed to me to come from his skill, his energy, his ebullience.   He was such a great dancer when he first burst on the Western scene—he leapt so incredibly high–you felt like you had to watch him constantly simply so you wouldn’t miss anything.

But Nureyev commanded the stage even in stillness.

Okay Rob, maybe I’m getting grandiose here.  I don’t really think I can compare you to Nureyev, and the Teen Choice Awards (the little I saw) were definitely not Swan Lake.

The actual awards seemed to be full-sized surf boards.

And, frankly,  after all this, I’m beginning to forget about charisma and wonder more about my issues with biggish dark hair, high cheekbones.

Hmm….