Beautiful?

A picture of a full page promotion of Body Remix/Goldberg Variations.

This week I had thoughts that I had run out of topics to rant about.
Then I saw this picture and was shocked. Genuinely shocked. Neither the news of Hezbollah in Lebanon nor the tragedy in Burma managed to upset me as much as this picture.

Why?
It seems like blatant exploitation. Turning handicapped people into subjects of art seems implausible to me. It's not that I like ballet or have time for ballet at the best of times. But this image seems to irritate me sensibilities. Maybe it's designed to do that. Do the choreographers think that I'll be tempted to attend the ballet because I'm shocked?

Do we watch this ballet and make exclamations of "beautiful!"?

Or is it the fact that my wife has been reduced to using a walking stick because of a back problem that makes this image irritating?

What next? A wheelchair ballet?

Maybe something set in a war casualty hospital?

C'mon, this is ART.