2016-01-01
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Bertolt Brecht asked whether there would be singing in the dark times. In the throes of war, the United Ukrainian Ballet Company defiantly insists there will be dancing, too. Far from the land they call home, young dancers take quiet comfort from art. For a while, their work feels like the old days, except there is a new troupe member: a soldier learning to dance with prosthetic legs.
Choreographed by Frederick Ashton in honor of William Shakespeare's 400th birthday, this magical production -- based on the Bard's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" -- features Felix Mendelssohn's famed score and sublime sets that add to the charm. Ethan Stiefel delivers an impressive performance as the lordly Oberon, Alessandra Ferri shines as fairy queen Titania, and Herman Cornejo is pitch-perfect as the impish Puck.
Ballet Boys takes you through disappointments, victories, forging of friendship, first loves, doubt, faith, growing apart from each other, finding your own way and own ambitions, all mixed with the beautiful expression of ballet.
The former principal ballerina tells her story, with historic performances from the BBC archives and candid interviews from throughout her career. Showing how she grew up in front of the camera and mastered television.
Gehtto Ballet follows the inter-linked stories of a number of students in a groundbreaking program called Dance For All. The raison d'etre of the program - founded by Philip Boyd and his late wife Phyllis Spira - is to give disadvantaged kids in the townships the opportunity to study ballet and, if they are lucky, find a way out by joining a professional ballet company.
This underwater ballet is an ecological story depicting our paradoxical relationship with plastic. Bakelite launched the #SickOfPlastic campaign from On Est Prêt, along with the Surfrider Foundation, Break Free from Plastic and the Resilient Foundation. Photography was directed by Jacques Ballard, a specialist in underwater cinematography.
The Los Angeles-based Marat Daukayev School of Ballet gathers the resources, volunteers, and cast to put on The Nutcracker.
Cinéma vérité celebrating Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, a drag ballet company founded in the wake of the Stonewall Riots.
A documentary that follows six young dancers from around the world as they prepare for the Youth America Grand Prix, one of the most prestigious ballet competitions in the world.
A behind-the-scenes look at Moscow's prestigious Bolshoi Theatre as it's rocked by an acid-attack scandal in 2013.
Three days leading up to Tiler Peck's direction and performance of a ballet exhibition in Los Angeles.
For many, modern ballet began with the Ballet Russe of Monte Carlo, originally made up of Russian exiles from the Russian Revolution. This film tells the story of this landmark company with its stars and production as well as its power games, rivalries and tribulations that marked its turbulent history.
Ballerina is a 2006 documentary film that follows the training sessions, rehearsals, and everyday lives of five Russian ballerinas at different stages in their career.
An insight into the life of the world's most famous male dancer, Rudolf Nureyev.
An unprecedented and intimate look at the life, work and enduring legacy of British actress Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993).
In early 2013, it was announced that choreographer and dancer Benjamin Millepied, known as the man behind the ballet of Black Swan, would take over as director of the Paris Opera Ballet. Reset finds Millepied on the eve of his first gala with the Opera, designing and refining his inaugural choreography for the esteemed institution. As a film, Reset possesses of the same artistic assuredness as its subject as he blocks out the preliminary steps for his choreography. It explores various concepts of space simultaneously: the digital space, the space of the opera house (each scene opens with a declaration of which studio it’s in) and the space of the stage, the distance from stage right to stage left. It’s a portrait of a watershed moment for one of the ballet's oldest institutions and one of its brightest new stars, both on the cusp of great transition.
Ballet in Cuba is a national institution, revered by all. It is also a way to climb out of poverty and achieve a better life. Yet for one young ballerina, even that isn't enough.
Seven-year-old Polina and her 13-year-old sister Nastia live and breathe ballet. Both of them are studying at the Boris Eifman Dance Academy in frigid Saint Petersburg. They’re currently awaiting their grades to find out if they’ve done well enough to be promoted to the next year, with Nastia lovingly guiding he little sister through the process. But in the meantime, Nastia also has to deal with the high demands that the academy places on its students. The gorgeously styled shots are sometimes calm, even clinical, and sometimes warm, lively and funny.
On a cold night in Milwaukee high art meets pop culture as award winning choreographer Margo Sappington (OH! CALCUTTA!, BILLBOARDS) premieres her latest ballet, "Common People", set to the music of William Shatner and Ben Folds from their album, Has Been. GONZO BALLET explores the genesis of this unique artistic collaboration by fusing the music, poetry, and dance of "Common People" with interviews of the creators, dancers, and audience members.