Many young girls dream of becoming ballerinas, but only very few are prepared to apply the all-out effort and make the sacrifices that this dream demands. The famous Vaganova Ballet Academy in St.Petersburg welcomes the most talented and determined young dancers, but it makes them no promises. RT Doc meets some of the young hopefuls storming the doors of the famous Academy to find out more about the dream they share, and to follow them on their first steps towards achieving it.
An insight into the life of the world's most famous male dancer, Rudolf Nureyev.
Four dancers from Israel, Spain and Italy decide to take part in a cultural project and investigate the stories of some refugees from Pakistan living in camps outside Berlin. A reflection about the possibility of the body to tell stories, deleting social and ethnic distinctions, and connecting people from different groups.
The film features exclusive footage of the dancers from the series "The Next Step", as they prepared for their first-ever tour in Canada. Also includes live performances and exclusive interviews with cast members.
Phnom Penh-based dancer Prumsodm Ok—a Cambodian-American and pioneer of the first Cambodian gay dance company Prumsodun Ok & NATYARASA—demonstrates the meticulous form of Khmer dance. This short draws a parallel between the nature of film as a time machine and the dancing human body as both fundamentally dynamic and temporal. Within the frame beckons a prayer for healing and empowerment in the face of violence and conflict.
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.
A documentary film that highlights two street derived dance styles, Clowning and Krumping, that came out of the low income neighborhoods of L.A.. Director David LaChapelle interviews each dance crew about how their unique dances evolved. A new and positive activity away from the drugs, guns, and gangs that ruled their neighborhood. A raw film about a growing sub-culture movements in America.
A very graceful dance with voluminous draperies, by Annabelle Moore, well-known on the metropolitan stage.
A group of ten infant girls are on a playground. They are in pairs, matched in height. They are doing an organised dance. Each pair twirls simultaneously, while all five pairs rotate in a circular sequence. They often stop their circular rotation so that each pair can perform the same manoeuvre as the other four simultaneously. (IMDb)
A variation on the popular Butterfly Dance, released in hand-colored and stenciled versions. The film has the catalogue number 2011 and was likely shot in 1897 but not screened in France until the 10th of December 1899.
A group of women dressed up as Commedia dell'Arte characters dance together.
The Rosie Kay Dance Company present a piece about the strange history and pop-cultural aftermath of CIA mind control experiments during the Cold War, with documentary segments by Adam Curtis.
Giulia Tonelli, principal dancer at the Zurich Opera House, returns from maternity leave. She has to fight to find her place and a new balance, between the competitive and extremely demanding world of an elite ballet company and her new family life.
Markku Lehmuskallio has devoted a large part of his documentary work to the indigenous people of the Arctic Circle. In this latest film, co-directed with his son Johannes Lehmuskallio, he composes a fascinating poetic ethnography inspired by the singing, dancing, forms of contemporary existence and, above all, the vital breath of these nomad communities mistreated by History.
The tendency in the world is right-wing, neo-liberal, and people are more controlled. We have less liberty even if we think we have more. The last territory where we can be ourselves and where we can have full freedom is our own body. The documentary "BARE" focuses on male nudity in the modern dance. The story follows a well-known Belgian choreographer Thierry Smits through a process of building his new creation with a group of male dancers performing bare naked.
My Really Cool Legs! follows a group of pediatric amputee athletes who challenge themselves beyond their disability. Led by their amputee mentor and coach, these kids dance and ski, ice skate and run, refusing to let their disability define who they are and what is possible.
A late period home movie with Man Ray and his lovely friend Juliet Browner lounging together in the US. Man Ray had returned to America when the Germans occupied France.