BALLETS RUSSES
Friday March 10th, 2006
5pm and 8pm
The Tower Theatre
815 E. Olive Avenue, Fresno
$10.00 general admission
$8.00 for Students and Seniors
“Graceful and fascinating!… A marvelous story….The filmmakers, who spent years gathering rare clips and artifacts, triumphantly demonstrate the almost magical power of archival documentary…. Mr. Geller and Ms. Goldfine, in putting together this impeccable memorial to a perishable art form, have also composed a moving, invigorating elegy to the civilization that sustained it.”
- A.O.Scott, The New York Times
“Dance fans will be dazzled by its treasure trove of archival dance footage. But those who know little of ballet will find plenty here to feed the soul, in the film’s rich portraits of men and women nearing the end of a life lived in the arts.”
- Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times
“An electrifying documentary by Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine that lovingly and authoritatively brings to life an era of unequaled artistic excitement.”
- Sarah Kaufman, Washington Post
“The archival footage is so breathtaking, the reminiscences so piquant, that even a stranger to dance can’t help but be swept up by this peek into such exquisite, now vanished glamour.”
- Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
Synopsis
Unearthing a treasure trove of archival footage, filmmakers Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine have fashioned a dazzlingly entrancing ode to the revolutionary twentieth-century dance troupe known as the Ballets Russes. What began as a group of Russian refugees who never danced in Russia became not one but two rival dance troupes who fought the infamous “ballet battles” that consumed London society before World War II.
Ballets Russes maps the company’s Diaghilev-era beginnings in turn-of- the-century Paris – when artists such as Nijinsky, Balanchine, Picasso, Miro, Matisse, and Stravinsky united in an unparalleled collaboration – to its halcyon days of the 1930s and ’40s, when the Ballets Russes toured America, astonishing audiences schooled in vaudeville with artistry never before seen, to its demise in the 1950s and ’60s when rising costs, rocketing egos, outside competition, and internal mismanagement ultimately brought this revered company to its knees.
Directed with consummate invention and infused with juicy anecdotal interviews from many of the company’s glamorous stars, Ballets Russes treats modern audiences to a rare glimpse of the singularly remarkable merger of Russian, American, European, and Latin American dancers, choreographers, composers, and designers that transformed the face of ballet for generations to come.
- Sundance Film Festival 2005
Directed by Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine
2005, USA
118 min.
In English; not rated