Quite to everyone's surprise, Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine, the filmmakers who made the documentary film, showed up and hosted a Question-and-Answer session following the movie showing I attended in San Francisco.
I was curious what had initiated this project. Goldfine described an event put together by ballet fans in New Orleans in the late 90's (whose own ballet company had just expired), to bring together the veterans of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, some of whom hadn't seen each other in nearly forty years. A colleague named Mark Hawk alerted Geller and Goldfine that this was going to be a unique event, and that someone with their film-making talents HAD to be there to film it. Starting there, with all the revived personal contacts and refreshed memories, the project began moving forward, but there was still the time element to consider, since many of the dancers were already in their eighties and nineties.
Goldfine described a worry she had at the start of the project regarding whether the dance veterans would be able to carry the burden of the documentary. Sure, in their heyday, the dancers had been major stars, but today, they were in advanced age. Would the dancers prove to be too - uninteresting? Fortunately, this worry proved to be completely unfounded. They might be octogenarians, sure, but the dancers of the Ballet Russe were some of the most dramatic, self-possessed, fierce performers the world had ever seen, and that fire still burned.
Reading some initial reviews of the film, I had formed the erroneous impression that the narrative thrust of the film would be something like: 'plucky group of Russian expatriates in Paris get ambitious, and conquer the world'. That approach couldn't work, though, because there were so many different dancers, who joined in different places and at different times, sometimes under radically-different circumstances. Also, most of the dancers didn't join as principals or directors: instead, they were chosen at a young age. The dancers were swept up in a grand adventure: like joining the circus that arrived in town.
Editing the film proved a major headache. They had twenty, or so, major characters who could not be ignored: the voluble Frederic Franklin, the amiable Mark Platt, the strong-willed Mia Slavenska, the unapproachable Dame Alicia Markova, the alert Nini Theilade, etc., etc. It was almost impossible to weave a workable storyline for use in a film with such a large number of interesting personalities, particularly when there was also a complicated story; a story that starts with the de Basil/Blum partnership in 1931, the big split, the best of Massine's work, the war years in North and South Americas, the return of Balanchine, the temptations of Hollywood, and the agony and penury of the late 1950's and early 60's.
The approach Goldfine and Geller settled on was to place the burden of the complicated narrative onto a female narrator, who told the story almost as a fairytale. The dancers then told their individual stories within that framework. In that way, when a complicated event had to be explained, the narrator could do it, with maps and other visual aids, just as efficiently as possible.
I took my very first dance classes with Ballet Russe dancer George Zoritch in 1982. Even as a neophyte, under his good-humored tutelage, you came immediately to love dance, and to respect dance tradition. I knew that Zoritch must have some very interesting stories, as also must his fellow dancers. We must all be deeply grateful that Goldfine and Geller, and their colleagues, also saw the possibilities here.
I was very, very pleased with the film! See it, and by all means, support the theaters who take a risk on it! Goldfine and Geller said that the DVD of the documentary will be coming out around September/October 2006, and will feature much unused footage.
I was curious what had initiated this project. Goldfine described an event put together by ballet fans in New Orleans in the late 90's (whose own ballet company had just expired), to bring together the veterans of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, some of whom hadn't seen each other in nearly forty years. A colleague named Mark Hawk alerted Geller and Goldfine that this was going to be a unique event, and that someone with their film-making talents HAD to be there to film it. Starting there, with all the revived personal contacts and refreshed memories, the project began moving forward, but there was still the time element to consider, since many of the dancers were already in their eighties and nineties.
Goldfine described a worry she had at the start of the project regarding whether the dance veterans would be able to carry the burden of the documentary. Sure, in their heyday, the dancers had been major stars, but today, they were in advanced age. Would the dancers prove to be too - uninteresting? Fortunately, this worry proved to be completely unfounded. They might be octogenarians, sure, but the dancers of the Ballet Russe were some of the most dramatic, self-possessed, fierce performers the world had ever seen, and that fire still burned.
Reading some initial reviews of the film, I had formed the erroneous impression that the narrative thrust of the film would be something like: 'plucky group of Russian expatriates in Paris get ambitious, and conquer the world'. That approach couldn't work, though, because there were so many different dancers, who joined in different places and at different times, sometimes under radically-different circumstances. Also, most of the dancers didn't join as principals or directors: instead, they were chosen at a young age. The dancers were swept up in a grand adventure: like joining the circus that arrived in town.
Editing the film proved a major headache. They had twenty, or so, major characters who could not be ignored: the voluble Frederic Franklin, the amiable Mark Platt, the strong-willed Mia Slavenska, the unapproachable Dame Alicia Markova, the alert Nini Theilade, etc., etc. It was almost impossible to weave a workable storyline for use in a film with such a large number of interesting personalities, particularly when there was also a complicated story; a story that starts with the de Basil/Blum partnership in 1931, the big split, the best of Massine's work, the war years in North and South Americas, the return of Balanchine, the temptations of Hollywood, and the agony and penury of the late 1950's and early 60's.
The approach Goldfine and Geller settled on was to place the burden of the complicated narrative onto a female narrator, who told the story almost as a fairytale. The dancers then told their individual stories within that framework. In that way, when a complicated event had to be explained, the narrator could do it, with maps and other visual aids, just as efficiently as possible.
I took my very first dance classes with Ballet Russe dancer George Zoritch in 1982. Even as a neophyte, under his good-humored tutelage, you came immediately to love dance, and to respect dance tradition. I knew that Zoritch must have some very interesting stories, as also must his fellow dancers. We must all be deeply grateful that Goldfine and Geller, and their colleagues, also saw the possibilities here.
I was very, very pleased with the film! See it, and by all means, support the theaters who take a risk on it! Goldfine and Geller said that the DVD of the documentary will be coming out around September/October 2006, and will feature much unused footage.