Darcey Bussell: My Life on the BBC
2016 · 60m · Documentary
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.
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Analógie
1965 · ★ 10
Poetic documentary about works of several artists from ideas to “births” of works of art.
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Rudolf Nureyev. Island of His Dreams
2016
The film tells the story of the regular visits that the legendary Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev made to Turkey between 1980 and 1990.
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Front Row
2024 · ★ 6.5
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.
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Carmencita
1894 · ★ 5.2
The first woman to appear in front of an Edison motion picture camera and possibly the first woman to appear in a motion picture within the United States. In the film, Carmencita is recorded going through a routine she had been performing at Koster & Bial's in New York since February 1890.
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A Belated Premiere
2004
A prominent Russian ballet dancer and teacher Alexander Shiryaev had another talent hidden for almost a century. Archive materials that date back to 1906 reveal his bold experiments at stop-motion and paper animation.
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Cuban Dancer
2020 · ★ 8
Alexis, a talented and proud student of the National Ballet School of Cuba, spends his life practicing chassé and entrechats with his girlfriend and dance partner Yelenia. However, when his family moves to Florida to be reunited with his sister, he must adjust his expectations and dreams to a radically new environment. Alexis, facing rejection and homesick for his native Cuba, feels lost and alone. He must find his way in the world of American ballet while remaining faithful to his roots.
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Rhythm is it!
2004 · ★ 7.1
RHYTHM IS IT! records the first big educational project of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle. The orchestra ventured out of the ivory tower of high culture into boroughs of low life for the sake of 250 youngsters. They had been strangers to classical music, but after arduous but thrilling preparation they danced to Stravinsky's 'Le Sacre du Printemps' ('The Rite of Spring'). Recorded with a breathtaking fidelity of sound, this film from Thomas Grube and Enrique Sánchez Lansch documents the stages of the Sacre project and offers deep insights into the rehearsals of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
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Jakub Józef Orliński - Music for a While
2022 · ★ 7.5
Jakub Józef Orliński is an opera singer, break-dancer and model with a lot of fans. Between New York, Warsaw and Barcelona, the countertenor reveals three facets of his life as a musician.
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Rebels on Pointe
2017 · ★ 6.5
Cinéma vérité celebrating Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, a drag ballet company founded in the wake of the Stonewall Riots.
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Dancing Beethoven
2017 · ★ 8.9
A journey through the preparation and hardworking process of ballet dancers and musicians for a unique spectacle in Tokio that Béjart choreographed with the Ninth symphony of Beethoven. Béjart ballet dances with Tokio ballet and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Israel. A marvellous combination of dancers movements and expression of different feelings along the four movements of the symphony with absolute elegance and strength.
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Method of Classical Dance
1946
"In order to preserve all our achievements for posterity it is necessary to resort to the aid of the motion picture, which will be a great contribution to the immortalization of our art. The years are passing by, and we hope that our achievements, registered on film, will aid future generations to learn and perfect themselves. In the not too distant future our first experience in this field will be shown to a wide public: pictures of the methodology of classical ballet at the Moscow and Leningrad Ballet Schools. This film will be a scientific aid in outlying districts as well." - Agrippina Vaganova
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