Beautiful Ballet Films

I just spent the evening being reminded what beautiful ballet films Norman McLaren and others created for Canada's National Film Board. It's definitely worth posting them for a new generation who didn't see them the first time round. The evening was ably hosted by James Neufeld, whose updated history of the National Ballet of Canada, Passion to Dance, is available through amazon. Click here to order:

If you love ballet, please check out my season of outstanding ballet trips by clicking here.

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In "Ballet Adagio", McLaren takes the choreography of Asaf Messerer's Spring Waters and films it performed by Canadian dancers Anna Marie Holmes and her husband David Holmes, to spectacular effect in slow motion, set to Albinoni's Adagio.



a striking contrast with the original (possibly the world's shortest pas de deux!):



McLaren is perhaps most famous for this stunning film, "Pas de Deux", choreographed by Grands Ballets Canadiens founder Ludmilla Chiriaeff (dancers Margaret Mercier and Vincent Warren)