I’ve always loved the interplay of dance and the camera in a good dance documentary. Dance documentaries are great because they take you behind the scenes and help to expand the viewer’s experience of dance. Dancers are usually seen on stage or in photographs, and the dance documentary gives them an opportunity to speak, or to express themselves separate from a choreographed sequence on a stage.
I watch most of the dance documentaries that I see on Kanopy, a streaming online platform available through my local library. Our library gives each card holder the opportunity to watch ten films per month, from emerging cinema to the classic Criterion Collection and, yes, plenty of documentaries and films in the dance category. I’ve assembled five I think any dance aficionado will watch and watch again. As a filmmaker, I look to these films as a foundation for documenting the culture and tradition of dance. Check these out and let me know what you think:
Ballet – A Profile of the American Ballet Theatre
This film from 1995 directed by Frederic Wiseman is an objective representation of the behind-the-scenes day to day process of New York based American Ballet Theatre. You’ll see dancers warming up, breaking in point shoes, taking direction from choreographers including Ulyses Dove and Agnes de Mille. De Mille is interviewed near the end of her career, setting work from her wheel chair and helping dancers get the essence of a piece. She is legend in the company, having started in 1939 and created new work through 1992. Her work Rodeo to a score by Aaron Copeland is recognized as one of the ballets that helped distinguish American ballet from its French, British and Russian origins.
The film is objective, without narration and only a few direct interviews. The camera and audience simply are present and bear witness to the process of making dances. And the dances themselves are incredible. We as viewers don’t need fancy cuts to move a fictional story along. We have the sense that we are there, seeing a process as dances emerge from the minds and bodies of their collective creators.
An iconic moment in the documentary is a scene with Jane Herman on the phone with a theater in the US calling about putting on a month long residency with the company and a live orchestra. The scene has become a repeated theme in dance documentary – the hard edged business manager negotiating behind the scenes to keep the company financially sound so the dancers can focus on their art. Other important scenes show casting directors meeting with young prospective company members about their careers and where they might find themselves within the dance world.
Never Stand Still: Dancing at Jacobs Pillow
Jacob’s Pillow is a small, rural performance space in Becket, Massachusetts. Founded by Modern Dance founder Ted Shawn after the end of his relationship with fellow modern dance pioneer Ruth St. Denis, Jacob’s Pillow has become a mecca for emerging companies to showcase their work and to potentially launch into national and international recognition.
The documentary, with voiceover by Bill T. Jones and featuring some of the artists that became recognized through their work at Jacob’s Pillow – Mark Morris, the legends Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Suzanne Farrell, Judith Jamison and Bill Irwin – take us through the history and meaning of Jacob’s Pillow.
The site maintains a school for dancers, and part of the dance documentary focuses on new work set on the resident students. We hear their excitement to see what kind of piece will be set on them, and observe the process where a new work comes together quickly for premiere in much less time than a choreographer would usually use to create a new work. The heightened focus and energy around choreographing and performing such a work is at the heart of the spirit of Jacob’s Pillow.
Getting to the Nutcracker
This 2014 film follows the Marat Daukayev School of Ballet in Los Angeles California. The Russian ballet star has moved to the US and started a successful school in the Russian tradition. Students vie for positions and hope for leading roles while dads take time off work to perform simple steps with their daughters during one part of the performance. We get to see the hopes, dreams, fears and all-encompassing focus that young dancers place on their careers to develop their skill and advance in the art and profession of ballet.
La Danse
Reprising his role as dance documentary filmmaker, Frederick Wiesman turns his camera on Paris Opera Ballet, the oldest and possibly the grandest ballet company and school in the world. We get to see similar scenes as in Ballet – A Profile of the American Ballet Theatre, but the experience is particularly French. In one scene there is a lengthy discussion of whether a performer’s heels should touch the floor as she transitions between a partnered lift to the starting position of her next phrase. One director likes the heels to touch, another does not. They discuss whether heels touching the floor is a degradation of the (French) tradition. For ballet nerds this is something to discuss.
The building itself is beautiful. The rehearsal studios with grand windows and many different shapes and sizes carry history, and the dances the company works on in this documentary range from classical ballet to modern ballet.
Of course, we get some behind the scenes business as well. The Paris Opera Ballet is governed by an historical contract that secures dancers financial future in retirement. Modern government wants to unify all government workers under one union contract, and negotiators are fighting to protect what they can for the dancers.
Watch this film to see an historical company at a pivotal moment in time when the role of dance and ballet – classical or modern, unionized and hierarchical or freewheeling with no promises to dancers or choreographers alike, is in the balance.
Reset
This film follows choreographer Benjamin Millepied, popularly known for his choreography in the film Black Swan, as he works his way around the French bureaucracy while creating a new work on a group of chorps de ballet dancers.
Millepied is under pressure to finish the work and must choreograph one minute of very complex dance per day, then work with set and lighting to be ready for the premiere. Millepied is stymied by an historical summer break that means set pieces must be outsourced. An electrical union strike may mean the premiere doesn’t happen. He also struggles with the “rules” of the company – soloists and chorps, when his work is more about interchanging roles and having a company of dancers work together. He is also the first director to cast a black French woman in a leading role. He wants to see the company become diverse and inclusive, something the rules and hierarchy functionally resist.
The dancing in the film is beautiful. Millepied resigned from his directorship and returned to Los Angeles to return to directing his US founded company within the following year. This film serves to demonstrate what modern ballet is capable of and it also highlights many of the pressures dance is under as a representation of culture, art and expression.
I hope you enjoy watching these and other dance documentaries. I’m in the process of producing a dance documentary in Iowa throughout the year 2020. Learn more about the project and donate to support dance documentary in Iowa!
