Professional Ballerina Reviews Ballet Scenes, from 'Black Swan' to 'Billy Elliot' | Vanity Fair

all right I didn't know Oh it's rock he looks so good hi I'm Julie Kent I'm a ballerina and I'm a former principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre where I was their longest-serving dancer in their 80-year history I am now the artistic director of the Washington Ballet I'm really excited to talk about dance on film today this is Black Swan directed by Darren Aronofsky and we're looking at the opening scene with Natalie Portman so that I can actually see the screen you know where my glasses the original production of Swan Lake was created in Moscow in 1877 but the original Swan liked it started with the prince in act 1 it didn't have the story about a woman being turned into a swan it's fascinating how Tchaikovsky conceived this music specifically for a story that has been changed and morphed from the 19th century into the 20th century into the 21st century I actually worked with there and in pre-production in all of his research he came and watched my performance of Swan Lake from backstage and we worked in the studios in pre-production just so he could get a talk through about all the transitions of the Odette Odile character this choreography is created so that you can have a camera circling and that you can have just a spotlight and one person on the stage in a five feet radius on a stage when you're looking at an audience at the Metropolitan Opera House of 4,000 people or even a smaller venue that wouldn't necessarily capture the attention of a huge audience but in film you know we're right there we're able to get in there and see all the detail so the choreography is perfect for how the director conceived building this store darren aronofsky along with Benjamin milk' and guided Natalie Portman to create a really convincing performance but you also have to give credit to her Dan stubble Sarah Lane who is now a principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre for the lifetime of devotion and effort and dedication that she put into her craft making this whole film at a whole other level poignancy and excellence in this next clip we're looking at mouths last dancer directed by Bruce Beresford about the life story of Lee Swanson we're looking at his performance and Don Quixote [Music] I was really blown away by this performance of Don Quixote Chi Cal the dancer playing Lee just really beautiful technique so clean so powerful elegant really really wonderful casting choice now not every dancer in super slo-mo has the refinement of how all the positions come from fit position extend out into space with all the turnout and stretch of line and then resolve back into a clean fit position so the technique of the movement in slow-mo is revealed we dancers don't love the slow-mo because you see all the imperfections that you don't see in real time we prefer the live action but it really showed what a very clean technique that Chi Cal has the girlfriend is watching on television ah there are very very few live ballet performances transmitted into television sets around the world so I I'm not so sure how realistic that is the whole story of me something is so inspiring the director focus on and cast a dancer of such caliber really speaks to not only his respect for the art form but also of the real impact that we've had on the West's being the first Chinese dancer taken the stage in the United States and growling people that impact needed to be in slo-mo you could sort of see like the way that it hit the people like that Wow slow-mo like this is something I've never seen before and I will always remember it so next up we have the game plan it's a family comedy directed by Andy fickman with choreography by Mary Ann Kellogg oh I love him he looks so good [Music] over on look it up [Music] what I really admire is the way the rock pushed those shoulders down and long gated his neck he used a pom all which is a Paul I'll cross a shoulders so when you turn them your body looks differently so stances were always turning our shoulders turning our hips turning our head so that we look different we speak differently on bosses both to the front the side a part a if I say right and you could tell that he had been coached obviously the artistic dramatic intent was clear he's an experienced actor but I loved how he used that large body in a very purposeful artistic way I loved that in this film they focus on the difficulty that even someone is powerful and strong as the rock as a football player the difficulty in the detail of the muscle control or anyiah dance it's really really hard no matter who you are and what age you enter it but the challenge of sort of mastering the moves and being motivated by the improvement that you make as a dancer is really huge they really illustrate it beautifully in this film I think it was lynn swann that famously also studied ballet as a professional football player because of the agility the coordination basically the mind-body connection how you have to use all the five very small muscles not just the big ones I welcome any football players into the ballet studio so next up is the Nutcracker in the four realms directed by lasse hallström and Joe Johnston in this scene the ballerina princess played by the beautiful misty Copeland explains the story of the four realms through dance first of all I'm a fan of anything that misty Copeland is in because she's my friend and I've known her since she was a teenager and she's just a remarkable wonderful talented woman I love to see her representing our artform in major motion pictures so yay misty love you but the production of this scene that we're looking at is clearly a film it's a movie land it's not what you would see as the curtain rises on any stage with the exception of the dancers you know the snowflakes running in or the walls of flowers scene or as I immediately recognize Sergey polenin as her partner even with all the costume and headdress and Wigand no close-up the quality of his dancing was immediately recognizable I think this film took liberties with how you use the music with the action or the drama of the choreography but it clearly wasn't designed for a ballet audience it's for a really large mass audience and so I'm excited by the fact that I can go to a movie and see Sergei pulling in and misty Copeland dancing together the next scene is from the red shoes directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger it's the final culminating 15-minute dancing choreographed by Sir Robert Helpmann that's Robert Helpmann the friend via neede my scene is the shoemaker Moira Shearer is the gorgeous redhead there she is look at her gorgeous it's very Giselle s when the heroine comes out of the house and sort of dances around beautiful so it's just so simple the movement itself the ballet technique yes it's dated you can tell it's from the 40s but the quality of the dancing is there Moira Shearer was a celebrated dancer in the Sadler's Wells which went on to become the Royal Ballet she was a very top-level professional ballerina and you can see it now it's a way if she's dancing the choreography is definitely of a different era it's not late 20th 21st century ballet technique but it's still excellent it's an iconic film the whole ballet world is so mysterious to a lot of people and of course this is not a realistic portrayal of anything but it captures the fantasy and imagination of the audience and the way the dancers I mean these are stars of their time do you need my scene more of a shear Sir Robert Helpmann it would be like having top stars in the valley world now misty Copeland Isabella Boylston and James White cider David Hallberg doing these roles and so you had this wonderful wonderful wonderful layers of talent and then the filmmaking and the cinematography and the costuming and the design iconic film is the turning point directed by kirbridge Ross and the scene we're gonna look at is when Amelia leaves the studio because she was asked to dance without emotion don't think just move as I tell you to move to the count's I give you okay I don't count but how do you know what to do when ESP I feel it with the music and I make it fit well don't feel it count it we're worried Peter oh my I love it I love it this is another epic movie for dancers we have this really beautiful option new Leslie Brown who is in real life from this family of dancers Isabelle and Kelly Brown were both dancers in American Ballet Theater their four children three out of the four of them were professional dancers and American Ballet Theatre and Isabelle was my house mom I lived with her for two or three years when I moved to New York you know so the whole sort of ballet family of this movie and Amelia being the next generation to answer for the family it sort of found it on untruth the directors wife Herbert Ross's wife Nora K was a very famous ballerina and very close friends with Isabel Braun of course there's a lot of fictionalization the base is a foundation of this movie it's fair it's truthful this Gregg Rafi is actually Alvin Ailey from the river and I think there's also a little bit of take off of the Balanchine approach of doing away with the old classics don't need this story you just need the music and the body it's a much more modern approach of that's all you need I would have to say in that time their respect for the artist was very different than it is now the respect of the creative space is definitely a 21st century thing I think we're seeing all kinds of social commentary on that with the Miche movement and all kinds of things in all areas it was a different creative environment at that time we have all evolved thankfully but what I love is that Amelia in the end does decide to just pick up her things and the exit stage left I love it in this next clip we're looking at Billy Elliot directed by Steven Daltrey and in this scene Billy is struggling to keep up I love the same so cute it's got the book okay Billy Elliot young [Music] so secretly wanting to learn the positions and ketchup and shouldn't put his body in these shapes I mean it's just it's a great great scene that whole ballet classes learning spotting spotting when you're doing consecutive turns keep your eye on one spot on the wall and you look at it as long as you can then you whip your head around and find that spot again as soon as you can't find a place on that bloody wall and focus on that spot the teachers extraordinary and by the way with cigarette and the shouting and a sort of determination and wicked enthusiasm that she has for getting it right brilliant performance spot-on so one of the things that's really fantastic about this scene though is all the little girls in full-on to change that's not how ballet class goes maybe for your recital your teacher might allow you to wear chiffon skirt but this exaggeration of the ballet uniform it's really effective I think just to show what a different world it was for Billy and how foreign and strange and how much he really had to ask himself how much he wants to do it it's so hard for everyone every student whether it was Billy or any one of those girls in that room learning the art form was so hard and you could just tell how inspired Billy was by it I love how they captured this in this film it's really well done now we're looking at center stage directed by Sir Nicholas Hytner starring my good friend Ethan steeple and myself and we're dancing these balcony scene pas de de from Sir Kenneth McMillan's Romeo and Juliet I made my debut as Juliet in 1992 my last performance on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House in 2015 so I said goodbye to my life as a performing ballerina with this role it means so much to me I doubt it gets me very it's very moving it's just such a privilege and honor to have danced that role to that music with that incredible story the clear difference when you're dancing for film is the length of the phrases live performance the minute the curtain rises you step on the stage you're starting the arc of your character there's no going back there's no going forward you're in that moment in space and time in a film first of all you never start shooting a film from beginning to end you start anywhere sometimes you start in the final seat running down the balcony was one shot Ethan's Minesh which is a series of steps moving in a circle was one shot the kiss was one shot done from many different angles and so you just would chop it up in phrases but then the magic is when they put it all together you see all the talents of the lighting people the cameraman the director the editor the sound person you see how all of their efforts come together it becomes a different art form it's film it's no longer dance it's dance on film the kiss at the end of the balcony pas de deux is part of the choreography it is so beautiful as young dancers we would flock to the downstage we need to watch our favorite Romeo and Juliet in that special moment my think Nicholas Hytner and clearly got the magic there and the cuts back to the teenagers with the tears really really lovely very well done so in this next clip we are looking at a different scene from turning-point we are actually looking at the same choreography of the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet but it's further into the pas de deux and the clips that we saw from center stage look for my husband Jerry you are seeing a performance of Romeo and Juliet as you would in the audience but you're seeing it up close as if the audience can zoom right into the space between them and so it is heightened by the storyline but the performance of those two individuals it's Romeo and Juliet and it's in the rehearsal room and it's so intimate and so beautiful and so touching and the lines I mean McMillan's choreography is just as you saw in the center stage clip it marries the story and the music and the atmosphere in the feeling just so beautifully the sign of a great choreographer one of them to me is that it absorbs the interpretation of so many artists and holds up right yes it's the choreography the ballet but also Leslie Brown earned an Oscar nomination for her performance at this film as a teenager I mean incredible performance I think the turning point shows clearly that a great film can have great dance performances and it can have great acting performance dramatic performances and you see that in Leslie Brown in Baryshnikov and Anne Bancroft and sure let me play it's a great film save the last dance choreographed by Fatima Robinson and directed by David petrarca and Thomas Carter Sarah played by Julia Stiles is auditioning for the Juilliard School [Music] so the first thing I see about the scene is Sarah is auditioning on a stage and the judges are in the audience maybe if you're lucky enough to have a theater in your school that might happen but the boyfriend in the wings is great theatrically for them film but probably wouldn't really happen that's okay it works good to have that cut cheese [Music] she is giving an audition on a stage with no pointe shoes just soft ballet shoes in a chair I think that's a dramatic film approach but I wouldn't necessarily say that you would see that in reality I saw a little you know funk or ODEs to hip-hop you know saw a little break dancing but I mean it wasn't like nice not the choreography it was a big mess from a professional point of view in any poor not just ballet I think if you asked a hip-hop dancer fun jazz any of the forms where the choreographer was inspired by they would have a similar opinion the next film is the white crow directed by Ralph Fiennes this is a really important movie about the history of one of the greatest classical ballet dancers ever Rudolph Nureyev who was larger than life like think the Beatles Mick Jagger whatever sort of superstar of any field think of that people that took it to the next level the fascinating thing is my husband Victor Barbie and I were consulted about this film in pre-production we both shared input about our lives as dancers but also Victor had a much more close friendship with Nureyev sort of took him under his wing and saw him as a young dancer with a great career ahead of him and my husband went to Russia to study at her off school amount of the school in 1969 Victor described the apartment and how you got into it and the floors that you see I know many of you have a certain age don't know about dance to us before marleah linoleum but we used to dance just on a wood floor just little strips of wood as you see here and clearly this was filmed either at the Kirov the Mariinsky theater now it's called or a Theatre in Europe because you see all the details on the floor the studio looks like the studio from the Fergana because I've had the pleasure of dancing there as a guest and again talking about the repetition the mindset you can see Rudy's about to go on stage and give his performance and it's just everything is just in his head all the practice all the repetition the darkness I love it they did just a marvelous realization of what it feels like backstage do you know what it means be really free do you this final film is White Nights directed by Taylor Hackford starring the one and only Mikhail Baryshnikov in this scene he puts his anger struggle into his movement with choreography by another legend Twyla Tharp you know why here this is a great marriage of incredible choreography but one of the great American choreographers twilight bar with one of the greatest dancers in the world we kill for showing off and so when you have talent of that level working together you're gonna come up with something that is mesmerizing and engrossing Twyla clearly understood what the scene was supposed to be shows the frustration anger the desire for more to one leave Amisha being the master that he is can pretty much make anything work he's so gifted at nuance sophistication and expression but I was also just noticing how much knee work was in here and poor Misha had suffered with a lot of knee injury and I thought oh my that must have hurt but anyway it's a great great scene and a testament to the caliber of the people that Taylor Hackford was working with and not to mention Gregory Hines like one of the greatest tap dancers gone too soon and this is the stages of Mariinsky there's the Czar's box we're looking right at it and I had the great honor of maybe being the only American woman to dance Giselle on this stage if I wasn't the only I was certainly one of the few so it's something I'm very proud of for that opportunity so specia but both shy URI what I see here beyond extraordinary performance of Baryshnikov and the choreography of Twyla far watching it decades later is the influence that it's had on so many other things so many other solos and films of dance I love when we're looking at all these incredible clips how you see they all influenced each other starting with the red shoes and then moving on with turning-point and white knights and center stage and gone and on and on and so I think there's a lot of great legacy here and it'll just be really fascinating to see how continues in the future right I'm Julie Kent and I had a great time exploring about 60 years of film and look forward to all that's ahead and having the opportunity to share it with you

Channel: Vanity Fair

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Id: BSQRv1AetxA

Length: 25min 18sec (1518 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 20 2020