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Pavlova on YouTube


bart

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In October, canabelto mentioned (on the Dying Swan link) that there is a YouTube clip of Pavlova dancing the Dying Swan.

The clip -- which I've finally gotten around to viewing :FIREdevil::FIREdevil: -- is an extraodinary historical record of an extraordinay interpretation.

There is a voice-over in Russian. Does anyone know anything about when and where this film was made?

What do you think about the performance. I was astonished how spontaneous and uncontrived it seemed -- and how evocative a a real animal passing through the involuntary spasms of dying until the final surrender.

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When I was a kid, my class toured Thomas Edison's factory in Menlo Park, NJ. We saw a bit of the clip, and the docent claimed that Edison himself filmed Pavlova to demonstrate how well his invention captured motion, perhaps thinking of practical applications.

Lucky us, for his choice of an object in motion!

I'm sure Pavlova was well aware of the publicity value of this new trick. I wonder if either the ballerina or the wizard would have an inkling how cherished their joint undertaking would be more than a century later.

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i suppose this article in BALLET REVIEW would have some answers to your question(s).

as follows:

The swan immortalized / by Maggie Odom Devine.

Ballet review. New York. v. 21, no. 2, Summer 1993, p. 67-80. ill.

Discusses Anna Pavlova and her repertory preserved on film.

Includes bibliographical references.

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What fascinates me about it is how simple the choreography is, and how important mime is to the success of the dance.

there is not ONE arabesque in it, nothing that advertises itself as technical except (a little bit) the backbends.

She's either bourreeing or she tombes -- she falls three times, always out of a cambre that reaches up and off balance and back--the first three are lunges, sort of. THe first two she arches back; the third she fals more forward, and as she recollects herself she lifts her face and shows us her tragic eyes, and reaches towards us like the starving child in an oxfam poster and your heart constricts and you almost feel you helped her get back up with your moral support (like when you clapped for Tinker Bell).

The fourth and last fall is different: she makes her arms go really rigid, and the technique of hte fall is different. She falls more sideways and onto the back knee, with just a passing action over hte front foot to soften the fall: and she bouncesit has an interesting rhythm to it, which lets her stretch out hte front leg (like Odette), but it's with a little spasm, one htat is NOT particularly elegant, or rather, it is not idealized, it IS a spasm and communicates loss of control and pain and fear She gets to the line as if by accident. It is simple, direct, powerful, and very poignant, and her last little jerks are amazingly like Petrouchka's.

I was expecting it to be more jerky -- since it's been posted by the Kirov itself, perhaps it's been remastered somehow?

It's also fascinating how the image flickers -- like when the flicks flickered. it puts me in mind of how much early movies owedto ballet -- stories told in music and movement, where the rhythm of action carried the meaning and there were (almost) no words needed.

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What fascinates me about it is how simple the choreography is, and how important mime is to the success of the dance.

there is not ONE arabesque in it, nothing that advertises itself as technical except (a little bit) the backbends.

Paul, you put into words what I was trying to grasp as I watched this. I am one who is not usually impressed by ballerinas doing this. Often I get the feeling -- no matter how high the artistry -- that that the ballerina is thinking: "Here I am. Great ballerina in classic part. Watch me in complete control of every suble gesture and movement. Weep for me, please."

Pavlova's performance hits me on the head as being completely different, even "new" -- more true to the animal kingdom, more true to the process of dying.. Not unlike the way that certain silent film artists could project simple but very deep basic emotions that were both teachnically produced (of course) but also true --pulling a deeply felt response out of the viewer's gut even when one's brain was saying, "This is just an actor."

Would love to hear more takes on this.

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This clip looks very familiar to me, even allowing for the material being so familiar. I have always heard it said that she was filmed at the United Artists studios in 1924 and I found the following reference:

http://books.google.com/books?id=eX0hSyKaP...eL8bEj0QlUYDarg

(not sure that link is going to work but it says she was filmed on the set of Douglas Fairbanks' film The Thief of Baghdad).

She's filmed with a stationary camera, and although silent, as long as it's projected at silent speed (c 18 frames/second as opposed to sound at c 24 frames/second) it wouldn't appear jerky.

The narration seems to appear on a number of instances of the same clip posted by other users. From a documentary on Russian television maybe?

Also I'm not sure that's actually the Kirov Ballet putting the clip up there. If you look at the list of subscribers there are a number of entities which seem to "represent" major companies, I've seen this and others before. I have a suspicion that someone has just decided to use the name(s). I'd be glad to be wrong, though.

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The narration seems to appear on a number of instances of the same clip posted by other users. From a documentary on Russian television maybe?
The clip posted is from the documentary "History (or Story?) of the Kirov", translated in russian [ That documentary was about an hour long and covers 200+ years of Mariinsky/Kirov history. I think it used to be available as a vhs. There are few clips in it but, like this one, precious. Ends very memorably with the Shades dancing on the coast of the river Neva ]
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a US distributor called LASERLIGHT DIGITAL put out two vhs cassettes, approx. 55 min. each:

THE STORY OF THE KIROV

THE STORY OF THE BOLSHOI

the copyright is 1997 - Delta Music Inc.

as noted above.

i haven't checked my tape recently so i don't know how much of pavlova's 'swan' footage is included, but other inclusions of this film (or were there two originally? neither if so w/the ending b/c the film length at the time didn't allow for capturing the full of THE DYING SWAN as pavlova was then dancing it) are on MAGIC OF THE KIROV (now on DVD?) and MAGIC OF THE DANCE - not commercially released, alas.

the mention of the kirov's dancing Shades from BAYADERE on a platform set up along the neva w/ the peter&paul fortress in the background? (if mem serves) comes from another vhs cassette released originally in france in french but then in the us by kultur as follows:

Nuit blanche de la danse à Leningrad [videorecording] / produced by ALAP Video, Paris, and Gosteleradio, Moscow ; director, Youri Serov. Paris, France : Telmondis, 1987.(84 min.) : sd., col.

This recording is also distributed by Kultur, W. Long Branch, New Jersey, under the title White night of dance in Leningrad.

Danced by the Kirov Ballet.

Danced by the Ballet du XXe Siècle.

Chopiniana: Waltz, Op. 18, No. 1 (ca. 6 min.) / choreography, Michel Fokine ; music, Frédéric Chopin ; danced by Elena Evteeva, Olga Likhovskaia, Elena Pankova, Kirill Melnikov, and ensemble of the Kirov Ballet.

Sacre du printemps (ca. 5 min.) / choreography, Maurice Béjart ; music, Igor Stravinsky ; danced by Eric Vu An (guest artist from the Paris Opéra Ballet), Grazia Galante, and ensemble of the Ballet du XXe Siècle.

Notre Faust: pas de deux (ca. 5 min.) / choreography, Maurice Béjart ; music, Bach ; danced by Olga Chenchikova and Yevgeni Neff of the Kirov Ballet.

La fille mal gardée: clog dance (ca. 6 min.) / choreography, Oleg Vinogradov ; music, Ferdinand Hérold ; danced by Xavier Ferla, Ramon Flowers, Michel Gascard, Giorgio Madia, and ensemble of the Ballet du XXe Siècle.

1830 (ca. 6 min.) / choreography, Maurice Béjart ; music, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Giuseppe Verdi ; danced by Farukh Ruzimatov, Makhar Vaziev, and men's ensemble of the Kirov Ballet.

Conte russe (ca. 3 min.) / choreography, Maurice Béjart ; music, Hugues Le Bars ; costumes, Gianni Versace ; danced by members of the Ballet du XXe Siècle.

Le lac des cygnes: Act II pas de deux (ca. 7 min.) / choreography, Lev Ivanov ; music, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky ; danced by Galina Mezentseva, Konstantin Zaklinski, and ensemble of the Kirov Ballet.

Potemkine (ca. 5 min.) / choreography, Oleg Vinogradov ; music, Alexandre Tchaikovsky ; danced by Elena Kamalova, Gennadi Babanin, and ensemble of the Kirov Ballet.

Suite grecque (ca. 10 min.) / choreography, Maurice Béjart ; music, Manos Hadjidakis, Mikis Theodorakis ; danced by Philippe Lizon, Michel Gascard, and ensemble of the Ballet du XXe Siècle.

Arépo: pas de deux (ca. 9 min.) / choreography, Maurice Béjart ; music, Hugues Le Bars, Charles Gounod ; danced by Lynne Charles (Ballet du XXe Siècle) and Eric Vu An (Paris Opéra Ballet).

Le corsaire: Act III adagio [Le jardin animé] (ca. 3 min.) / choreography, Marius Petipa ; music, Léo Delibes ; danced by Altynai Asylmuratova and female ensemble of the Kirov Ballet.

Héliogabale: pas de deux (ca. 4 min.) / choreography, Maurice Béjart ; music, African rhythms ; performed by Altynai Asylmuratova and Farukh Ruzimatov of the Kirov Ballet.

La bayadère: Les ombres [entrance of the shades] (ca. 5 min.) / choreography, Marius Petipa ; music, L. Minkus ; danced by the female ensemble of the Kirov Ballet.

Le soldat amoureux: Finale (ca. 4 min.) / choreography, Maurice Béjart ; danced by Michel Gascard, Vadim Gulyayev, Farukh Ruzimatov, Jorge Donn, and the ensembles of the Ballet du XXe Siècle and Kirov Ballet.

Excerpts from a special "Nuit de la danse" jointly organized by Maurice Béjart of the Ballet du XXe Siècle and Oleg Vinogradov of the Kirov Ballet, and presented by the two companies in Leningrad on June 27, 1987. The performances are given at various locations, both in the open air and indoors.

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rg, your knowledge and recollection of ballet videos is of always impressive!! In this case the Neva Shades are in both the Nuit Blanche and the History of Kirov doc.

Trying to locate a vendor for the whole vhs I ended up back at youtube. Apparently this user has also uploaded the whole doc. Search with History and Kirov to locate it. It's worth it for the beautiful old photos (unfortunately they suffer a bit on youtube) but also pertinent to this discussion since there are other short clips of Pavlova also included.

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Mme. Hermine, thank you so much for that GREAT link --

The timeline is so valuable -- It's fascinating to see that Leger's Ballet Mechanique was the same year.... and also Rene Clair's Entre-acte to Relache... Snd Wigman's hexentanz got filmed a few years later. Wow.

I know it's easy on the internet for people to claim to be someone they are not, but I think this may WELL be posted by the Kirov Ballet in fact. The Paris Opera Ballet, the Royal Ballet, are also posting their precious materials on youtube -- as is VAIMUSIC, which has videos of Tallchief and Leclercq that are just unbelievable in their quality -- and there are also fantastic clips of Alicia Alonzo up right now, also, that also seem to be not pirated but posted by the copyright owners.

It looks like -- it would be great if this were true -- the free advertising at youtube is boosting sales of the DVDs of these great old performances.

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Also I'm not sure that's actually the Kirov Ballet putting the clip up there. If you look at the list of subscribers there are a number of entities which seem to "represent" major companies, I've seen this and others before. I have a suspicion that someone has just decided to use the name(s). I'd be glad to be wrong, though.

as a further example, the entity called 'thekirovballet' posted the following remark on a video of the odalisques pas de trois when given the correct name of the third odalisque:

Thanks for the correction, I thought so as well (she's also the bridesmaid at Kitri and Basil's wedding in Don Quixote) but the credits said otherwise and I couldn't completely tell.
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