Gelsey in Giselle

[Paul Parish]

Christian, that is a glorious insight. Thank you.

I love her choices in this variation -- the things she does, and the things she does NOT do, are so consistent and so coherent/ Sje shows the impulses of a character of a rare girl, someone we have to love. All that technique and control is put to this service.

Let me reinforce the point you make about the piques, by pointing to the flurry of small steps she takes as she runs into position to launch the piques -- there is an incredible lightness and rapidity of those steps, and there are so MANY of them, all squeezed into a couple of counts of a throwaway preparatory move, and one where she runs to the left and then must reverse herself for the manege to the right....

[Mme. Hermine]

i thought it looked like 2 performances edited together, and the library does have this, from which i suppose it comes:

http://catalog.nypl.org/search~S1?/Xgelsey...=D&2%2C2%2C

[Ray]

It's wonderful to see that our praise of this amazing dancer from the past is not overstated! Still, it evokes my usual rant about the lack of availability of ballet on video. This clip posting, in fact, comes on the heels of an Alex Ross article in the New Yorker I just read, about the nearly limitless choices that music listeners have on the Internet today. We're so thankful for this tiny clip, with added piano accompaniment (like a reconstructed bit of a silent movie!), while Mahler aficionados can hear Mengelberg's 1939 recording of Mahler's 4th as if it was recorded yesterday, in better-than-CD fidelity (only, of course, one out of hundreds of recordings of that symphonic work). Sigh!

[Paul Parish]

agreed- there's kind fo a rough transition musically as the second camera-take enters, which makes your comment all the more likely...

thank you, thank you for tracking down the call number

Yet another reason to come to New York

i thought it looked like 2 performances edited together, and the library does have this, from which i suppose it comes:

http://catalog.nypl.org/search~S1?/Xgelsey...=D&2%2C2%2C

[nysusan]

Thank you so much for directing us to this film clip, it brings back such wonderful memories of Gelsey's Giselle. I've always thought her first act was an extraordinary combination of technique and total believability and what I remember best is this variation, especially those arabesques into penchee. I remember having the impression that she went into the penchee while still on point and only went down onto a flat foot once she was already in full penchee position (at which point she gazed adoringly over her shoulder at Loys/Baryshnikov). Since every other Giselle I've seen in the last 30 years comes down to a flat foot before starting the penchee I figured it must have been a trick of memory. This clip confirms that she did start the penchee on point, even if she rolled down through the foot before quite completeing it. Her dancing was sublime, the light, effortless movement, amazing musicality and phrasing. And total believability. I know it's said that Gelsey analyzed and rehearsed everything to death but to me her dancing/acting always looked completely spontaneous. I'm sure I will watch this clip over and over and may try to find time to get to the Lincoln Center library and try to see the whole thing.

Thanks to everyone involved in making the clip public, but especially to Gelsey.

[OKOK]

Thank you. This was really wonderful to see.

[vipa]

and to Mark Goldweber, who secured permission from Kirkland and Chernov to post the film! Gladys Celeste is the pianist.

Lovely clip, and Gladys was a treasure, bless her soul.

[Rosa]

*sigh* How lovely Gelsey is in that clip! (If only there was more...)

[ivypink]

I find it hard to believe that the very first time I ever attended a live ballet performance was at the Music Center in Los Angeles, and it was Giselle with Kirkland and Baryshnikov! How lucky I was. At that time, I did not know it, however. I was only thinking that I should be home studying for a math final. However, one detail I do remember from Act I, when Giselle is plucking the petals out of the flower for the "he loves me, he loves me not" scene, Gelsey hopped up and stood on the little bench outside the cottage, stage left. I've never seen another ballerina do that since.

[Dale]

Thanks go out to Mark and Gelsey Kirkland. Special thanks go to Gladys Celeste. I've sat at the NYPL and watched many of these silent films. As amazing as they are to see, having the piano accompaniment makes it especially pleasurable and watchable.

[Petra]

Exquisite!!!

[leibling]

Wow.

[nijinsky1979]

It's like a dream.