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If you take the Breaking Pointe eps and just cut out all the nonsense stuff (relationships, drama, faux conflict/competition, almost everything about Ronnie) and just leave the ballet-centric stuff, you get about 13 min for ep1 and 10 for ep 2.

Ep1 :

Ep2 :

These are very quick, rough-cuts and so some of the edits are rather abrupt.

Still, taking out all the nonsense and also taking out some of the distracting intercuts with the rehearsal variations, leaves a nugget that is quite interesting...

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Thanks for this -- I didn't get to watch the show last year, for lots of reasons, and this is a lovely catch-up.

I imagine this was hashed out in detail in the BP thread last year, but I was interested in seeing how Sklute presents himself in the studio. I don't know if it was a choice for the television program, or if this is his standard style, but the business suit created a very clear power dynamic. We've been talking a bit about male gaze in the 19th c ballets, but here's an example of it in 2012.

In the second video, I was very interested to see how the change in score (from the original Mozart to the made-to-order stuff) for Petit Mort shifted the way the dynamics of the movement read.

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I think it is fair to say that Breaking Pointe is not about ballet, but happens to use a ballet company as its context to allow us to see young people dealing with life's various ups and downs. So it's going to be found wanting by balletomanes. The ballet audience isn't likely to hear anything new - except of course young children who are only beginning to be exposed to ballet.

The talk about contracts at Ballet West WAS interesting to me, and I have to think that different companies have different policies regarding contracts. I'd like to hear more about that from people with experiences at say, NYCB, Mariinsky, POB, SFB and PNB just to get an idea of the range of possibilities.

TV is first and foremost about commercials (which is why the amount of actual "story" continues to shrink year after year). If the TV exces could get us to watch solely commercials, say ballet-themed commercials, they would absolutely just do that. Certainly the major network bosses think that way. And most of the real "cinematic" creativity happens in commercials actually, not within TV programs. There are of course small exceptions to the rule - usually happening off in a corner, on some lesser-known cable channel. But generally, not a lot of creativity, or truth, to be had in TV Land.

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Sklute had a board meeting before or after one of those full-suit appearances.

Oh, I had a feeling there was an explanation for that, but the fact that they used that footage, instead of other images, felt very deliberate to me.

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I'm guessing the shooting time is pretty tight, and that's what he was wearing that day. I was hoping that he really did dress like that all the time, because he looks so good in a suit.

It helped the narrative in the beginning, because no one was going to confuse him with anyone else.

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Here's are the eps from the first season with much of the nonsense cut out. They went from about 40+ min to about 10-13 min. Ep5 was the exception; it was the Performance episodes and that had 22 min of nice content.

* [Ep 1 - Contracts] :

* [Ep 2 - Petite Mort Rehearse] :

* [Ep 3 - Paquita Rehearsal] :

* [Ep 4 - Tempo] :

* [Ep 5 part 1 - Opening Night Performance] :

* [Ep 5 part 2 - B-Cast Performance] :

* [Ep 6 - End of Season] :

I tried to cut out as much of the nonsense as possible and leave as much of the dancing. As a result, there are some bad audio cuts since I didn't want to cut out the accompanying dancing video; I might clean that up if I have some motivation.

As it is, i think a lot more of the actual beauty of the footage they got shows thru and you can actually see some of the sincere moments without being bashed in the face with it.

It makes me a little angry with the producers, though. You can just imagine what wonderful footage they just threw out.

Anyway, hope you enjoy.

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