Disney does ballet

[rg]

i recently acquired this still from the Disney-produced (for tv?) movie BALLERINA in 1966.

if i read the internet movie database site listing correctly the film was intended for television, but perhaps not.

in any case, this still photo shows star dancer Henning Kronstam (as Henning Tanberg) with 'budding ballerina' Mette Honnigen (as Mette Soerensen), rehearsing in a Royal Theater studio.

interestingly, the signature window 'tops' seen along the floorline of this movie photo, indicating how high up in the theater the Copenhagen studio is located, are somewhat echoed in the new 'floating studios' within the new KIRSTEIN WING of the school american ballet. tho' the windows that seem to rise up along the floorline of the newly engineered studios added within the existing ones have right-angled corners and not rounded tops like these, there is a similari feel to the new SAB studios.

[Alexandra]

rg, it was released in Europe as a film and in America as part of the Disney TV series. It was shot (if memory serves) in Berlin and Helsinski. Hokey plot, but some wonderful dancing.Thanks for the photo!

[rg]

ah. not in copenhagen?

that means i'm wrong and these are not Royal Danish Ballet studios after all.

sorry to be misleading.

[Gina Ness]

Beautiful photo!

[carbro]

Yes, thanks for the photo.

I have seen a dvd of it, and with dancing like that, you don't need apologies for the thin plot. Most of the Astaire-Rogers films, e.g., are held together with less!

[bart]

Here's the IMDb page for the movie: Disneyland/ Ballerina Note that there's a comment from a dance fan begging Disney to release this on dvd.

I never heard of this film until reading Alexandra's biography of Kronstam. Among the dance sequences mentioned in the book:

[Kirsten] Simone and Kronstam dance an unnamed Spanish-flavored classiscal ballet and a very lovely White Swan pas de deux. There is a tantallizing glimpse of the reel in La Sylphide, but Kronstam isn't in it (both Flemming Ryberg and Peter Martins can be spotted in the corps.) Unfortunately, the centerpiece ballet is Coppelia, and in a generic international version rather than the Royal Danish Ballet's gloriously idiosyncratic one. Kronstam dances two solos, wearing boots. These, as well as the nameless Spanish ballet (both by Norman Thompson), show his beautiful line and attest to the level of his technique, but nothing in the film shows his acting ability.

I'd like to see this now. (I'm pretty sure I saw Kronstam dance when the RDB came here on tour in the 60s, but can't actually remember details about individual performances from that time. )

[Paul Parish]

Thanks RG -- That's got to be THE most beautiful fish dive I've ever seen.

SO can you get it from Netflix? or Ebay? or has it never been released on VHS or DVD?

[rg]

i've only known this to be on tv, most recently - well fairly recently - on a disney channed.

i've never known it to be commercially available on home video, tho' someone here mentions seeing a dvd, tho' i suppose that could be one made from an off-the-air telecast.

i've not seen this one show up on ebay.

[carbro]

someone here mentions seeing a dvd, tho' i suppose that could be one made from an off-the-air telecast.

Shared by a friend. I don't know its origin.

[Alexandra]

Honningen was really quite amazing. I was told she did not begin dancing until she was 15, yet she was a very strong technician, good in Bournonville, Petipa and Tetley. AND she had a second career as a master's tennis champion, a sport, she told me, she took up after she retired as a dancer.