I’ve sat in those first rows on occasion at the ballet and it’s a fascinating experience, albeit in a very different way. The illusion is gone, replaced not only by a grunt or two, but sweat and the obvious effort of doing the nearly-impossible. Smiles are not always relaxed things but sometimes resemble grimaces.

And yet from farther away: gorgeous! It reminds me a bit of an impressionist painting. If you press your face close to the painting it looks like a mish-mash, but far enough away and it’s a glorious evocation of boats and sparkling water on a sunny summer day.

Never sit in the first few rows at a ballet performance. The grunting distracts from the music.

I can think of a few ways the lighting can be sync’d to the dancers movements – with today’s tech it would be trivial- but I don’t know how they did it. Hitting his marks in the dark is a lot more impressive.

I’ve never seen the piece, but now it’s on my list.

You are entirely correct. The videos can never really capture it. I think the same is true of video of opera, or of great performances in sport. There is a thrill from seeing or hearing something astounding direct to your senses.

If there is more than one couple dancing, neither being there nor the video can pick up everything unless there are solo cameras of each couple.

As far as teaching videos, their main drawback even if they are well done is the inability to ask a question vs. being in a studio and immediately asking the instructor a question.

I remember, at about that same time, talking to a geologist who said that he had no interest in caves, because the first cave he’d ever seen was Carlsbad Caverns. After that, caves were a disappointment.

So David Parsons became my Carlsbad Caverns. Sorry Neo, I just can’t get too fired up about Dance anymore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elTuRy7OhgQ

I used to watch a dance instructor who was giving classes on how to move like a dancer at the gym where I worked out. His classes were held in the same space as the stationary bicycles. I would ride a bike and enjoy his expertise. It was there that I realized how much there is to doing the movements so that they looked smooth and effortless. (I tried to emulate a few in my spare time and found myself hopeless.) To achieve such skill requires both a natural affinity for movement, great physical structure, and the desire to practice, practice, practice. Unless one has danced, when we see a performance, we seldom pause to think about all the many, many hours of work that have gone into it. I salute David Parsons and all his dancers for bringing that to us.