Those baby ballerinas
Here’s a piece of ballet history that isn’t all that well-known anymore—the so-called “baby ballerinas” of the 1930s.
I love these old clips. They’re blurry and short, but you get an idea of how much ballet has changed since then. Not all the changes are good, as demonstrated by the passages from “Les Sylphides,” the ballet that begins around 1:44 in this video.
I know “Les Sylphides,” having performed in it at an arts camp when I was 14. The choreography is relatively easy. It’s no technical tour de force, but it requires the utmost in style in order to recreate the delicate and gossamer atmosphere of the romantic era. This is the sort of thing that young dancers are usually especially poor at, but in this clip the three “babies” acquit themselves admirably in that respect:
I wrote another post once that featured former “baby ballerina” Toumanva in the 1950s, in the full glory of her mature sultriness, dancing with the great Gene Kelly. Enjoy:
Neo:
For accomplished dancers like that, how many hours of rehearsal, and how many takes, would they need to almost flawlessly perform a complex 6 minute dance like that? (And how many times do you think they kicked each in the head and/or the nethers until they got the timing down?)
And how seemingly effortlessly he carried her up those steps, like she weighed nothing. Dancers like that have to be superb athletes, don’t they?
My favorite with Gene Kelly was “Singin’ in the Rain.”
Re Gene Kelly, you once had a clip of him making his breakfast, any chance you still have a link to it? Thankyou if you do, or if you don’t come to that!
Gene Kelly’s effortless leap and perfect balance in landing upon that narrow post is the most astonishing feat of flawless athleticism that I have ever witnessed. Every time I see it, I’m left shaking my head in awe.
Geoffrey Britain:
I know—it’s an astounding moment.
And he does it while expressing something, too—impetuousness, yearning.
Toumanova and Kelly. Wow.
I believe I once watched a documentary on Ballet Russe that featured the baby ballerinas.
Hey Neo,
Do you happen to know if there is a generic term for the mood or atmosphere meant to be conveyed in the musical passage at 3:14, you know that kind of “Laura”-like theme (Think Charlie Parker’s version), as it is applied to visuals and mood?
We have the term “film noir” for old postwar detective movies, and there must be a term for that pre-beatnick urban “hepcat” vibe that was featured in so many late ’40s early ’50s films.
The scene you put up reminds me of a move scene with Fred Astaire in it, where he squat walks into a dive populated by jazz addicts and encounters another black haired femme fatale in a sheath dress. Now she was something.
There has got to be a simple name for that geometric, semi-abstract, jazz influenced urban downbeat postwar … idiom or motif.
DNW:
I have no idea, but it does have a feel very like film noir.