The other day I was taking a walk, listening on my iPod to some ballet music, and I suddenly wondered—for no particular reason—whether the Eliot Feld ballet “Intermezzo” might have made its way to YouTube.

During the 70s I had seen the ballet many many times, with the original cast. Certain passages from it are among the most beautiful choreography I’ve ever experienced, casting an overwhelmingly romantic spell. The Brahms music was no small part of it, but it was the choreography in particular that created the emotional effect of a bygone era of grace and lush romance. Three couples dance in a series of vignettes, sometimes together and sometimes just spotlighting one of them. Their movements are marked by dramatic and inventive lifts that are never circus-y despite their breathtaking daring, still managing to express the mood of an old-fashioned ballroom where couples court and smoldering feelings are kept in check by decorum.

I didn’t really think the ballet would be on YouTube—but when I checked, lo and behold, there it was, the whole thing (including a few parts that are comic, although they are overshadowed by the serious sections). The picture is blurry and small, and the dancers are not the original dancers (this version was recorded in 1985).

But there it was, after all these years without it. And even though it’s somewhat like watching a gossamer, translucent, slightly diminished ghost of the past, it’s still a beautiful ghost that stirs up beautiful memories, all the more precious because I didn’t think I would ever see it again in any form.

I will reproduce the full-length ballet here (in two parts) at the end of this post. But first please indulge me, and let me talk a bit more about my memories. Central to those memories is the extraordinary Christine Sarry from the original cast. Sarry didn’t look like any other dancer I’d ever seen, before or since. She was so small as to be almost midget-like, with a childish body and legs that were also short for a dancer. And she even had short hair, which is highly unusual for a ballet dancer even today and most assuredly was back in those days.

But oh, what amazing attack she had, what speed and calm, what a way of timing her movements and giving them just the right emphasis, breath, and shape without ever being schmaltzy or overdone. Words cannot describe her—well, they don’t have to describe her, because I found a very small clip of her in a portion of a rehearsal, and then a tiny bit of a performance in the ballet. She is not in costume—no puffy romantic skirts to give the requisite light and cloudlike feel—but instead is garbed in leotards in a private rendition for potential backers in 1969, when the ballet was newly choreographed and hot off the press.

It’s easy to spot Sarry—she’s the tiny one with the short hair. She’s not dancing full-out, so this is not as lovely as a real performance by her. It’s just a tiny and diminished taste of what her dancing was like. And it doesn’t feature any of the speed for which she was known, and which was fully showcased in other sections of “Intermezzo.” But I still think it conveys some of the special quality of her movement, which Feld exploited by inserting many quick changes of direction where the dancer’s impetus leads one way and then suddenly (and gracefully rather than jarringly) reverses and goes the other way. I’ve cued it up to show a brief part of the rehearsal, and then there’s a small part of the performance:

Today, Sarry is still affiliated with Feld, although she once called him, “The most difficult person I’ve ever worked with.” She teaches at Feld’s school in New York, and I’ve cued up just of few moments of her talking:

Time. It passes, doesn’t it?

And here is the full-length ballet, in costume, with the 1985 cast. The fast parts were Sarry’s, and as I watch this I can see her in my mind’s eye—with her lightening speed, special emphasis, and exquisite phrasing. But these dancers are pretty darn good, so enjoy: