Where Do Old Dancers Go?

The Artist's Way says you should have a date with yourself as a special treat once a week. It's part of self-nurturing. I have a hard time coming up with something I want to do by myself. Until today. I noticed a film called Ballets Russes opened today. But I had also planned to go to the gym. Go to the gym, movie, gym, movie, gym...

I like going to the cinema in the middle of the day. There are never line ups. You can arrive five minutes before the film starts and still get a good seat. You can fold the film into other excursions and not have to devote a whole evening to the movie. It's so civil. But I suppose you're bound to get a good seat at any screening of Ballets Russes. No one I know would care to see it for instance.

I like ballet because of the ephemeral nature of the dance. Many things in life are fleeting. But ballet captures that mood best for me, because the dance is no accident. It is an artistic rendering of the right bodies, the right movements, the right costumes, the right setting, the right music. Perfection comes together for a moment, then it's gone. It is the "moment" we chase.

So in the film, the star faded long ago for all the main characters. They are the former dancers of the Russian ballet, now in their 80's and 90's. The film consists of old footage and interviews with these dancers, who were in their prime in the 1930's and 1940's, when they were in their teens! Some of them worked with Serge Diaghilev, who brought in Balanchine, Picasso, Matisse, and Stravinsky to produce his ballets. After Diaghliev died, new artistic directors took over and brought on new dancers. This film is about a dancer's life back then and the conflicts between artistic visions. Well, maybe power struggles between egos.

Balanchine went off and started the New York City Ballet. Ballet as we know it today came from these dancers and their choreographers. Most of these dancers are still actively involved in dance today, either teaching in their own studios, as dance professor emeritus of this or that university or playing character roles with ballet companies. As one of them said, What would you have me do? Sell books? Sell fruit?

In their ripe age, they are still taking swipes at each other. They are prima donnas, all of them, men and women. Oh but the life that still dances in their eyes!