Video

Ballet Adagio

A short film directed by Norman McLaren and produced by the National Film Board (1972)

From the direction to the dancing, Ballet Adagio is a classic Canadian masterpiece. Viewed through the expert eye of award-winning Scottish-Canadian director Norman McLaren, the dancers, Canadian-born husband and wife Anna Marie and David Holmes, appear caught in the act of a joyous and perfectly organic pas de deux. The couple were the first North Americans to be invited to dance with the famed Kirov Ballet in Russia and their expertise is palpable. Shot in slow motion to Albinoni’s enchanting music, each movement of Messerer’s demanding pas de deux is captured alongside flower-child radiance and ease. With athletic agility and exacting grace, the formidable motions of ballet are made human through Anna Marie and David’s joie de vivre.

Posted March 18, 2015

Writing With a Sharp Pencil

As a part of our series Dance Criticism: Perceptions, challenges and the future, Grace Wells-Smith speaks to four Canadian dance critics about how dance criticism fits into the current fold.

Video

Happy Seventy-fifth RWB

In celebration of Canada’s oldest ballet company, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet presents a short film reflecting on their past seventy-five years and driving them into an exciting future.

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