Ballets Russes, November 2006, my living room

I knew I would enjoy this documentary discussing the rise and fall of the "Ballets Russes" dance companies, but I was unprepared to have such a personal attachment to it. I mean, what do I have in common with one (or two) of the most famous dance companies of the 1930's and 1940's? Turns out, much more than I thought.

There I was, curled up on the couch with the dog, not 5 minutes into the film, when I recognized one of the dancers and flashed back to when I was 12. My first "real" ballet teacher (i.e. non-Dolly Dinkles) was of the old school of ballet, when upper body ruled over lower body; essentially pre-Balanchine. She would occasionally take us to the studio of a woman whom I knew to have danced with the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, which at the time was pretty much only a name to me. That woman was Nathalie Krassovska, who, it turns out, was one of the most important dancers for that company and with it from begining to end. This documentary was made maybe 20 years after I last saw her, but she hadn't changed a bit.

Let me back up a little. This film chronicles the company known as Ballets Russes from when it was reborn after the death of its founder, Sergei Diaghilev, through the breakup of that company into the "Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo" and the "Original Ballet Russes" until the dissolution of both companies. It tells the story using the recollections of surviving company members and archival footage and photographs. A good deal of the commentary is provided by Krassovska (as I call her).

Krassovska's parents fled Russia for Paris when she was a small child. As both her mother and grandmother were ballerinas, it is no big surprise that she followed in their footsteps (no pun intended). Several other Russian families in Paris also took their daughters to the school of Olga Preobrajenska, a former star of the Russian Imperial Ballet. Dancers from this school made up most of the re-formed company after Diaghilev's death.

Seeing Krassovska from the perpective of adulthood (mine) rather than as a young student, I was newly able to appreciate her ebulliant love of ballet and her charming manner. In one of my favorite parts of the film, she discusses her experience with the company as it sheltered in Hollywood during World War II:

I receive a letter from David Selznick giving me 7-year contract. I just did not know what to do. Talked to my family, to my friends, but I didn't sign. I didn't like to be in Hollywood too much at that time. I have trouble with men. (laughs) I always get in love!

If you go to the film's website and look at her picture, it's easy to see why she garnered attention from Charlie Chaplin and other stars. Immediately after this clip, her fellow dancers tell the story of her ill-fated, short-lived marriage to the company's first violinist. Her veil caught fire during the ceremony, and they were divorced not six weeks afterwards, but Krassovska only giggles (as did I) as she remembers the follies of her youth.

I think I got the best of both worlds in my training, having been exposed to ballet style as a young student and rigorous ballet technique once in high school. As Nini Theilade says in the film,

The legacy of the Ballet Russes, the young ones, the young pupils, I don't know if it's the way of living nowadays or their mentality is different. For them it is more important to do 12, 14, 16 pirouettes. But there's more to it than that. It's very very difficult to make them warm. "Be warm," as I always say. "Tell me something." But what can we do, except try to make them understand. These things were taught to us, born with us, and never left us. And the young ones, where should they know it from? Now tell me, where? Where? Whom?

I studied with Krassovska at a summer program at the Legat School in Mark Cross, England. I remember doing "Four Big Swans" from Swan Lake as well as one of the Sylphides (Les or La, I can't keep it straight). So it seems the answer, to some extent, is me.