From December 2006 through March of 2007 Japanese TV ran a series called Super Ballet Lesson, with Manuel Legris coaching young dancers from the Paris Opera Ballet in various roles, which were then performed by older professionals. Unfortunately, the series hasn't been released on DVD, but bits and pieces of it have been showing up on YouTube, mostly the professional performances. Just recently however, someone has been posting the coaching sessions, which I found fascinating even without understanding much French (never mind the Japanese subtitles). In case any one else is as interested as I am in one of the truly great dancers sharing his experience with students, here are the links to what's there now. There may well be more to come.

Bluebird solo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYqdxFQSnTQ - part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBBHXqLf7O8 - part 2

Sleeping Beauty pas de deux - male solo and coda:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSMYPuVKQ5U - part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo6f7A3rhDA - part 2

La Sylphide male solo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9gwsxMEjzU

Amazing! So far I've just watched (twice) the first clip, focusing on port de bras in the Blue Bird variation. Such remarkable expressivity of arms! (Easier to do, of course, on land than in the air.) I wish the last 3 Blue Birds I saw (all within a few months) -- excellent young dancers, both -- had had such coaching.

Very much looking forward to seeing the other clips. Thank you, popularlibrary.

Thank you Popular Library I'm looking forward to seeing other clips.
Rehearsal footage is always fascinating to watch.

Super Ballet Lesson is being re-broardcasted this winter and the last lesson, In the Middle Somewhat Elevated will be onaired this Saturday afternoon.

The program was consisted of 15 programs, with dancers such as Dorothee Gilbert (R&J, Arepo), Herve Moreau (R&J, In the Middle), Mathias Heyman (La Sylphide, Blue Bird), Eleonora Abbagnato(Spring and Fall), Mathilde Froustey (Giselle), Myriam Ould-Braham(Sleeping Beauty), Josua Hoffalt(Sleeping Beauty).

Although no plans of DVD release are announced, Super Piano Lesson was released in DVD so there are some possiblity of that.

Here is the link to the official site (in Japanese but you can see some pages of the text book)
http://www.nhk-book.co.jp/piano/

Arepo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSf7FISr7To

R&J
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYEvKrbY-j4

Thank you so much, Naomikage. I'm fascinated by the availability of so much ballet (and western-classical in general) material on Japanese TV. These clips, especially, seem to be aimed at a very specialist audience. It would be interesting if you could tell us something about the network(s) that show it, the funding, the size and composition of the audience, etc.?

In the U.S. we had, decade or so ago, some private cable stations that started up by positioning themselves as "arts" channels -- Arts and Entertainment, Bravo, etc. -- which played a certain amount of ballet, opera, etc., videos. Gradually, they phased into material that emphasized pop entertainment, reality shows, and life-style shows and every bit of the classical material was dropped. Arts material has almost entirely dropped from our national chain of "public television" stations as well.

re: the identification of the dancer being coached by Legris in the role of Bluebird - one post says Mathias Heymann is the dancer being coached but i don't think the segment given at the top of this thread shows Heymann - who is dark haired i believe. - isn't Legris heard to say Fabien? more than once - and if this is correct - is this dancer the sujet Fabien Roques? (Heymann is also a sujet i think.)

I must explain the whole concept of the program. It is consited of two parts. Legris coaches young dancers, mainly quadrilles and coryphees. The dancer in Bluebird clip is Fabien Révillion, a coryphee dancer. After the coaching, more experienced dancers such as sujet and etoiles show their technique in the latter half. The program is 25 minutes each. Many young good dancers appear as students such as Laurene Levy, Axel Ibot, Eléonore Guérineau, Marc Moreau and Aubane Philbert.

And the broadcasat station is NHK, that is a major public broadcast channel like BBC in the UK. It broadcasts quite a few good ballet programs such as Ferri's farewell gala in Tokyo, Bolshoi Mariinsky Gala, Legris and Cojocaru Giselle. Super Ballet Lesson is aimed for ballet students and also ballet audience. The channel is actually Educational channel. Maybe there will be a sequel to this series because it was highly praised but no announcements yet.

In terms of ballet broadcast Japan is very good environment because NHK airs some performances about once in a couple of months and also Tetsuya Kumakawa appears on TV quite often.

Sigh. Thanks for the information Naomi. The only stations here that regularly show dance programs are PBS channel 13 from New Jersey/New York (although 'regularly' is stretching it for ch. 13) and two very small cable stations - Ovation, and the CUNY TV station in New York (that's the City University of New York), which is probably not seen anywhere else in the country. The idea that any of them would show this series is beyond fantasy. I wish there were something we could do to convince NHK to release this on DVD. Until then, YouTube is all we have.

thanks for all the info about these telecasts, which clarifies a good deal concerning these invaluable, educational segments.