Canada's Bravo network will air Strictly Bolshoi on Saturday, December 6, at 9 pm ET/6 pm PT.


www.bravo.ca

This documentary was shown on British TV over Christmas last year and is absolutely fascinating. It was made by the Ballet Boyz. I would highly recommend watching it.

Yes, the documentary is fascinating, and Anastasia Yatsenko in particular dances beautifully. But, oh my, the portrait of Nikolai Tsiskaridze that emerges is not flattering.

Most of all I was happy that a complete performances of Misericordes was included. Much as I love dance documentaries, my greatest frustration is not being able to see ballets in their entirety, so thanks to the makers for showing us the finished product.

It was a wonderful show indeed volcanohunter, thank you so much for the heads up!!

mom2

I finally managed to watch the entire thing on YouTube. I would agree that the documentary is marvelously entertaining for reasons which have nothing to do with Chris Wheeldon's finished ballet, Misericordes. All honors go to the Ballet Boyz for not producing a glorified fan video about Wheeldon.

A few more reflections:

1) The best part of the documentary is the scene where the Boyz lay into Chris Wheeldon -- in a humorous way -- for wasting so much time on an ill-advised attempt to make a ballet based on Hamlet. (He subsequently reverts back to semi-abstract territory with Misericordes.) The scene is funny but there is an undercurrent of tension there when Wheeldon rather tartly explains that he can't give the Boys any credit for his dance in the official program.

2) Nicolai Tsiskaridze borders on the ridiculous with his petulant behavior although it is kind of funny to see Chris Wheeldon become progressively more annoyed as Tsiskaridze busts out all his diva mannerisms. No surprise he has a framed portrait of Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara in his living room!

3) Alexei Ratmansky enthuses about how Misericordes shows off the dancers' personalities better than the standard Bolshoi repertory does. I had the opposite reaction -- the dance looked like the standard, one-size-fits-all Chris Wheedon production superimposed on the dancers. I didn't get any sense of the dancers' personalities or of a lingering trace of Hamlet or of anything, really. The dance showed off the awe-inspiring musculature and flexibility of the Bolshoi dancers well enough but I couldn't help thinking that it was little more than a novelty in the greater history of the Bolshoi. Wherever the way forward for the Bolshoi lies I don't think it will be found in the abstract contortionism of Chris Wheeldon.

I, too, watched it on YouTube and agree with all miliosr's comments.

I also enjoyed those late night conversations over tea (or..?), the excursion to St. Petersburg, and Wheeldon's own "talking head" (literally) interjections. In short, I'm glad it wasn't just a doc of class, rehearsal, ballet. But, like that picture of Cromwell, good to see 'warts and all' of everyone and not a "puff piece".

PS. I don't think "to sleep perchance to dream" is the most famous Hamlet quote, as Wheeldon says in the film; but rather, "To be or not to be?"