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January 28 - February 1, 2011
Dance on Camera Festival 2011 returns to the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater for another adventurous exploration of dance and film and the ways in which the two mediums engage. Come experience films about Armenian tightrope dancers, Swiss rhythmic footwork, a Paris Opera Ballet dancer, flamenco, and break dancing—and that’s just a sampling. So, put on your dancing shoes!
Co-presented by Dance Films Association and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Made possible with the support of the New York Department of Cultural Affairs, National Endowment for the Arts, Presentation Funds program of the Experimental Television Center, and members of DFA.
See three programs in Dance On Camera for only $27! ($21 Students & Seniors / $18 Film Society & DFA Members) Certain restrictions apply. Buy online now >>
Calendar >>
Admission $12 General Public $9 Students $8 Seniors $7 Members
Weekday Matinee Admission* $9 General Public $7 Students $6 Seniors $5 Members
Tickets and passes are also on sale at the Walter Reade Theater's box office. Certain restrictions apply.
VISITOR INFO >>
Claude Bessy, Lignes d’Une Vie (Traces of a Life)
Fabrice Herrault, 2010, USA; 50m OPENING NIGHT
Described as the “Golden Silhouette” by Serge Lifar, French ballerina Claude Bessy was an admired etoile of the Paris Opera Ballet and ran its prestigious school for decades. Q&A with Claude Bessy and Fabrice Herrault! screening with Les Reflets de la danse (Reflections of the Dance) Nicolas Ribowski, 1979, France; 33m excerpt Claude Bessy’s students, including Sylvie Guillem. Read more...
Buy Tickets
Fri Jan 28: 6:00*
Sat Jan 29: 4:00
Bödälä: Dance the Rhythm
Gitta Gsell, 2010, Switzerland; 78m
In this witty journey through tap dance, flamenco and Irish dance, Swiss dancers reinvent traditional forms in interiors and exteriors of exceptional beauty. Introduced by the director. screening with Unsung Morleigh Steinberg, 2008, Ireland; 6m A Sean Nos song brings magic to an ordinary pub night. Read more...
Buy Tickets
Mon Jan 31: 6:00 Tue Feb 1: 4:00
All the Ladies Say
Rokafella & Kwikstep, 2010, USA; 45m
A showcase of female break-dancers Vendetta, Severe, Lady Champ, Aiko Shirakawa, Baby Love, and Rokafella, illuminating the triumphs and challenges of hip-hop culture. Q&A with the directors! screening with Box Ivan Rubio, 2010, Canada; 5m Two women resist/concede control in an arena of action. also screening with Ebony Goddess: Queen of Ilê Aiyê Carolina Moraes-Liu, 2009, Bahia; 24m Three women compete to be the carnival queen of Ilê Aiyê. Read more...
Buy Tickets
Sun Jan 31: 6:00 Mon Jan 31: 4:00
Dancing Chaplin
Masayuki Suo, 2011, Japan; 131m
Kusakari Suo co-stars with internationally renowned dancer Luigi Bonino in an adaptation of Roland Petit’s ballet “Chaplin Dances,” in a portrait of the challenges of collaboration. Read more...
Buy Tickets
Fri Jan 28: 8:00 Sat Jan 29: 1:00
Dancing Dreams /Tanz Traume
Anne Linsel, 2009, Germany; 89m
A chronicle of one of Pina Bausch’s final projects, “Kontakthof,” in which Bausch worked with 40 teenagers who had never heard her name. A First Run Features release. Followed by Q&A with the director. Read more...
Buy Tickets
Sun Jan 30: 8:00 Tue Feb 1: 8:00*
Flamenco Flamenco
Carlos Saura, 2010, Spain; 100m
Spain’s foremost dance portraitist presents flamenco masters Paco de Lucía, Manolo Sanlúcar, Tomatito and José Mercé, and more. Cinematography by the great Vittorio Storaro. Read more...
Buy Tickets
Sat Jan 29: 8:15 Sun Jan 30:3:30
A New Dance for America
Ina Hahn, 2009, USA; 79m
A long-overdue portrait of Doris Humphrey, the seminal modern dance pioneer who created distinctly “American” dances. With vintage footage. Q&A with the filmmaker! screening with On the Sound Fred Baker, 1963, USA; 9m Three celebrated Martha Graham dancers take dance into the woods and onto the beach, to the jazzy Gryce suite titled “The Rat Race.” Introduced by director. Read more...
Buy Tickets
Fri Jan 28: 1:30 Tue Feb 1: 6:00
Passion: Last Stop Kinshasa
Joerg Jeshel & Brigitte Kramer, 2010; Germany, 90m
The famed Belgian dance company “Les ballets C de la B” bring their dance opera Pitié! to the Congo, in this dazzling cross-cultural encounter. Read more...
Buy Tickets
Mon Jan 31: 8:00 Tue Feb 1: 1:30
Shall We Dance?
Masayuki Suo, 1997, Japan; 119m
A Japanese accountant finds the missing passion in his life through ballroom dance with a beautiful instructor played by Kusakari Suo (the director’s wife). Read more...
Buy Tickets
Fri Jan 28: 3:30 Mon Jan 31: 1:30
The Last Tightrope Dancer in Armenia
Inna Sahakyan & Arman Yeritsyan, 2009, Armenia; 52m
Two septuagenarian dancers share the same dream: that their only remaining student will keep their daring heritage alive. An elegy to a vanishing art form. screening with There Is a Place Katrina McPherson & Simon Fildes, 2010, UK; 7m A look at stunning soloist Sang Jijia, student of William Forsythe and Resident Artist of Beijing Dance / LDTX and Guangdong Modern Dance Company in 2007. and Portrait of an Acrobat Daniel Belton, 2010, New Zealand; 7m A witty play on graphics that mesmerizes as it develops textures within space. and Hoop Marites Carino, 2010, Canada; 4m A vanishing floor revamps our perspective on the beloved hula hoop. Introduced by the director. and Bow Rannvá Káradóttir, 2010, USA; 4m Five artists from the UK, Belgium, Fare Island/Denmark, China, and USA/Malaysia collaborate during the Asia Europe Dance Forum. Introduced by the director. and Ase Nicola Brooks, 2010, Canada; 6m A celebration of the lives of African slaves in the Caribbean who managed to preserve their religious worship rituals. Introduced by the director.
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Damian Woetzel Farewell. Performance. June 19. THEN AND THERE. Thou Swell. Prodigal Son. Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet. June 20. MUSICAL MUSES. Mozartiana ...
The year brought a moment of great sadness as well, as we bid farewell to Co-Founding Choreographer. Jerome Robbins. That Jerry chose to make New York City ...
NIKOLAJ HÜBBE FAREWELL. Apollo. Zakouski. “Cool” from West Side Story Suite. Western Symphony. February 17. MATTERS OF THE HEART. Raymonda Variations ...
George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein formed New York City. Ballet with the goal of producing and performing a new ballet. repertory that would re-imagine ...
For her farewell, the Company paid tribute to Ms. Quinn on June 2 ... Music Director Andrea Quinn takes a farewell bow onstage at the New York State Theater ...
Four ballets from the 2000 Diamond Project were also reprised: Peter Martins’ Harmonielehre and. Slonimsky’s Earbox, Helgi Tomasson’s Prism, and Christopher ...
ballets under the banner of the fourth Diamond Project, which included new works by Christopher. d’Amboise, Robert La Fosse/Robert Garland, Kevin O’Day, ...
only for the Diamond Project, but also for the New York Choreographic Institute, ... presented as part of the tenth anniversary of the Diamond Project. ...
of The Diamond Project, which she helped to establish in 1992. Her ... New York Choreographic Institute and The Diamond Project ensures that her memory will ...
The 2006 Diamond Project productions were made possible in part by lead gifts from The Irene ... of Mr. Feld’s Diamond Project ballet Étoile Polaire. ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletJune 21, 2002, The Diamond Project V, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ... been incorporated into the repertory of ensembles all over the world. ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 17, 1997, The Diamond Project III, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Mozart Piano Concerto, created for the Spring 1994 The Diamond Project, is a cascade of neoclassical dance for six ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 21, 1994, The Diamond Project II, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHis enormous repertory included leading roles in many full-length ballets ... The Diamond Project I), and Danses de Cour (1994, The Diamond Project II). ...
Repertory Index - New York City Ballet1992, The Diamond Project, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ... New York City Ballet in 1980 and appeared in much of the Company's repertory. ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. June 13, 2002, The Diamond Project V, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletMay 18, 1994, The Diamond Project II, New York City Ballet, New York State ... by the late Erik Bruhn for the repertory of The National Ballet of Canada. ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index. Étoile Polaire ... Premiere. April 29, 2006, 2006 Diamond Project, New York State Theater. Original Cast ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 29, 1992, 1992 Diamond Project, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. June 17, 2000, The Diamond Project IV, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index. Slice to Sharp ... Premiere. June 16, 2006, 2006 Diamond Project, New York State Theater. Original Cast ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... City Ballet’s The Diamond Project: Ten Years of New Choreography" on PBS, dancing in Jeu de Cartes, La Stravaganza, ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index. Russian Seasons ... Premiere. June 8, 2006, 2006 Diamond Project, New York State Theater. Original Cast ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index. The Red Violin ... Premiere. May 10, 2006, 2006 Diamond Project, New York State Theater. Original Cast ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 30, 1992, The Diamond Project I, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 18, 1994, The Diamond Project II, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 31, 1994, The Diamond Project II, New York City Ballet, New York City Ballet ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 22, 1997, The Diamond Project III, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 19, 1994, The Diamond Project II, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 22, 2002, The Diamond Project V, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. June 20, 2000, 2000 Diamond Project, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 28, 1992, The Diamond Project I, New York City Ballet, , New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. April 28, 2000, The Diamond Project IV, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. June 1, 2000, The Diamond Project IV, New York City Ballet, , New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 8, 2002, The Diamond Project V, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 30, 1997, The Diamond Project III, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 3, 2000, The Diamond Project IV, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 8, 2002, 2002 Diamond Project, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 30, 1992, The Diamond Project I, New York City Ballet, , New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index. In Vento. Photo © Paul Kolnik ... Premiere. May 4, 2006, 2006 Diamond Project, New York State Theater. Original Cast ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 16, 2002, The Diamond Project V, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index. Two Birds with the Wings of ... Premiere. May 25, 2006, 2006 Diamond Project, New York State Theater. Original Cast ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. June 17, 1997, The Diamond Project III, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index. Evenfall. Photo © Paul Kolnik ... Premiere. May 10, 2006, 2006 Diamond Project, New York State Theater. Original Cast ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 26, 1994, The Diamond Project II, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. June 4, 1997, The Diamond Project III, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index. Ugha Bugha. Music ... Premiere. April 29, 2006, 2006 Diamond Project, New York State Theater. Original Cast ...
Admired ballerina with a mission to bring great dancing to the small screen
A respected dancer during the 1940s and early 50s, Margaret Dale, who has died aged 87, quit the stage at the height of her powers and took on a more significant role as the first television director who knew the world of ballet from the inside. Dale realised the potential of the new medium to capture dance. She developed a complex technique of presenting dance on the small screen in a way that gave artistic cohesion to a succession of varying-scale images, while retaining the emotional power inherent in the choreography.
From the mid-50s onwards, Dale televised much of what by then was the Royal Ballet's repertoire, in the process creating a priceless BBC TV archive of the dancers of that richly talented era. Later, she encouraged young choreographers, such as Kenneth MacMillan and John Cranko, to create ballets especially for TV. She also made valuable documentaries on leading figures in the dance world, notably her longtime supporter Ninette de Valois.
She was born Margaret Elisabeth Bolam into a middle-class family in Newcastle. She loved dancing from the start and was entertaining fellow customers in a local cafe at the age of three with her impromptu tangos among the tea tables. Trained locally by Nellie Potts, she was taken on by De Valois in 1936. After two years studying at De Valois's school, she became a member of what was then the Vic-Wells Ballet, later the Sadler's Wells Ballet and ultimately the Royal Ballet. For the next dozen years, she worked her way up through the company, choosing Dale as her stage name. She travelled widely, dancing many prominent roles; she was said to have sparkled as the Sugar Plum Fairy and charmed audiences with her Polka in Façade.
As a student, she danced in several pre-war TV productions at Alexandra Palace, north London, and her interest in the medium was rekindled after the war when she was invited by a pioneer producer, Naomi Capon, to help with the production of several televised ballets. In 1953, Dale choreographed for the stage The Great Detective, a ballet about Sherlock Holmes, starring MacMillan, but she was dissatisfied with the quality of her choreography. De Valois arranged an interview with George Barnes, then director of the fledgling BBC TV service, and Dale decided to take the risky step of leaving the company to join the BBC. She did a six-month training course (brief by the standards of the dance world) and then started on what, looking back, can be perceived as a self-assigned mission to bring great dancing to the small screen.
From the beginning, she proceeded on two fronts – making new works for TV while producing studio adaptations of existing ballets, mostly from the British repertoire but, as early as 1956, taking in the second act of the Bolshoi's Swan Lake. The legendary Russian company – in London with Galina Ulanova at its head – was the talk of the town and the BBC's live transmission was reportedly watched by an audience of more than 9 million. In those days, the outside broadcast teams were hampered by cumbersome cameras and lighting equipment, so justice could only be done to major dance works by bringing them into one of the BBC's west London studios – Riverside, Lime Grove and, from 1960, the Television Centre.
Coppélia (1957), Petrushka (1962) and La Fille Mal Gardée (1962) were other Dale highlights, the latter taped under Frederick Ashton's supervision with the original cast. Such was Dale's authority that by the early 60s, when videotaping was a reality, she pushed the BBC into signing a long-term agreement with the Royal Ballet to record nine of the company's best works. Colleagues would peep into the studio and watch the diminutive Dale telling "Fred" and "Madam" what was required by way of adjustment to their precious choreography in order to fit the small screen.
Monica Mason, then in the corps de ballet, remembers well "the excitement we felt at the opportunity of a complete change in our usual routine – several days in a TV studio being filmed from all angles by several cameras – all under the eagle eye of the very respected Margaret Dale, who was very demanding; we soon realised the importance of being exactly on the mark she'd given you. She did not suffer fools."
Dale brought another dancer turned choreographer, Peter Wright, into the BBC and used his experience as a ballet master in Stuttgart to create a stylised documentary called Ballet Class in 1964. That same year I remember a nervy meeting at the BBC when she tried to persuade Harold Pinter to write the storyline for a dance project she and the choreographer Peter Darrell had close to their hearts, a new TV ballet based on the music of Francis Poulenc's Les Biches. She wanted a sinister approach made up of gestures in the shadows, a meaningful glance here, a suppressed smile there. Pinter was polite but not attracted to this notion of a play without words. Fortunately the TV dramatist John Hopkins seized the opportunity instead, creating a minor masterpiece in black and white named Houseparty (1964).
With my encouragement as her departmental chief, Dale then embarked on what was intended to be a year-long series entitled Zodiac. Each of the star signs would provide the themes for an anthology of short ballets created for TV by some of the world's leading choreographers, all danced in the vast arena of Studio TC1 at BBC TV Centre. The set was as ambitious as Dale's creative agenda, but the grand project proved too problematic to sustain and it was cancelled after only a few editions.
Improved camera technology and the advent of colour TV enabled more sophisticated relays to be undertaken direct from Covent Garden and elsewhere, but such work was less involving and more frustrating as there was never enough rehearsal time to achieve the perfection Dale had always demanded in herself and her team of devoted design and stage management colleagues. The Dream (1967), Monotones (1968) and The Anatomy Lesson (1968) were taped, but she spent much of the next decade as a film-maker for Omnibus and BBC2.
After contributing a number of enjoyable documentaries about major dance figures, including Léonide Massine, Anna Pavlova and Gene Kelly, she bowed out in 1976 to become professor of dance in the faculty of fine arts at York University in Toronto, Canada. It was not a post she held for long, but she continued to lecture and teach in many parts of the world, and kept a link with the Royal Academy of Dancing.
After retirement she returned to London where, in her 80s, she was able to attend a substantial retrospective of her work organised at the National Film Theatre on the South Bank in 2007. She was also a welcome figure, helped by trusted carers after a debilitating stroke but seemingly indomitable in her wheelchair, at the 50th anniversary party of the Monitor arts programme, to which she had contributed.
She wed the dancer John Hart shortly after the second world war. They were married for 14 years and then divorced. A brother, Kenneth, predeceased her. Her sister, Elsa Bolam, survives her.
•Margaret Dale, dancer and TV producer, born 30 December 1922; died 28 January 2010
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January 28 - February 1, 2011
Dance on Camera Festival 2011 returns to the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater for another adventurous exploration of dance and film and the ways in which the two mediums engage. Come experience films about Armenian tightrope dancers, Swiss rhythmic footwork, a Paris Opera Ballet dancer, flamenco, and break dancing—and that’s just a sampling. So, put on your dancing shoes!
Co-presented by Dance Films Association and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Made possible with the support of the New York Department of Cultural Affairs, National Endowment for the Arts, Presentation Funds program of the Experimental Television Center, and members of DFA.
See three programs in Dance On Camera for only $27! ($21 Students & Seniors / $18 Film Society & DFA Members) Certain restrictions apply. Buy online now >>
Calendar >>
Admission $12 General Public $9 Students $8 Seniors $7 Members
Weekday Matinee Admission* $9 General Public $7 Students $6 Seniors $5 Members
Tickets and passes are also on sale at the Walter Reade Theater's box office. Certain restrictions apply.
VISITOR INFO >>
Claude Bessy, Lignes d’Une Vie (Traces of a Life)
Fabrice Herrault, 2010, USA; 50m OPENING NIGHT
Described as the “Golden Silhouette” by Serge Lifar, French ballerina Claude Bessy was an admired etoile of the Paris Opera Ballet and ran its prestigious school for decades. Q&A with Claude Bessy and Fabrice Herrault! screening with Les Reflets de la danse (Reflections of the Dance) Nicolas Ribowski, 1979, France; 33m excerpt Claude Bessy’s students, including Sylvie Guillem. Read more...
Buy Tickets
Fri Jan 28: 6:00*
Sat Jan 29: 4:00
Bödälä: Dance the Rhythm
Gitta Gsell, 2010, Switzerland; 78m
In this witty journey through tap dance, flamenco and Irish dance, Swiss dancers reinvent traditional forms in interiors and exteriors of exceptional beauty. Introduced by the director. screening with Unsung Morleigh Steinberg, 2008, Ireland; 6m A Sean Nos song brings magic to an ordinary pub night. Read more...
Buy Tickets
Mon Jan 31: 6:00 Tue Feb 1: 4:00
All the Ladies Say
Rokafella & Kwikstep, 2010, USA; 45m
A showcase of female break-dancers Vendetta, Severe, Lady Champ, Aiko Shirakawa, Baby Love, and Rokafella, illuminating the triumphs and challenges of hip-hop culture. Q&A with the directors! screening with Box Ivan Rubio, 2010, Canada; 5m Two women resist/concede control in an arena of action. also screening with Ebony Goddess: Queen of Ilê Aiyê Carolina Moraes-Liu, 2009, Bahia; 24m Three women compete to be the carnival queen of Ilê Aiyê. Read more...
Buy Tickets
Sun Jan 31: 6:00 Mon Jan 31: 4:00
Dancing Chaplin
Masayuki Suo, 2011, Japan; 131m
Kusakari Suo co-stars with internationally renowned dancer Luigi Bonino in an adaptation of Roland Petit’s ballet “Chaplin Dances,” in a portrait of the challenges of collaboration. Read more...
Buy Tickets
Fri Jan 28: 8:00 Sat Jan 29: 1:00
Dancing Dreams /Tanz Traume
Anne Linsel, 2009, Germany; 89m
A chronicle of one of Pina Bausch’s final projects, “Kontakthof,” in which Bausch worked with 40 teenagers who had never heard her name. A First Run Features release. Followed by Q&A with the director. Read more...
Buy Tickets
Sun Jan 30: 8:00 Tue Feb 1: 8:00*
Flamenco Flamenco
Carlos Saura, 2010, Spain; 100m
Spain’s foremost dance portraitist presents flamenco masters Paco de Lucía, Manolo Sanlúcar, Tomatito and José Mercé, and more. Cinematography by the great Vittorio Storaro. Read more...
Buy Tickets
Sat Jan 29: 8:15 Sun Jan 30:3:30
A New Dance for America
Ina Hahn, 2009, USA; 79m
A long-overdue portrait of Doris Humphrey, the seminal modern dance pioneer who created distinctly “American” dances. With vintage footage. Q&A with the filmmaker! screening with On the Sound Fred Baker, 1963, USA; 9m Three celebrated Martha Graham dancers take dance into the woods and onto the beach, to the jazzy Gryce suite titled “The Rat Race.” Introduced by director. Read more...
Buy Tickets
Fri Jan 28: 1:30 Tue Feb 1: 6:00
Passion: Last Stop Kinshasa
Joerg Jeshel & Brigitte Kramer, 2010; Germany, 90m
The famed Belgian dance company “Les ballets C de la B” bring their dance opera Pitié! to the Congo, in this dazzling cross-cultural encounter. Read more...
Buy Tickets
Mon Jan 31: 8:00 Tue Feb 1: 1:30
Shall We Dance?
Masayuki Suo, 1997, Japan; 119m
A Japanese accountant finds the missing passion in his life through ballroom dance with a beautiful instructor played by Kusakari Suo (the director’s wife). Read more...
Buy Tickets
Fri Jan 28: 3:30 Mon Jan 31: 1:30
The Last Tightrope Dancer in Armenia
Inna Sahakyan & Arman Yeritsyan, 2009, Armenia; 52m
Two septuagenarian dancers share the same dream: that their only remaining student will keep their daring heritage alive. An elegy to a vanishing art form. screening with There Is a Place Katrina McPherson & Simon Fildes, 2010, UK; 7m A look at stunning soloist Sang Jijia, student of William Forsythe and Resident Artist of Beijing Dance / LDTX and Guangdong Modern Dance Company in 2007. and Portrait of an Acrobat Daniel Belton, 2010, New Zealand; 7m A witty play on graphics that mesmerizes as it develops textures within space. and Hoop Marites Carino, 2010, Canada; 4m A vanishing floor revamps our perspective on the beloved hula hoop. Introduced by the director. and Bow Rannvá Káradóttir, 2010, USA; 4m Five artists from the UK, Belgium, Fare Island/Denmark, China, and USA/Malaysia collaborate during the Asia Europe Dance Forum. Introduced by the director. and Ase Nicola Brooks, 2010, Canada; 6m A celebration of the lives of African slaves in the Caribbean who managed to preserve their religious worship rituals. Introduced by the director.
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Damian Woetzel Farewell. Performance. June 19. THEN AND THERE. Thou Swell. Prodigal Son. Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet. June 20. MUSICAL MUSES. Mozartiana ...
The year brought a moment of great sadness as well, as we bid farewell to Co-Founding Choreographer. Jerome Robbins. That Jerry chose to make New York City ...
NIKOLAJ HÜBBE FAREWELL. Apollo. Zakouski. “Cool” from West Side Story Suite. Western Symphony. February 17. MATTERS OF THE HEART. Raymonda Variations ...
George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein formed New York City. Ballet with the goal of producing and performing a new ballet. repertory that would re-imagine ...
For her farewell, the Company paid tribute to Ms. Quinn on June 2 ... Music Director Andrea Quinn takes a farewell bow onstage at the New York State Theater ...
Four ballets from the 2000 Diamond Project were also reprised: Peter Martins’ Harmonielehre and. Slonimsky’s Earbox, Helgi Tomasson’s Prism, and Christopher ...
ballets under the banner of the fourth Diamond Project, which included new works by Christopher. d’Amboise, Robert La Fosse/Robert Garland, Kevin O’Day, ...
only for the Diamond Project, but also for the New York Choreographic Institute, ... presented as part of the tenth anniversary of the Diamond Project. ...
of The Diamond Project, which she helped to establish in 1992. Her ... New York Choreographic Institute and The Diamond Project ensures that her memory will ...
The 2006 Diamond Project productions were made possible in part by lead gifts from The Irene ... of Mr. Feld’s Diamond Project ballet Étoile Polaire. ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletJune 21, 2002, The Diamond Project V, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ... been incorporated into the repertory of ensembles all over the world. ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 17, 1997, The Diamond Project III, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Mozart Piano Concerto, created for the Spring 1994 The Diamond Project, is a cascade of neoclassical dance for six ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 21, 1994, The Diamond Project II, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHis enormous repertory included leading roles in many full-length ballets ... The Diamond Project I), and Danses de Cour (1994, The Diamond Project II). ...
Repertory Index - New York City Ballet1992, The Diamond Project, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ... New York City Ballet in 1980 and appeared in much of the Company's repertory. ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. June 13, 2002, The Diamond Project V, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletMay 18, 1994, The Diamond Project II, New York City Ballet, New York State ... by the late Erik Bruhn for the repertory of The National Ballet of Canada. ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index. Étoile Polaire ... Premiere. April 29, 2006, 2006 Diamond Project, New York State Theater. Original Cast ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 29, 1992, 1992 Diamond Project, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. June 17, 2000, The Diamond Project IV, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index. Slice to Sharp ... Premiere. June 16, 2006, 2006 Diamond Project, New York State Theater. Original Cast ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... City Ballet’s The Diamond Project: Ten Years of New Choreography" on PBS, dancing in Jeu de Cartes, La Stravaganza, ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index. Russian Seasons ... Premiere. June 8, 2006, 2006 Diamond Project, New York State Theater. Original Cast ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index. The Red Violin ... Premiere. May 10, 2006, 2006 Diamond Project, New York State Theater. Original Cast ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 30, 1992, The Diamond Project I, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 18, 1994, The Diamond Project II, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 31, 1994, The Diamond Project II, New York City Ballet, New York City Ballet ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 22, 1997, The Diamond Project III, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 19, 1994, The Diamond Project II, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 22, 2002, The Diamond Project V, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. June 20, 2000, 2000 Diamond Project, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 28, 1992, The Diamond Project I, New York City Ballet, , New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. April 28, 2000, The Diamond Project IV, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. June 1, 2000, The Diamond Project IV, New York City Ballet, , New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 8, 2002, The Diamond Project V, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 30, 1997, The Diamond Project III, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 3, 2000, The Diamond Project IV, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 8, 2002, 2002 Diamond Project, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 30, 1992, The Diamond Project I, New York City Ballet, , New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index. In Vento. Photo © Paul Kolnik ... Premiere. May 4, 2006, 2006 Diamond Project, New York State Theater. Original Cast ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 16, 2002, The Diamond Project V, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index. Two Birds with the Wings of ... Premiere. May 25, 2006, 2006 Diamond Project, New York State Theater. Original Cast ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. June 17, 1997, The Diamond Project III, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index. Evenfall. Photo © Paul Kolnik ... Premiere. May 10, 2006, 2006 Diamond Project, New York State Theater. Original Cast ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. May 26, 1994, The Diamond Project II, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index ... Premiere. June 4, 1997, The Diamond Project III, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ...
Repertory Index - New York City BalletHome > The Company > Repertory Index. Ugha Bugha. Music ... Premiere. April 29, 2006, 2006 Diamond Project, New York State Theater. Original Cast ...
Admired ballerina with a mission to bring great dancing to the small screen
A respected dancer during the 1940s and early 50s, Margaret Dale, who has died aged 87, quit the stage at the height of her powers and took on a more significant role as the first television director who knew the world of ballet from the inside. Dale realised the potential of the new medium to capture dance. She developed a complex technique of presenting dance on the small screen in a way that gave artistic cohesion to a succession of varying-scale images, while retaining the emotional power inherent in the choreography.
From the mid-50s onwards, Dale televised much of what by then was the Royal Ballet's repertoire, in the process creating a priceless BBC TV archive of the dancers of that richly talented era. Later, she encouraged young choreographers, such as Kenneth MacMillan and John Cranko, to create ballets especially for TV. She also made valuable documentaries on leading figures in the dance world, notably her longtime supporter Ninette de Valois.
She was born Margaret Elisabeth Bolam into a middle-class family in Newcastle. She loved dancing from the start and was entertaining fellow customers in a local cafe at the age of three with her impromptu tangos among the tea tables. Trained locally by Nellie Potts, she was taken on by De Valois in 1936. After two years studying at De Valois's school, she became a member of what was then the Vic-Wells Ballet, later the Sadler's Wells Ballet and ultimately the Royal Ballet. For the next dozen years, she worked her way up through the company, choosing Dale as her stage name. She travelled widely, dancing many prominent roles; she was said to have sparkled as the Sugar Plum Fairy and charmed audiences with her Polka in Façade.
As a student, she danced in several pre-war TV productions at Alexandra Palace, north London, and her interest in the medium was rekindled after the war when she was invited by a pioneer producer, Naomi Capon, to help with the production of several televised ballets. In 1953, Dale choreographed for the stage The Great Detective, a ballet about Sherlock Holmes, starring MacMillan, but she was dissatisfied with the quality of her choreography. De Valois arranged an interview with George Barnes, then director of the fledgling BBC TV service, and Dale decided to take the risky step of leaving the company to join the BBC. She did a six-month training course (brief by the standards of the dance world) and then started on what, looking back, can be perceived as a self-assigned mission to bring great dancing to the small screen.
From the beginning, she proceeded on two fronts – making new works for TV while producing studio adaptations of existing ballets, mostly from the British repertoire but, as early as 1956, taking in the second act of the Bolshoi's Swan Lake. The legendary Russian company – in London with Galina Ulanova at its head – was the talk of the town and the BBC's live transmission was reportedly watched by an audience of more than 9 million. In those days, the outside broadcast teams were hampered by cumbersome cameras and lighting equipment, so justice could only be done to major dance works by bringing them into one of the BBC's west London studios – Riverside, Lime Grove and, from 1960, the Television Centre.
Coppélia (1957), Petrushka (1962) and La Fille Mal Gardée (1962) were other Dale highlights, the latter taped under Frederick Ashton's supervision with the original cast. Such was Dale's authority that by the early 60s, when videotaping was a reality, she pushed the BBC into signing a long-term agreement with the Royal Ballet to record nine of the company's best works. Colleagues would peep into the studio and watch the diminutive Dale telling "Fred" and "Madam" what was required by way of adjustment to their precious choreography in order to fit the small screen.
Monica Mason, then in the corps de ballet, remembers well "the excitement we felt at the opportunity of a complete change in our usual routine – several days in a TV studio being filmed from all angles by several cameras – all under the eagle eye of the very respected Margaret Dale, who was very demanding; we soon realised the importance of being exactly on the mark she'd given you. She did not suffer fools."
Dale brought another dancer turned choreographer, Peter Wright, into the BBC and used his experience as a ballet master in Stuttgart to create a stylised documentary called Ballet Class in 1964. That same year I remember a nervy meeting at the BBC when she tried to persuade Harold Pinter to write the storyline for a dance project she and the choreographer Peter Darrell had close to their hearts, a new TV ballet based on the music of Francis Poulenc's Les Biches. She wanted a sinister approach made up of gestures in the shadows, a meaningful glance here, a suppressed smile there. Pinter was polite but not attracted to this notion of a play without words. Fortunately the TV dramatist John Hopkins seized the opportunity instead, creating a minor masterpiece in black and white named Houseparty (1964).
With my encouragement as her departmental chief, Dale then embarked on what was intended to be a year-long series entitled Zodiac. Each of the star signs would provide the themes for an anthology of short ballets created for TV by some of the world's leading choreographers, all danced in the vast arena of Studio TC1 at BBC TV Centre. The set was as ambitious as Dale's creative agenda, but the grand project proved too problematic to sustain and it was cancelled after only a few editions.
Improved camera technology and the advent of colour TV enabled more sophisticated relays to be undertaken direct from Covent Garden and elsewhere, but such work was less involving and more frustrating as there was never enough rehearsal time to achieve the perfection Dale had always demanded in herself and her team of devoted design and stage management colleagues. The Dream (1967), Monotones (1968) and The Anatomy Lesson (1968) were taped, but she spent much of the next decade as a film-maker for Omnibus and BBC2.
After contributing a number of enjoyable documentaries about major dance figures, including Léonide Massine, Anna Pavlova and Gene Kelly, she bowed out in 1976 to become professor of dance in the faculty of fine arts at York University in Toronto, Canada. It was not a post she held for long, but she continued to lecture and teach in many parts of the world, and kept a link with the Royal Academy of Dancing.
After retirement she returned to London where, in her 80s, she was able to attend a substantial retrospective of her work organised at the National Film Theatre on the South Bank in 2007. She was also a welcome figure, helped by trusted carers after a debilitating stroke but seemingly indomitable in her wheelchair, at the 50th anniversary party of the Monitor arts programme, to which she had contributed.
She wed the dancer John Hart shortly after the second world war. They were married for 14 years and then divorced. A brother, Kenneth, predeceased her. Her sister, Elsa Bolam, survives her.
•Margaret Dale, dancer and TV producer, born 30 December 1922; died 28 January 2010