The year was 1969, the venue was the Bolshoi Theatre, and the people included the luminaries of twentieth-century dance. This film of the Moscow International Ballet Competition features a veritable who’s who of ballet identities, from the jury panel comprising of the acclaimed ballerinas Galina Ulanova, Yvette Chauvire, Maya Plisetskaya and Alicia Alonso, choreographers Agnes de Mille and Yuri Grigorovich, and composer Aram Khachaturian, to the competitors who included Mikhail Baryshnikov, Ludmila Semenyaka, Patrice Bart, Peter Schaufuss and Helgi Tomasson. Hey, even dance author Arnold Haskell was there!
This historic, black and white documentary shows excerpts from many of the prize-winning or otherwise notable performances, as well as presenting footage of the dancers rehearsing, drawing lots for their numbers, anxiously preparing the in wings, and enjoying an excursion to Leningrad. This is a remarkable record of an exceptional moment in the history of ballet.
(Spoiler alert: Baryshnikov wins dancing a solo from La Bayadere and performing Leonid Jakobson’s Vestris.)
Directed by Arkadi Tsineman (Russian with English commentary) 1969.
Region Code: 0
Format & Aspect Ratio: NTSC, 4:3
Number of discs: 1
Run time: 72 minutes
Studio: Kultur
Release date: 2007
