Have you seen the documentary In Balanchine's Classroom? If not, and if you have the slightest interest in ballet, dance, artists, psychology, or human beings, you must.
I think I first heard about the film on Twitter, months or even a year before its release. The title alone made me gasp with excitement. Anything about George Balanchine (who sparked my love of dance and became the core of my existence as a dancer) is automatically of interest to me. Add in the word 'classroom,' since I thrived on the physical and soulful food of class-taking, and then the promise of hearing and seeing scores of legendary (big names but also many who are legendary only to those of us from a certain generation of students at the School of American Ballet) Balanchine dancers talking about what it was really like, for them, to live and dance in the orbit of this genius... and I knew already that this film was not going to be long enough for me.
I'm lucky enough to know many former Balanchine dancers personally-- many were my teachers, and some have become friends-- and to have heard lots of wonderful stories, anecdotes, remembrances about what it was like to be in New York City Ballet before and shortly after Balanchine died, in 1983. I can't quite describe my own feelings at being nearby these people-- I get a sense of Balanchine himself sort of emanating through them. They are the closest I will ever get to Balanchine himself, who despite my knowing so much factual information and having danced his ballets so many times, remains something of a misty, mythic being in my mind.
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