After the death of her mother, Sara moves to the South Side of Chicago to live with her father and gets transferred to a majority-black school. Her life takes a turn for the better when befriends Chenille and her brother Derek, who helps her with her dancing skills.
Sara joins Julliard in New York to fulfill her and her mother's dream of becoming the Prima ballerina of the school. She befriends her roommates, Zoe and Miles, who teach hip-hop classes. She has ballet classes with the rigid and famous Monique Delacroix that she idolizes - Monique requires full commitment, discipline and hard work from her students. When Miles, who is a composer, invites Sara to help him compose the music for the dance choreography Sara's passion for hip-hop is sparked and she also falls in love with Miles. When she is assigned to perform Giselle in an important event, she feels divided between the technique of the ballet and the creative work offered by Miles.
The peasant girl Giselle discovers the true identity of her lover Albrecht – and that he is promised to another. This is one of The Royal Ballet’s most loved and admired productions, faithful to the spirit of the 1841 original yet always fresh at each revival. This performance features former Bolshoi star and now Royal Ballet Principal Natalia Osipova in a breath-taking interpretation of the title role.
Swanhilda notices her fiancee Franz is infatuated with the beautiful Coppélia who sits reading on her balcony each day. Nearly breaking up the two sweethearts, Coppélia is not what she seems and Swanhilda decides to teach Franz a lesson… The Bolshoi’s unique version of Coppélia exhibits a fascinating reconstruction of the original 19th century choreography of this ebullient comedy involving a feisty heroine, a boyish fiancee with a wandering eye, and an old dollmaker. The company’s stunning corps de ballet shines in the divertissements and famous “dance of the hours,” and its principals abound in youthful energy and irresistible humor in this effervescent production.
After his plane crashes in Siberia, a Russian dancer, who defected to the West, is held prisoner in the Soviet Union. The KGB keeps him under watch and tries to convince him to become a dancer for the Kirov Academy of Ballet again. Determined to escape, he befriends a black American expatriate and his pregnant Russian wife, who agree to help him escape to the American Embassy.
Franz Schubert's "Winterreise" is considered the pinnacle of German art song. Hans Zender (1936 - 2019) arranged the cycle in 1993, and his version for tenor and small orchestra brings to light emotions that pulsate beneath the surface in Schubert. Similar to Hans Zender, the choreographer Christian Spuck is also concerned with a journey into the interior of the human being.
A small-town shoemaker with a knack for spinning yarns, Hans encounters happiness and heartbreak on his road to becoming a full-fledged writer.
The wicked fairy Carabosse is furious she wasn’t invited to Princess Aurora’s christening. She gives the baby a spindle, saying that one day the Princess will prick her finger on it and die. The Lilac Fairy makes her own christening gift a softening of Carabosse’s curse: Aurora will not die, but will fall into a deep sleep, which only a prince’s kiss will break. The masterful 19th-century choreography of Marius Petipa is combined with sections created for The Royal Ballet by Frederick Ashton, Anthony Dowell and Christopher Wheeldon. Recorded live as part of the Royal Opera House Live Cinema Season 2019/20 with encore screenings broadcast online during the #OurHousetoYourHouse programme.
The Royal Ballet presents the world premiere of Cathy Marston's first work for the Company on the Main Stage alongside a revival of Jerome Robbins’s timeless classic of pure dance. The Cellist is a one-act ballet about British cellist Jacqueline du Pré, from her discovery of the cello through her celebrity as one of the most extraordinary players of the instrument to her frustration and struggle with multiple sclerosis. Jerome Robbins's Dances at a Gathering is a fluid exercise in pure dance for five couples, set to piano music by Fryderyk Chopin.
Scenes from the ballet Petrushka, performed by the Paris Opera Ballet at the National Opera Theatre.
Based on the music of the famous Azerbaijani composer Kara Karayev. The ballet libretto is based on the poem “Seven Beauties” (Khamsa) by Nizami Ganjavi, created in 1197.
An old timbal performer in a puppet theater has a secret past.
Sugar plums and snowflakes, dreams and spells –The Nutcracker is one of the world’s best-loved ballets, and this production by Peter Wright is one of the most enchanting stagings ever created. The Australian Ballet shines in this charming classic. Sumptuously staged and set to Tchaikovsky’s celebrated score, this ballet is a truly magical experience for the whole family.
Young and extremely talented dancer Yulya Olshanskaya from a small mining town draws a “happy ticket”: she is noticed by a former ballet dancer Pototsky and he promises her a future of great ballerina, worthy of the main stage of the country. However, in order to become a diamond, anyone, even the most outstanding brilliant, needs to be cut, and the way to the legendary stage of The Bolshoi Theatre for Yulya lies through the walls of the ballet school, where the more capricious teacher Galina Mikhailovna Beletskaya takes custody of the rebellious provincial. Turning into a prima will require incredible self-denial, and Yulya herself will have to make sure that the big ballet is not only the whiteness of the packs, the gold of the boxes and the slip of silk ribbons. But no obstacles will stop the one who has the big dream.
In the spring of 1913, Parisian businessman Gabriel Astruc opens a new theater on the Champs Elysées. The first performance is the premiere of Igor Stravinsky's 'The Rite of Spring', danced by the Ballet Russes. The rehearsal process is extremely fraught: the orchestra dislike Stravinsky's harsh, atonal music; the dancers dislike the 'ugly' choreography of Vaslav Nijinsky. The volatile, bisexual Nijinsky is in a strained relationship with the much older Sergei Diaghilev, the Ballet Russes' charismatic but manipulative impresario. Public expectation is extremely high after Nijinsky's success in 'L'apres-midi d'un faune'. Finally, 'The Rite of Spring' premieres to a gossip-loving, febrile, fashion-conscious Parisian audience sharply divided as to its merits.
The film recording of the ballet performance of the State Theatre in Brno was expensively realized in a theatrically stylized set built in the Barrandov studios. The original ballet music by Václav Trojan, based on Shakespeare's fairy tale comedy, was preceded by incidental music for theatre and radio, and in particular the soundtrack to Jiří Trnka's feature-length puppet film A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Russas, a small town in northeastern Brazil, is the home of Pacarrete, a grumpy retired dance teacher who dreams of getting a big shot and starring at a dance spectacle for the whole town to see. She's close to fulfilling that dream, but not without overcoming a few impediments along the way.
Two playwrights and a former burlesque queen travel to Louisiana to research a musical they're planning on a local Southern hero.
Paris in the early 20th century. Fujiko dreams of becoming a painter despite expectations of marriage, while Chizuru, born into a samurai family, longs to study ballet. Reunited in Paris after meeting as children, they support each other and move toward their dreams.
The Nutcracker is Mikhail Baryshnikov's breathtaking and critically acclaimed Emmy-nominated production. This spectacular performance is danced by the magnificent team of Baryshnikov, one of the greatest classical dancers of the century, and Gelsey Kirkland, both showcased at the peak of their careers, with members of the American Ballet Theatre.