The Little Mermaid

The hands of a puppeteer control the bodies of two dancers who compete with each other.

During his birthday’s celebration, Prince Siegfried must choose a bride. Trying to escape reality, he dreams of a perfect love. His tutor tries to bring him down to Earth and reminds him of his duties. On a dreamlike getaway, the prince meets Odette, a princess who has been transformed into a swan by the powerful sorcerer Rothbart. Only true love can break the spell. Captivated, Siegfried promises Odette to save her and invites her to his party. To trap the prince, the sorcerer sends his daughter Odile, disguised as Odette, to seduce him.

A child is born. We see underwater swimmers representing this. He is young, in a jungle setting, with two fanciful "instincts" guiding him as swooping bird-like acrobats initially menace, then delight. As an adolescent, he enters a desert, where a man spins a large cube of metal tubing. He leaves his instinct-guides behind, and enters a garden where two statues dance in a pond. As he watches their sensual acrobatics of love, he becomes a man. He is offered wealth (represented by a golden hat) by a devil figure. In a richly decorated room, a scruffy troupe of a dozen acrobats and a little girl reawaken the old man's youthful nature and love.

The classic Mariinsky (Kirov) production of the greatest of all ballets. Filmed in the imperial splendor of the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg. Starring Ulyana Lopatkina, Danila Korsuntsev and the breathtaking Mariinsky corps de ballet. Conducted by the great Russian maestro Valery Gergiev.

A magical blend of choreography, stop-motion and live action, Stories from a Flying Trunk captures the enchantment of three classic stories from Hans Christian Andersen. Conceived, written and directed by Oscar nominated Christine Edzard and featuring the dancers of the Royal Ballet, choreographed by Frederick Ashton. The Kitchen contains household objects which come to life and hold an animated conversation. The Little Match Girl updates Andersen's heart-rending tale to London's East End in the late seventies. Little Ida is an inspired celebration of dance featuring members of the Royal Ballet.

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.

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.

スプリンパン　まえへすすもう！

A Japanese fairy tale meets commedia dell'Arte. All in white, the naïf Pierrot lies in a wood. Doo-wop music plays as he rises, stares about, and reaches for the moon. Although music abounds and the children of the wood are there at play, Pierrot is melancholy and alone. Harlequin appears, brimming with confidence and energy. He conjures the lovely Colombina. Pierrot is dazzled. But can the course of true love run smooth?

Moving Matter is the culmination of a material-led process with artists from dance, costume design and film that began with a study of old kitchen flooring about to be discarded. This flax-based material enters our orbit in the 1950s, where a measured homelife and prescribed domesticity offered a reassuring antidote to bomb scares, political turmoil, and paranormativity. Stability topples as the flooring becomes entangled in the lives of those who don the material as garments and shelters. This film was made through Moving Matter, a long-term research-creation project that offers a methodology for rethinking the dynamism between raw materials, garments, and the body. Moving Matter steers the locus of choreography and wearable design away from human hierarchy to instead support truer collaboration amongst all moving materials, both human and non-human, in this case… linoleum.

Johnny Riggs, a con man on the lam, finds himself in a Latin-American country named Patria. There, he overhears a convent-bred rich girl praying to her guardian angel for help in managing her tangled business affairs. Riggs decides to materialize as the girl's "angel", gains her unquestioning confidence, and helps himself to the deluded girl's millions. Just as he and his partner are about to flee Patria with their booty, Riggs realizes he has fallen in love with the girl and returns the money, together with a note that is part confession and part love letter. But the larcenous duo's escape from Patria turns out to be more difficult than they could ever have imagined.

With the loss of Patroclus (his undeclared male lover), Greek warrior Achilles returns to the Trojan War.

A melancholy poet reflects on three women he loved and lost in the past: a mechanical performing doll, a Venetian courtesan, and the consumptive daughter of a celebrated composer.

Boisterous nightclub entertainer Buzzy Bellew was the witness to a murder committed by gangster Ten Grand Jackson. One night, two of Jackson's thugs kill Buzzy and dump his body in the lake at Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Buzzy comes back as a ghost and summons his bookworm twin, Edwin Dingle, to Prospect Park so that he can help the police nail Jackson.

Three completely different stories are told through dance.

The Royal Ballet Company brings Squirrel Nutkin, Tom Thumb, Hunca Munca, Jemima Puddle-Duck, Jeremy Fisher, Pigling Bland, and Pigwig to the screen doing pirouettes and pas de deux in this filmed ballet production directed by Reginald Mills. The film more properly belongs, however, to choreographer Frederick Ashmore, composer John Lanchbery, and costume designer Rostislav Douboujinsky. This literal adaptation concerns the shy Beatrix Potter and how, when all of the toy animals in her room come to life, she emerges from her shell and begins to enjoy life. Sequences include a rowdy dance with Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca destroying a collection of plaster food, a midnight pas de deux between Pigling Bland and Pigwig, and a corps de ballet of dancing mice.

Leaf lives a solitary life, in harmony with nature. Her world takes an unexpected turn when she discovers a mysterious red stiletto. Upon inspection, the beautiful shoes bridge a gap between her idyllic home and a vibrant nightlife.

Life. Before and after your morning cup of coffee.

Al’ya, a light-miner girl, desperately needs the help of her father, Qu’rai, to perform a forbidden sacred ‘Kirakira’ lightdance to resurrect an ancient being before they are stopped by a mob of angry villagers.

Inspired by Arthur Rimbaud's utopian poetics, who dreamed of a universal language without words that directly touches the senses, Anatomy of the Faun acts at the limits between theater and performance. It seeks to dissect the infernal seasons and illuminations of the contemporary homoerotic scene. The mythological figure of the Faun, removed from his natural environment and placed in a city like São Paulo, is a guiding thread for this journey through the shadows and articular lights of metropolitan nights. Walking from disease to cure, this Faun is guided to the anatomy of a body that overcomes the failures of our humanity you have consumed.