Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan
It stings to call Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan an indistinguishable documentary because of who the film is about.
Ballet
A Ballerina’s Tale
The works of people like Norman McLaren (Pas de Deux, Ballet Adagio, Narcissus) and Wim Wenders (Pina) have shown that ballet can be useful subject matter for beautiful cinema. Unfortunately, for some strange reason, this pleasurable quality somehow cannot find its way into documentaries. The most recent example of this failure to showcase ballet in the genre is A Ballerina’s Tale, Nelson George’s portrait of noted ballerina Misty Copeland – the first African-American woman to be…
Ballet 422
By: Gesilayefa Azorbo Ballet 422, the much-anticipated new film from Jody Lee Lipes (NY Export: Opus Jazz), opens with a couple of facts. 91 – the number of full-time dancers at the prestigious New York City Ballet. 1948 – the year the ballet company was formed. The film then opens with a shot of these elite dancers walking down a darkened hallway to a mirrored practice studio. Then, shots of them stretching, warming up, wrapping their…