You are in for a treat: Violette Verdy in “Dances at a Gathering”
I’ve periodically searched and searched for a video of this particular dance by this particular dancer, and I’ve finally found it. Blurry though it may be, it captures at least some of the qualities of the mesmerizing, uniquely beautiful and supremely musical dancer Violette Verdy. Although she was French, she danced for most of her career in George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet and I saw her in person many many times.
This clip features one of the two Verdy solos I remember from Jerome Robbins’ late-60s masterpiece “Dances At a Gathering,” in which she was sublime. Robbins choreographed the role on her and tailored it to her very special gifts:
And here’s a later dancer, Aurelie Dupont (who, like Verdy, is French) attempting the same role. I’m not sure of the date, but it’s probably sometime between ten to twenty years ago. Although the commenters at YouTube seem to think she’s swell, I’m pretty sure they haven’t a clue what’s missing – which, to me, is just about everything.
The choreography isn’t all that difficult in terms of steps. The hard part is a matter of timing and feel. Here the dancer is continually and self-consciously displaying herself, which is the opposite of the lyric flow of Verdy’s rendition and its sense of joy and playfulness. Dupont’s dancing in this clip says, “look at this separate step, now look at this separate step, and see that I can raise my leg rather high here.”
I don’t even mean to be especially critical of this particular dancer. I simply don’t think that anyone except Verdy could even begin to do this variation justice, which is what makes the previous video so precious to me:
[NOTE: I’ve cued up the Verdy video to show only the “Dances At a Gathering” excerpt. But the whole thing is worth watching.]
I see what you mean.
Verdy’s athleticism and grace is in service of dance as communication.
While Dupont’s dance is that of a biological machine. Perfect in movement but which expresses nothing beyond its machinelike perfection.
A few years ago, I very briefly watched the ice skating in the olympics. Something Ive always enjoyed. After a few per performances, I turned it off. Perfect performances lacking all feeling. Feeling being the communication of emotion with which we can share. ‘Beauty’ absent grace, joy, sadness, etc. leaves the watcher absent empathy.
Maybe it’s just the quality of the video, but Verdy’s flowing movements reminded me of Duncan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEb6KIPrvRQ
This is the only film that exists of Isadora Duncan’s dancing.
It is a few seconds of footage of a recital given outdoors in an open space.
Music by Brahms was added to the film by the poster.
Autosuggest then brought up this Russian dancer; start at 1:00 for the similarities to begin, although the steps look much simpler than Robbins’ choreography.
No idea what the narrator is saying, of course.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FHy_RLOo3w
Here’s another post with the Duncan bit followed by re-enactments of her typical choreography.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkr_h0jlo7A
This one has a lot of stills, the attested video from the first link, a short clip alleged to be of Duncan, and newsreel footage of the car that she died in being pulled from the water. I did not know she married a Russian poet, but there is a very short video clip of them together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdHiFMYUzkw
The internet will keep this kind of thing going forever.
@AesopFan
“This Russian dancer” in the second video you list is Isadora Duncan. (The title of the video, translated, reads, “Read by Sergei Yesenin, dancing Isadora Duncan.”)
Thanks so much for this find! I never saw it before.
And thanks also to Neo for such a lovely post on Violette Verdy.
@AesopFan
Yes – comparing the two ballerinas in this piece, I was struck by how much more modern Verdy seems in her interpretation. It’s as if her body is as much an instrument for the music as the piano.
DuPont’s rendition, while presumably more recent, seems more classically balletic. She gives us a well performed dance to the music, not “of” the music.
(The title of the video, translated, reads, “Read by Sergei Yesenin, dancing Isadora Duncan.”) – Irene
Thank you!
I wonder why none of the other videos identify this as being by Duncan.
Is it part of an old Russian archive that only gets found by the Internet Magic Linker?
That might make sense, as she had lived in Russia, where she met her husband.
Wikipedia: “Born and raised in California, she lived and danced in Western Europe and the Soviet Union from the age of 22 until her death at age 50 when her scarf became entangled in the wheels and axle of the car in which she was travelling in Nice, France
….In 1921, Duncan’s leftist sympathies took her to the Soviet Union, where she founded a school in Moscow. However, the Soviet government’s failure to follow through on promises to support her work caused her to return to the West and leave the school to her protégée Irma.[30]
…in 1921, after the end of the Russian Revolution, Duncan moved to Moscow where she met the poet Sergei Yesenin, who was eighteen years her junior. On May 2, 1922, they married, and Yesenin accompanied her on a tour of Europe and the United States. However, the marriage was brief, and in May 1923 Yesenin left Duncan and returned to Moscow.
…
Duncan placed an emphasis on “evolutionary” dance motion, insisting that each movement was born from the one that preceded it, that each movement gave rise to the next, and so on in organic succession. It is this philosophy and new dance technique that garnered Duncan the title of the creator of modern dance.”