Excerpts from the Moscow Ballet Competition in 1969, featuring a young Mikhail Baryshnikov as a competitor.
Stars: Mikhail Baryshnikov, Ludmilla Semenyaka, Anna Pavlova.
(I decided I wanted to try to appreciate ballet, and bought 3 Baryshnikov dvds. This is the oldest performance, and was not in IMDb until I added it.)
No songs in the Soundtracks, but many excerpts of ballets are performed to music.
Baryshnikov dances at 17min and 43min. We only see him solo. We saw some male/female pairs, and male and female soloists. When they picked up medals, some pairs seemed to come up together, so I don't think they competed by both pair and solo work.
Apparently the competition went on for days, with multiple rounds. There was an American male present, winning silver: Helgi Tómasson.
The challenge in filming this is to get close enough to see faces, far enough to see the dancing, and not have any retakes. In addition to competition footage, we get rehearsal, backstage, and sightseeing footage.
Many of the performers featured won either gold or silver medals.
The Pavlova footage is very brief, and run in slow motion.
These competitors had great talent, trained well, and danced good choreography. I suspect we didn't see many of the competitors, since MB pulled #46 (or 36) for his 1st round slot. We didn't see 46 performers.
Good stuff. But not like watching a full ballet.
indie, dir. Soviet; 7
