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Dance, Gypsy maiden.
Shown in October 2008 at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone, Italy. They screened a DVD print from the Danish Film Institute.
This is one of a series of short films made in Copenhagen by Peter Elfelt (born Peter Lars Peterson) as a cinematic record of the principal dances of the Danish Royal Ballet. The films are of course silent, but they depict dances choreographed to specific passages from well-known operas and ballets: for this DVD, the Danish Film Institute added an audio track of the appropriate musical passages in modern arrangements.
Here we have Valborg Borchsenius performing the Gypsy dance from Verdi's "Il Trovatore", using choreography devised by August Bournonville in 1865. (I wonder how they preserved it over the decades; did they use Labanotation?) Borchsenius's birth name was Guldbrandsen; apparently she thought that it would be less unwieldy if she changed it to Borchsenius.
For technical reasons, Elfelt shot these dance films at his studio rather than on the stage of the Royal Ballet. Unfortunately, his studio's stage space was much smaller than the ballet's stage; unsurprisingly, the ballet troupe choreographed their dances for the full stage. In this brief but fascinating film, Borchsenius is clearly constrained for space, and she seems to be pulling some of her movements rather than giving her body free rein. She performs in front of a painted cyclorama representing a forest glade; at several moments, she executes a flawless single entrechat but seems to be wishing it could be a double or treble. Nevertheless, I found this film fascinating and a priceless historic record of a dance created for Verdi's music during the composer's lifetime. I'll rate this film 8 out of 10, but I recommend it for hard-core balletomanes only.
This is one of a series of short films made in Copenhagen by Peter Elfelt (born Peter Lars Peterson) as a cinematic record of the principal dances of the Danish Royal Ballet. The films are of course silent, but they depict dances choreographed to specific passages from well-known operas and ballets: for this DVD, the Danish Film Institute added an audio track of the appropriate musical passages in modern arrangements.
Here we have Valborg Borchsenius performing the Gypsy dance from Verdi's "Il Trovatore", using choreography devised by August Bournonville in 1865. (I wonder how they preserved it over the decades; did they use Labanotation?) Borchsenius's birth name was Guldbrandsen; apparently she thought that it would be less unwieldy if she changed it to Borchsenius.
For technical reasons, Elfelt shot these dance films at his studio rather than on the stage of the Royal Ballet. Unfortunately, his studio's stage space was much smaller than the ballet's stage; unsurprisingly, the ballet troupe choreographed their dances for the full stage. In this brief but fascinating film, Borchsenius is clearly constrained for space, and she seems to be pulling some of her movements rather than giving her body free rein. She performs in front of a painted cyclorama representing a forest glade; at several moments, she executes a flawless single entrechat but seems to be wishing it could be a double or treble. Nevertheless, I found this film fascinating and a priceless historic record of a dance created for Verdi's music during the composer's lifetime. I'll rate this film 8 out of 10, but I recommend it for hard-core balletomanes only.
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- F Gwynplaine MacIntyre
- Oct 11, 2008
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- Runtime1 minute
- Color
- Sound mix
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Top Gap
By what name was Zigeunerdans af troubaduren (1906) officially released in Canada in English?
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