“In Balanchine’s Classroom” – Let’s dance [MOVIE REVIEW]
As far as my husband and I are concerned, dance is the ultimate art form. It combines music, art, and movement all in the service of story. It can be classical, modern, jazz, or abstract but all of the elements are there. “In Balanchine’s Classroom,” directed by Connie Hochman, you are given a front row seat in the room where it happens. An unadulterated love poem to George Balanchine, who, arguably, established the first great American ballet school and company (the New York City Ballet), former dancers, now teachers, expound on what it was like to learn from the master. Monday through Friday, for years on end, Balanchine himself taught the classes at the School for American Ballet, founded by him and Lincoln Kirstein in 1934. Hochman maintains that there were no established professional ballet schools in the United States before 1934, and this may very well be true. Balanchine was always a groundbreaker. Having started his career as a dancer and choreographer at the Imperial Ballet School in St. Petersburg, he danced in the corps of the State Theater of Opera and Ballet (now known as the Mariinsky Ballet). It was there that he began to focus more on choreography. Escaping…
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