Suspended leaps, controlled spins

Sergei Polunin-David LaChapelle, "Take Me to Church" by Hozier, YouTube

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A video of Sergei Polunin dancing, directed by David Lachapelle, crossed my radar the other day.

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The sheer athleticism of danseurs (male ballet dancers in French; in Italian it's ballerino, as opposed to ballerina), is to me a wonder to behold. Beatifully controlled, visually exciting athleticism.

I know of two other well-known dancers in this discipline: Nureyev and Baryshnikov. Nureyev is most often seen dancing with Margot Fonteyn, as seen below in Les Sylphides, Waltz No. 7.

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Baryshnikov's leaps amaze. For seconds he seems suspended in the air.

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As an aside, I include this video because of the dramatic, well-designed sets. The music is nice, too.

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Any post about ballet would be lacking if the amount of hard, sweaty work that these finished, fairytale productions require weren't mentioned. If you get a chance and the dancemaster permits, visit a local ballet studio to see what I mean. Here's a sneak peak at rehearsals for "The Nutcracker" by the Royal New Zealand Ballet.

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If ballet looks to you like it could be a good way to exercise, there's a series of workout DVDs produced by the New York City Ballet and available at Amazon. You can preview a DVD here.

-- Marge