Good morning, all! I slept quite late, and there's some godawful event - maybe a streetfair? - happening on Amterdam Avenue with a lot of noisy sound systems, speaking in Spanish, and not too long ago a lady singing "The Star Spangled Banner" in, yep!, Spanish. This can't be Columbus Day since that's an Italian-themed event. Anyway, who can sleep during all that racket in Spanish, Italian, English, or any other language?
Last night I watched the greatest documentary, BALLETS RUSSES: a history, with wonderful interviews with surviving dancers of the two feuding Ballets Russes companies founded in the early 1930s as one company, and footage from performances between 1933 and the late 1950s when both fnally fell apart. I kept thinking of "Who's That Woman?" the great moment in FOLLIES when the old and new worlds collide as I watched clips of 13year-old Irina Baranova dancing in "The Good-Humored Ladies" followed by her interview in 2000, or 90 year-old Frederic Franklin dancing in "Gaite Parisienne" in the 1940s and teaching a class in 2000. Franklin is the host of the documentary, and his recall is amazing; he should do a bio - he's now around 94 - before it's all lost. He talks about the commissioning of RODEO and Agnes de Mille, Marc Platt still looks great, and there are clips from one of his films as well as footage of him in several ballets. Dame Alicia Markova looks wonderful, and they caught her just before she died since several of the interviewees have passed on before the film's completion. It's quite a wonderful fim, and I can't recommend it highly enough.
I have a bit of brain surgery today and a paying job as well, so I must get to work.