Backstage at the Kirov (1984)

Director Derek Hart takes us where we've never been and shows us what we've never seen backstage at St. Petersburg's famed Kirov Ballet--arguably the best classical ballet troupe in the world. The company was responsible after all for producing Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker -- as well as Baryshnikov, Makarova, Nureyev, Pavlova and Nijinsky. This is not just a behind the scenes look at a ballet company. Hart's choreography of the camera on stage with the dancers in Act 2 of Swan Lake is an inspired evolution of Busby Berkeley's filming techniques of the 30s and 40s musicals he is associated with. Want to know what its like to fly across the huge Kirov stage like a world class ballerina? Buy this film and find out.