Balletomane alert! Emerging Pictures' 2011 season of BALLET IN CINEMA is underway

If you're a ballet lover but cannot travel to the world's far corners to catch all the best companies, don't worry: Emerging Pictures is there for you. That interesting company, who recently brought us the series of new independent British cinema, From Britain With Love, is currently in the midst of its 2001 season. Although The Paris Opera Ballet and its production of Children of Paradise (shown above) and the La Scala Ballet's Mediterranea program have now both presented their final screenings, there remain some fine programs to be seen in this series -- from Russia's Bolshoi Ballet and Britain's Royal Ballet.

My ex-wife and I caught the final Children of Paradise program last Sunday here at Manhattan's Big Cinema (a lovely venue for this series, by the way) and were pleased to find it such a pleasant experience. The camerawork was excellent, alternating nicely between long shots that featured the whole stage, with accent on bodies in motion, and close-ups in which you could see the dancers much better than you ever could from any large auditorium. (And with attractive lead dancers like Mathieu Ganio, shown below (as Baptiste), and Isabelle Ciaravola, at right, (who danced Garance), the close-ups were particularly enjoyable. The sound, as well, was excellent, though I found the music for this ballet (by Marc-Olivier Dupin) rather rote.

This is a yearly event from Emerging Picture (Children of Paradise was co-presented by Pathe Live), so if you want to learn more about this series, click here; to see the upcoming programs, click here; and to place yourself on Ballet in Cinema's mailing list, click here.