Thursday 3 February 2011

Les Sylphides by the actual Ballets Russes!

Sometimes film can seem as magical today as it must have seemed when film was a new and astounding medium. This is certainly the case when a film clip shows you something you never thought it would be possible for you to see. The Ballet Russes formed by Diaghelev was never filmed (at his insistence) but here a clip which was recently found to great excitement in the British Pathe News archive has been identified as such. It shows a male lead doing some mean Grand Jetes in a blond wig once worn by Nijinsky, in front of  the froth of the Corps de Ballet in an open air performance during the annual Swiss La Fête des Narcisses at Montreux.
More wondrous peeps into the past from British Pathe include Hitler ranting and a Picasso show in 1966 with paintings being hung and Paloma Picasso , and Picasso himself in his studio-wondrous! At British Pathe you can view and buy films and still photographs from the archive of 90,000 videos covering newsreel, sports footage, social history documentaries, entertainment and music stories from 1896 to 1976.

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