DVD/Videos: Valse Fantasie?

[ABTBluebird]

Hi!

 

Our school is going to present Balanchine's Valse Fantasie in January. Someone from the Balanchine Trust is coming to stage it. I am going to be in it, but I don't know anything about the ballet. I have looked online and in my Balanchine books) for information, including on the NYCB website. I am confused because there seem to be two ballets called Valse Fantasie. Apparently one is older (a 1953 version). One of them has three girls and one male dancer and the girls "swirl around in perpetual motion." In the newer ballet there seems to be only a female dancer and a male dancer.

 

My question is: What exactly is the difference between these two ballets? How many people are in each? Do these people perform variations? Is there a corpse and then a main couple? I want to have some information on the ballet before coming into my first rehearsal. What is the dancing in it like?

 

I wish I could find a video of it, but our library doesn't have one. And of course I can't find anything online.

 

Any information would be great!

 

Thank You

[rg]

there are no commercial videos of this ballet in either version.

find a copy of REPERTORY IN REVIEW and you'll be able to read about each version.

CHOREOGRAPHY BY BALACHINE might also help a bit, but it would have fewer descriptive passages.

in VF '53 all three ballerinas dance a solo as does the male partner; in the later version, there is a central couple, with the man and woman dancing solo and together; an ensemble of four corps de ballet women frames the leads, but none of these four dances an individual solo.

[dancemaven]

Is there a corpse and then a main couple?

 

Oh, dear!