Educational Media Reviews Online

I highly recommend Marius Petipa: The French Master of Russian Ballet as it does an excellent job explaining the influence French ballet choreographer, Marius Petipa, had on classical ballet and how his influence still shapes modern/contemporary ballet.

This film uses interview footage from modern ballet choreographers, dancers, and musicians to talk about the influence Petipa had on ballet as well as a narration style to go into more detail of specific key points. Using professionals and scholars to explain the role Petipa had on ballet makes this film very informative. The wording is very easy to understand and not too many terms that are ballet specific are used, or if they are, they are explained very well. You do not have to know much about ballet to understand and appreciate this film.

There is enough background to understand how Petipa took on the role of head choreographer for the Russian Imperial Ballet. Through his time in that role, he had a few key performances that made his style very successful and spread throughout the world. He also used social and political implications in his choreography.

Petipa's style was very precise and required a high level of technique. Modern ballet is more fluid. The discussion of modern choreographers and modern ballerinas trying to dance in this style is fascinating. Because of the time when Petipa was creating his performances, there was no method to pass down the choreography expect through collective memory or "From one leg to another." The evolution from classical ballet to modern ballet stems from this collective memory style of sharing the choreography to new dances. One great part of this film is seeing some of the few written choreography manuscripts of Petipa. Every angle, movement, and small detail was captured, but scholars have to break down and understand this classical ballet "language" to help modern ballerinas try to dance in this very precise and technical style.

Overall, this film was informative to this history of Petipa as well as classic ballet. This film can be enjoyed by everyone and hopefully, everyone will have a new appreciation of ballet.

Awards:

Standout Film Award, International Festival of Audiovisual Programmers (FIPADOC) 2019