Watching Connie Hochman's film I was reminded of something that Balanchine once said, "Only God creates, I assemble." Hochman's film is a wonderful and fascinating assembly of dance footage, Balanchine's classes and interviews with those who danced his ballets and took his classes, most notably Merrill Ashley, Jacque d'Amboise, Gloria Govrin, Edward Villella and Suki Shorer (who wrote a definitive book: Suki Shorer on Balanchine Technique). I remarked to Susan that I was disappointed that there was so little shown of Balanchine's classes and she replied that she was pleased there was so much. It's interesting to me that the dancers compared Balanchine to Einstein, Picasso and Mozart when most people have never heard of him, ballet still being a mysterious art to many. I wonder who would be most likely to enjoy this marvelous film: those who never heard of Balanchine would probably be mystified by it and those of us who know his work well probably will not hear or see anything new, as much as we enjoy the previously unseen footage. One can't get inside the mind of a genius and Balanchine's comments in class and in interviews were often cryptic, as he emphasized speed, precision, and musicality with metaphors and obscure references for dancers to absorb. It is clear from the footage that we do get to see that Balanchine quickly could grasp what each dancer could and couldn't do and would often adjust the choreography appropriately.
Most of the dancers who are interviewed are licensed by the Balanchine Trust as repetiteurs, i.e., they go all over the world to stage Balanchine ballets; there is interesting footage of them working with young dancers, passing on their knowledge. There are also a number of companies that are now run by former New York City Ballet dancers who worked with Balanchine, in San Francisco, Seattle and other cities; many Balanchine ballets will survive. I did miss hearing from Suzanne Farrell, who revived many ballets for her company in Washington, D. C. (I finally got to see Balanchine's marvelous Don Quixote there) and Peter Martins was apparently not interviewed, though he appeared several times in Hochman's film in archival footage; I think Hochman intelligently wanted to focus on Balanchine and didn't want to get involved in former or current controversies.
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