BALLET
The Black Swan. (Festival Gardens, Battersea.) Tim first stereoscopic ballet-film ever to-be made is now showing at the Riverside Theatre in the Battersea Festival Gardens. The Black Swan, based on the pas de deux from Act III of Swan Lake, is an interesting experiment, and at this stage should only be judged in that light. My main impressions of the film are that it is of enormous value to students, for it gives them an opportunity for observing technical details in a way which is impossible over the footlights ; as was to be expected, Beryl Grey and John Field stood up splendidly to the exacting test imposed upon them by this new medium. Secondly, Black Swan confirms the fact that every medium imposes its own particular demands. I do not feel that any ballet composed for stage-production can, simply by having its story re-set, be ideal for filming either in the normal or three-dimensional method. And, finally, it seems to me to be aesthetically wrong to use film" close-ups "for anything to do with ballet. For a dancer— and in an even greater degree for a sculptor—the head, fe4t and hands are extremities which, however beautifully worked, are not sufficient unto themselves. It is essentially from the torso that the emotion and expressions emerge, and therefore it is an artistic error to focus the camera's attention upon any one part of a dancer's body, however interesting such a dissection may be to the student. But doubtless the producers are "well aware of the problems, and with experience will surmount them.
LILLIAN BROWSE.
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