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Video Reviews and News : ****Excellent ***Good **Ordinary *Poor : <i> Recent videocassette releases, reviewed by Times critics.</i>

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<i> Compiled by Terry Atkinson</i>

*** “Fonteyn and Nureyev: The Perfect Partnership”

Kultur. $39.95.

Balletomanes may already own the widely available performances excerpted here: “Romeo and Juliet,” “Les Sylphides,” the “Corsaire” pas de deux--plus, inevitably, “Marguerite and Armand.” What makes this adoring, 90-minute documentary treasurable are the archival TV clips (Fonteyn in 1937, for example), newsreel footage, home movies and interviews tracing the individual careers and celebrated, 17-year partnership of an aging symbol of British rectitude and a fiery young defector from the Soviet Union. Significantly, more people here seem to praise Nureyev’s bowing than his dancing, but the curtain-call shots do justify the enthusiasm. Better still: a rehearsal with Frederick Ashton of “Birthday Variations” and a tantalizing smidgen of Martha Graham’s “Lucifer.” Dreadful orchestral sound at times. Information: (213) 668-9123.

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