Mr. B’s Expanding Video Legacy

When the first five titles in the groundbreaking VHS “Ballanchine Library” were released last summer by Nonesuch home video, Joan Acocella wrote in the Village Voice that “you can throw out all your grainy, third-generation tapes of PBS’ ‘Choreography by Balanchine.’ ”

Sorry, Joan, better hold onto them. Five more Balanchine tapes are now out, making the Nonesuch “Balanchine Library” the largest compilation of any choreographer’s work on the video market. But the new releases offer nearly as many weaknesses as strengths, and “Choreography by Balanchine, Part 2, “ the oldest and rarest tape, has been edited for questionable reasons.

Missing are the original introductions to the ballets (written by Arlene Croce and spoken by Edward Villella) and a 5 1/2-minute “Rubies” pas de deux (part of a suite from “Jewels”), danced by Patricia McBride and Robert Weiss.

Barbara Horgan, administrator of the Balanchine estate, said that Balanchine and his two dancers disliked the “Rubies” excerpt on the 1977 telecast. “It didn’t work, so we took it out,” she explained recently.

You might consider this decision enlightened curatorship, but why not apply the same standards to other tapes in the series? For instance, why let Nilas Martins’ wretched Apollo remain on the 1993 “Balanchine Celebration, Part 1” if the operative philosophy is the one Horgan explains?

Moreover, if the Croce-Villella introductions must be cut so the ballets can “stand on their own” (in the words of Nonesuch President Robert Hurwitz), why not delete Robert MacNeil’s explanatory blather from both “Celebration” tapes?

Of the five new titles, only the 1977 PBS “Choreography 2” was shot under Balanchine’s supervision. The two 1993 PBS “Celebration” tapes (souvenirs of the New York City Ballet Balanchine Festival that year) document declining standards of Balanchine dancing at the New York State Theatre under Peter Martins’ directorship. Indeed, guests from London, Paris, San Francisco and other New York companies consistently outclass the home team here.

Finally, two new episodes in the planned nine-part “Balanchine Essays” look at Mr. B. as teacher, adapting the classical steps and positions he learned in Russia to reflect the energy and athleticism of his new homeland.

Like their predecessors, all these “Library” titles are available separately at $29.97 each (list price).

Choreography by Balanchine, Part 2: Selections from “Jewels” (with Merill Ashley, Bonita Boren, Daniel Duell, Gerard Ebitz, Sean Lavery, Karin von Aroldingen, Heather Watts, Suzanne Farrell, Peter Martins) and “Stravinsky Violin Concerto” (complete with Bart Cook, Martins, Kay Mazzo, Von Aroldingen). Directed by Merrill Brockway. 56 minutes.

Without the modernistic contrast of “Rubies” midway through, the effect of “Jewels” changes. Now “Emeralds” flows directly into “Diamonds,” highlighting their similarities, including the stately, measured walking passages in both works--walking of unearthly nobility.

Brockway keeps his camera high for “Emeralds,” highlighting the formal geometry in the choreography. No longer a surprise Balanchine bonus, the mysterious final septet (created especially for the telecast) remains a luminous statement of loss and yearning.

“Stravinsky Violin Concerto” represents one of the towering achievements of ballet on television, with Balanchine, Stravinsky, Brockway and this cast all at their peak. But the tiny, intense Mazzo is the revelation now, if only because she’s rarely spoken of in the hushed tones accorded other Balanchine ballerina-muses.

Even abridged, this is an indispensable dance video.

The Balanchine Celebration, Part 1: Selections from “Apollo” (with Zhanna Ayupova, Patricia Barker, Isabelle Guerin, Nilas Martins): “Scherzo a la Russe” (complete with Helene Alexopoulos, Diana White); “Theme and Variations” (with Darci Kistler, Igor Zelensky); “Union Jack” (with Leonid Koslov, Damian Woetzel, Maria Calegari); “Vienna Waltzes” (with Calegari, Lindsay Fischer, Adam Luders, Kyra Nichols, Alexandre Proia, Stephanie Saland, Simone Schumacher, Jock Soto, Watts, Erlends Zieminch); “Walpurgisnacht Ballet” (with Nichols, Nichol Hinka, Ben Huys). Directed by Matthew Diamond, 86 minutes.

Devoted to the so-called “Russian” and “European” Balanchine, this live performance boasts guest artists galore--none finer than the Paris Opera Ballet’s Legris in an impossibly majestic performance of a solo from “Square Dance.”

Woetzel brings his throwaway brilliance to the “Union Jack” festivities (though he’s better showcased in “Stars and Stripes” on Part 2) and the mis-partnered Kistler and Guerin demonstrate deluxe grace under pressure. Nichols and Saland lend their radiance to the occasion as well, but it’s hard to validate Balanchine’s mythic musicality from the performances of some excerpts (“Union Jack” and “Walpurgisnacht Ballet” in particular) on view here.

The Balanchine Celebration, Part 2: Selections from “Agon” (with Peter Boal, Darcey Bussell, Albert Evans, Fischer, Arch Higgins, Zippora Karz, Kathleen Tracey, Wendy Whelan); “Stars and Stripes” (with Margaret Tracey, Woetzel, Gen Horiuchi, Katrina Killiam, Teresa Reyes); “Western Symphony” (with Susan Jaffe, Nikolaj Hubbe); “Who Cares?” (with Jeremy Collins, Viviana Durante, Judith Fugate, Robert LaFosse, Lourdes Lopez, Elizabeth Loscavio, Ronald Perry, Melinda Roy, Soto, Watts). Directed by Diamond. 86 minutes.

This survey of the “American” Balanchine finds a potentially electric Jaffe-Hubbe partnership in “Western Symphony” weakened by his exaggerated goofiness, but a sense of high occasion mixed with disarming sweetness comes from Perry and Loscavio (in different segments of the guest-laden “Who Cares?”), plus, of course, the Royal Ballet’s serenely authoritative Bussell in the pas de deux from “Agon.” This Balanchine-Stravinsky masterwork also produces the sharpest dancing by the host company on either tape--especially from Boal, Evans and Whelan.

As on Part 1, Diamond clips off the dancers’ toes by framing too tightly, but his switches between cameras are musical in timing and restrained in number.

The Balanchine Essays: Port de Bras and Epaulement, with Ashley, Suki Schorer. Directed by Brockway. 43 minutes.

“Mr. Balanchine took the classical, academic port de bras...[and gave it] a new freedom and beauty,” Schorer says at the beginning of this incisive classroom demonstration of the choreographer’s use of the upper limbs and shoulders. “He said we have elbows that bend and wrists that move and fingers that move, and when you move your arms you should be aware of and use all that.”

Rich in anecdote, the tape clarifies details of Balanchine style and technique in a manner the nonspecialist viewer can easily grasp and enjoy. Arm positions and movements are defined in terms of “hugging a tree,” “parting a curtain” and “taking off a sweater,” and brief ballet excerpts isolate these movements within major choreographic statements. Invaluable as an explanation of why Balanchine dancers look different from all others.

The Balanchine Essays: Passe’ and Attitude, with Ashley, Schorer. Directed by Brockway. 45 minutes.

These video essays were never intended as a self-help course (“How to Dance Balanchine at Home in Your Spare Time”). But you’d never know it from this one, which focuses so intently on calculating and perfecting minute limb alignments, it will interest ballet students more than anyone else.

To begin with, most viewers will gain nothing from combining on the same tape the discussion of attitude (a balance on one leg, with the other raised in back, its knee bent at a 90-degree angle) and passe’ (a movement in which the toe of the working leg passes the knee of the supporting leg--and also a pose freezing this toe-knee relationship).

Moreover, this tape tells us very little about the ways Balanchine reinvented the academic vocabulary and isn’t well-organized enough to make the connection between classroom exercises and ballet excerpts deepen our understanding.