Well worth the seven-year wait

The documentary about Marcelo Gomes, that is.

Anatomy of a Male Ballet Dancer opened the 45th annual Dance on Camera Festival at Lincoln Center on Friday evening where the crowd that packed the Walter Reade Theater included a few of Haglund’s most favorite ballerinas.

At the conclusion of this film, made by David Barba and James Pellerito over a seven-year span, there wasn’t much we didn’t know about Marcelo and there wasn’t much of him that we hadn’t seen. An exposing, revealing, unveiling, intimate portrait of one of American Ballet Theatre’s most theatrically gifted stars, Anatomy of a Male Ballet Dancer covered every inch of Marcelo from head to toe, from birth to the screening date, from inside out. How this documentary rose above most dancer documentaries in recent years, however, was in its honesty, authenticity in the dancing clips, and the woven-in family story that now carries impending drama into this spring's Met season.

Few balletomanes are aware that Marcelo’s father, from whom Marcelo became somewhat estranged following the divorce from his mother, has never been to New York to see his son in a leading role on the stages of Lincoln Center. Multiple times his father promised to visit but then cancelled his plans. The documentary broached this topic sensitively but thoroughly through individual interviews with Marcelo and his father, and with the two of them seated together. Their tears and the obvious difficulty of their words gripped the audience’s emotions.

During filming in Tokyo where Marcelo retired the role of Solor while guesting in La Bayadere with Diana Vishneva, he mentioned that it was another role that his father had not and now would never see him perform. While explaining the importance that the role of Albrecht holds for him and how it is the role that he eventually wants to retire in as a dancer (while clarifying not this year), Marcelo revealed that he had again extended an invitation, a plea to his father to come to the Met Opera House in May to see his 20th Anniversary performance in Giselle. As of the date of the film’s premiere screening, Marcelo’s father had not yet accepted the invitation although he had repeatedly verified the actual date of the performance through the filmmakers and had watched the documentary. Our fingers are crossed. Boy, that’s going to be some performance – devastating, regardless of what happens with this story line.

The documentary included breathtaking clips of Marcelo with Veronika Part dancing Swan Lake as guest artists in another part of the world. There was a clip of a Giselle rehearsal in Russia with Semionova in which there were major difficulties with the overhead lift in Act II, clips of Kings of the Dance, clips of Marcelo dancing with Vishneva, and endearing clips of Marcelo’s performances as a child.

Conspicuous by their absence, however, were clips of Marcelo dancing with his home company. Likely not the choice of either the filmmakers or Marcelo, the absence of any historical record of him dancing his greatest roles with ABT was shocking given the unfettered access that the company celebrina’s handlers have had to film her total performances and then use the footage for documentaries that are intended to enrich her and increase her celebrity.

At a Q&A following the screening, the filmmakers assured the audience that there would be a DVD available, but they could not say when, only hopefully sooner than seven years. It will be one to buy, that’s for sure.

 

Comments

[Angelica Smith]

Thank you for this wonderful review, Haglund. How insightful of you to pick up that there is no footage of Marcelo dancing in any ABT performance. Is this part of a parsimonious policy at ABT not to share their best dancers or a direct snub at Marcelo? Or something else?

[Haglund]

ABT under McKenzie has been stuck in the Ice Age as far as videoing its artists for the public's benefit. Given the large percentage of dreck that McKenzie has brought through the ranks as his stamp on the company, he may not want any videos of the company's truly great dancers such as Gomes, Part, Abrera, Lane, etc. to be available for comparison to his dreck that he pushes. Murphy, Corella and Cornejo got into that early Swan Lake video before McKenzie realized the problems it could cause with comparison to his future dismal dancers.

Also, there is the issue of the political special favors being paid to Misty Copeland in terms of allowing unfettered videoing and in terms of casting her far beyond her skill level to help her fake her historical importance and accomplishments--and then allowing it to be videoed and edited to create an alternative reality for her benefit.

[fb]

Misty in Romeo and Juliet with Roberto

[Ellen]

Gomes is the anti-Copeland if ever there was. He came across, both in the film and the Q&A, as the most humble, self-effacing ballet superstar around. May his body hold up and he continue to dance as long as he wishes.

[Haglund]

Totally agree, Ellen. I've still got my fingers crossed that someday, somehow, we'll have an opportunity to see him in MacMillan's Maylering.

[M&M]

Marcelo is in the swan lake video you mentioned above as the ballroom rothbart. Although not a leading role, we have records of the best Von R ABT has had. The bar is set high by Marcelo, and may not ever be surpassed.

[Haglund]

So true, M&M, AND the PdT in that Swan Lake video with Cornejo, Reyes & Cornejo is still the best, too.