Ballet 422

A behind the scenes look at the concept, creation and choreography of a new ballet for the New York City Ballet. One the Corps members is tasked with the choreography and assisting the costume and lighting teams in creating a piece over several months. I enjoy documentaries and have seen several about the topic of ballet, if that is your wheelhouse you will enjoy it as well.

This was pretty disappointing. There is just not enough dance and too much filler (or cinema verite) as in:

• Justin Peck (choreographer) walking down empty corridors

• the orchestra being conducted

• too much on costume assemblage (there is footage of a washing machine)

• NYC subway stations

There is not much on the inspiration for the dance and the choreography; there is some perspiration (some short dancing scenes), but very little on the creative process. It's like seeing architects and engineers walking and talking, but never seeing the finished product(the building - in this case the dance).

For dancers only. Not for the audience. I pressed fast forward several times. Badly assembled and edited.

Ever seen a group of middle aged or even older Chinese mama sans doing the group dances in a town square or in a big empty space of a community park with loud music. Those women danced in uniform with lot of gestures of hands and body languages. What made those group Chinese dances so boring and disgusting to watch? Because those women just followed the music to do an uniformed dance without any essence or meaning to show anything else. It's just a group exercise, nothing more.

What we saw in Ballet 422 was exactly like what I've mentioned above. It's just a group exercise dance in uniform but without anything in it. Those dancers just followed the music tempo to move around but in all very poor form, the music itself was also a hollow meaningless mess. The angles of the dancers' hands, arms, legs, bodies were so messy, never in uniform. They were so busy to follow the music tempos to move, run, glide around but always in a messy forms. There's no story in it, no feeling in it, just like those Chinese old women's dances, the New York City Ballet just did a group exercise on stage with a live orchestra and controlled lighting.

The guy who designed this only paid attention to the techniques, the detailed movements of every dancer, and those dancers also danced like pre-programmed robots but never achieved the uniformity that was the most important requirement of a ballet program. The choice of the music was so bad without any meaning or story in it, just lot of notes changed either fast or slow, or faster or slower. I really don't know what's the purpose of asking so many professional dancers to do a totally meaningless ballet program. What I saw in this documentary was like watching a bunch of ballet students tried very hard to follow a meaningless music, practiced and practiced.

The young guy who choreographed this ballet program was a soul-less, feeling-less mechanic but definitely not an artist. After watching this documentary, it also showed that The New York City Ballet is a 3rd grade ballet company, it has so many mechanics, technicians and robotic dancers but with no soul or heart. It should be disbanded long time ago. If you don't know what I've described about the Chinese mama sans dancing, just go to youtube.com and take a look, then you might understand why and how this Ballet 422 was just a hollow mess.

From first rehearsal to world premiere, BALLET 422 takes us backstage at New York City Ballet as Justin Peck, a young up-and-coming choreographer, crafts a new work. BALLET 422 illuminates the process behind the creation of a single ballet within the ongoing cycle of work at one of the world's great ballet companies.

New York City Ballet, under the artistic direction of Ballet Master in Chief Peter Martins, boasts a roster of more than 90 elite dancers and a repertory of works by many of the greatest choreographers in the history of the art form. When 25-year-old NYCB dancer Justin Peck begins to emerge as a promising young choreographer, he is commissioned to create a new ballet for the Company's 2013 Winter Season. With unprecedented access to an elite world, the film follows Peck as he collaborates with musicians, lighting designers, costume designers and his fellow dancers to create Paz de la Jolla, NYCB's 422nd new ballet. BALLET 422 is an unembellished vérité portrait of a process that has never before been documented at New York City Ballet in its entirety.

I'm not a fan of ballet -- I've never been to a ballet. But I'm a huge fan of film. And I'm a documentary nerd. This documentary was perfect. I also have a high-level job in a high- pressure environment, so I was really fascinated by the intensity with which the key players prepared for the big premier. I found myself rewinding this film numerous times to re-watch scenes, because I was mesmerized by their beauty. My wife even came down and asked me, "What are you doing?"

The film does a wonderful job of showing all of the pieces that are necessary for putting together a ballet of the highest caliber. Like anything of excellence, it's hard friggin work, and somebody has to be in charge.

If you like film...and especially if you like ballet...this is a must see. Bravo.