Uploaded September 2017 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
vimeo.com/234483531
This pas de deux from Act 3 of Sir Frederick Ashton's 'La Fille Mal Gardee' for the Royal Ballet is such a gentle sweet loving pastoral ... it just stops me dead in my emotional tracks every time I see it. And most particularly when Michael Coleman and Leslie Collier are the principals, as I used to see them in these roles as a kid at Covent Garden. So some serious self-indulgence on my part!
I love the delicious match of choreographic invention to the music, particularly the 'explosives' of the movement to the cymbals at 3.33min, which make me recall Ashton not being ashamed to say he loved the big theatrical gesture, in reference to some porte de bras he observed as a child back in Peru in a performance given by Anna Pavlova.
And I love the interactive sculptural quality of the positions of the two dancers at 1.38min - sublime, and expressive too ... of their love.
And the several quickening phrases in the music so beautifully realised in the changing tempi and character of the movement - at and after 2.17min. Yum!
And adorable how Lise bourees into position against Colas and rests her head on his shoulder at 2.35min - a faint echo of that similar gesture in the pas de deux of Act 2 of 'Swan Lake'?
Even the throwing of confetti over the lovers seems a right way to round off the pas de deux!
I could literally go on (and on) about this performance - so I suggest you just go and watch it, as I'm about to do again!
Enjoy!
vimeo.com/234483531
This pas de deux from Act 3 of Sir Frederick Ashton's 'La Fille Mal Gardee' for the Royal Ballet is such a gentle sweet loving pastoral ... it just stops me dead in my emotional tracks every time I see it. And most particularly when Michael Coleman and Leslie Collier are the principals, as I used to see them in these roles as a kid at Covent Garden. So some serious self-indulgence on my part!
I love the delicious match of choreographic invention to the music, particularly the 'explosives' of the movement to the cymbals at 3.33min, which make me recall Ashton not being ashamed to say he loved the big theatrical gesture, in reference to some porte de bras he observed as a child back in Peru in a performance given by Anna Pavlova.
And I love the interactive sculptural quality of the positions of the two dancers at 1.38min - sublime, and expressive too ... of their love.
And the several quickening phrases in the music so beautifully realised in the changing tempi and character of the movement - at and after 2.17min. Yum!
And adorable how Lise bourees into position against Colas and rests her head on his shoulder at 2.35min - a faint echo of that similar gesture in the pas de deux of Act 2 of 'Swan Lake'?
Even the throwing of confetti over the lovers seems a right way to round off the pas de deux!
I could literally go on (and on) about this performance - so I suggest you just go and watch it, as I'm about to do again!
Enjoy!
