Product Details

• Actors: Karen Kain; The National Ballet of Canada
• Format: Classical, Color, Digital Sound, Dolby, Full length, Full Screen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: Unrated
• Studio: VIEW Inc.
• DVD Release Date: November 30, 2005
• Run Time: 86 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000CNEYXY
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #105,872 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Library Journal
"This film captures the inspiration, hard work, artistry, creativity and cooperation that combine to create magic in the theater."

Product Description
This feature-length documentary goes behind the scenes at The National Ballet of Canada to witness the seemingly magical process of creating a major ballet production. MAKING BALLET captures the drama within a drama - the making of "The Actress." Set to Chopin's Preludes, this ballet was created by world famous choreographer James Kudelka for prima ballarina Karen Kain. MAKING BALLET will delight film buffs as well as beginners and aficionados of the art form. 88 minutes. Bonus DVD features include a Karen Kain biography, filmmaker Anthony Azzopardi biography, stage director James Kudelka biography and "About the Ballet, 'The Actress'."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A common man's point of view., December 9, 2008

By	Richard Rawls "The Appliance Doctor" (Dublin Ga USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As you read my reviews, you will learn that I know very little about ballet, except that the music, sets, costumes ,and especially the dancers, are so very beautiful. Actually, the beauty of it all is quite enough, but I want to know a little about what it takes to put all that beauty on the stage.

I bought "Making Ballet" to learn more about the art of ballet. Another reason, is to see Karen Kain again. I only have one ballet in which she is the star, that being "Giselle" with her partner Frank Augustyn. Do you have her Giselle? Adam - Giselle / Karen Kain, Frank Augustyn, National Ballet of Canada If not, you owe it to yourself to get it. Read my review on Giselle w/Karen Kain.

In "Making Ballet", One sees that behind all the beauty on the stage, there is hard hard work, pain, and sometimes career ending injury involved. No one was injured that badly, but you could see scrapes and bruises on their feet and legs, though, we never see that on stage, do we? Karen and her choreographer James Kudelka are featured in the making of the ballet "The Actress" by the National Ballet of Canada. The ballet is choreographed to the music of Fredrick Chopin and about 25 of his Preludes. We are not told which preludes, because View Video is as stingy with information as Kultur is with theirs. It seems to be a biography of an actress (Karen Kain) as she progresses through her career, her trials and tribulations. I don't know if it is a true biography or not, but one scene shows where some one broke into her dressing room and attacked her. The music to that scene is Chopin's "Revolution" Etude. Very exciting music to a violent encounter with an intruder. I would like to see this ballet (The Actress), but I have not seen it advertised anywhere.

If you too want to see what goes on behind the scenes of making a ballet you should get this DVD. One thing that is obvious to us is, these people have a lot of FUN when they are creating a new ballet. Karen makes the point that her "life was not as dramatic or sexy or funny every day as it is in this piece, but still, it's based on a lot of true things about my world and about what I experienced and have experienced. So I would say it's about 50/50 recall and imagination to create this character". She was 43 when she made this film. She was still very beautiful and still is for that matter. She retired from the stage in 1996 but she is still very much "into" ballet. -------Richard.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars See How Karen Kain and Her Colleagues of the National Ballet of Canada Rehearse., January 21, 2006

By	J. M WILINSKY (teaneck, NJ United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In this ballet documentary we get to watch the choreographer, James Kudelka, work with Karen Kain and others to develop and rehearse the ballet "The Actress", which was created for her. Many of the pas de deux rehearsals are covered, as well as costume fittings, and even company ballet class is shown. Karen Kain is one of the world's great ballerinas and this documentary offers a wonderful opportunity to see her "up close". Be sure to add this to your ballet documentary library!