Rubies PDD - Balanchine - 1960-2010s - McBride/Villella, Watts/Baryshnikov, Vishneva/Samodurov, ...

The first two recs were done during Balanchine's lifetime, the others many years later. The choreo of the 2nd rec is different from the 1st. Subsequent stagings are derived from the 2nd choreo, with a few shapes changed. The PDD isn't exclusively about shapes in motion, but it's a good deal about them. Dancers attempting Rubies better have very good plastique (among other things)...
1967 McBride/Villella
1979 Watts/Baryshnikov
early 2000's Vishneva/Samodurov
mid 2000's Golub/Fadeyev
2009 Dupont/Carbone
2010's Krysanova/Gudanov
2014/15 Makhateli/Wortmeyer
links to follow...

[@angele810]

The 1967 and 1979 performances are surprisingly much more modern than the subsequent ones.

[@robertarthur3889]

I went to the JEWELS celebration at Lincoln Center a few years ago. Bolshoi did Diamonds, Paris Opera did Emeralds and NYCB did Rubies. My favorite couple of the entire evening was the Rubies couple of Megan Fairchild and Joaquin De Luz, they were brilliant.

[@kimhaas7586]

Watts and Barishnikov are perfection here. Love Villela. The choreography on McBride isn’t quite edgy enough yet. Vishneva gets some things right but not others. DuPont looks like she likes her partner too much. Anyway, it’s fun to see how everyone interprets this.

[@asclepius3117]

To this day, McBride/Villella's dancing exemplarily conveys the intricacies of the Rubies choreography, the seemliness of the connections, the playful-high spirited feeling, Of course, Misha steals the show every time. I find Dupont/Fadeyev are interesting to watch. For all their technical prowess, the other pairs miss the nuances that make this ballet special, do not relate to each other they way that NYCB dancers do and sometimes lack musicality. My guess is that Balanchine would have been working with each of those couples for quite a while.

[@honeyjbc1]

Fascinating to watch. Of course the technique got better over time, but I can't say Rubies is always improved by that. Villella and McBride were the pace setters and I wish this could have been a better version or tape of them. They were impish, playful and were memorable. The others have their talents and some even do a good job, but I still have a passion for the originals. Baryshnikov was the greatest dancer I ever saw and no one touches him in my opinion and he did a good job here so far outside of his element. There are good moments of balance and grace and effortlessness that outdo the originals, for sure, but no one yet for me has done Rubies to my heart's content as well as McBride and Villella.

[@brendaannedufaur6244]

To honeyjbc1: what a balanced, excellent, and interesting comment.

[@avrevs]

misha 79 is so sleek and playful, and those leaps! he just floats in the air. i like him and mcbride as a duo. her en pointe is endless.

[@avesraggiana]

None of the men do the tour jeté step the way Villela did it. Otherwise my favourite was Baryshnikov. The Russians...I’ve got a love/hate relationship going with their way with Balanchine. In their Rubies, almost without exception, there’s a kind of over-produced slickness to their dancing that often tips over into smugness; a feeling of “anything you can do, we can do better.” I find it off putting. Not only that, their legato, preternaturally elegiac way with which they approach every choreography doesn’t serve them well Balanchine’s Rubies, a ballet that requires edginess, rubato, and a syncopated jazziness in execution. The whole piece has to crackle with electric, frenetic energy! Perhaps the Balanchine quality I miss most in the Russian essaying of almost all his choreography is a sense of daring, typified by that most daring of Balanchine ballerinas, Suzanne Farrell. But that’s a topic for another time.

[@chocolatesouljah]

Thanks for this summation.

[@marilynsitaker4198]

I've watched this through several times...there is something Baryshnikov does during his solo that none of the others do. A lowered brow, concavity of the torso--not quite sure how to describe it but I find it mesmerizing and definitely an enhancement to the choreography. He moves with such grace, whether his steps are quick or slow and weighted, and his poses so beautiful. What do others think? Of the female dancers I like McBride the best--fluid, strong.

[@gia2860]

Marilyn Sitaker m

[@pauljames130]

It's very likely got to do with his being trained in the Vaganova method. Or it could simply be his own response to the music.

[@Jayjen35]

I doubt very much it had anything to do with Vaganova. More likely it had to do with his own musicality and humor as well as his confidence and the fact he actually wanted to dance Balanchine's choreography the way Balanchine wanted it done.

[@makni1985]

Great World Dancers,With Great Choreography G.Balanchine....

[@michaelbrodsky1221]

Thanks so much. brings back lots of memories.

[@brendaannedufaur6244]

Thanks for the video

[@innerlight617]

Baryshnikov!Still unsurpassed!

[@Krasnogorsk_Ballet_School]

😍

[@MrMovieNovice]

What Villella and McBride do here is very modern. And it was meant to be that way. And it is the BEST performance. As we get closer to present day, dancers approach this choreography with too much reverence for the choreography and spend too much time vamping each other and the audience. It is off-putting and removes the audience from the dance and places our attention squarely on the dancer - exactly where our attention SHOULD NOT BE. This dance is about movement to music is its most abstract/classical ballet fashion. It is Balanchine's idea of American dance juxtaposed against classical forms from Europe (Diamonds and Emeralds). However, modern day performances of this piece have lost their connections with the true contrasts of other styles of ballet. And it all becomes the same. And derivatively uninteresting. Even New York City Ballet can no longer perform Rubies with any distinction from any other dance in the triptych or any other Balanchine ballet for that matter.

[@brendaannedufaur6244]

M Griffin, your comments are very interesting and knowledgeable. Do i understand you to say that current NYBC dancers dance Rubies and Emeralds Diamonds and all other balanchine works in the same style or the same way so nothing looks different? What are they doing wrong specifically and how can they fix it. I think it was former Balanchine dancer John Clifford who said a similar thing. I think he even used the word kitch. Thanks alot.

[@brendaannedufaur6244]

@@navarrebrixen2213 Navarre Brixen, I think you misunderstood M Griffin's comments. Everybody knows Balanchine changed steps to suit ertain dancers. And sometimes dancers were upset by this because they liked the original steps better. I think M Griffin was saying that the ballets and sections of Jewels are performed now in the same style so offering not enough of the contrast originally intended by Balanchine. It becomes a different ballet piece almost. And i think i know what M. Griffin meant by saying the attention to the steps and movement is the intention rather than the dancer. I dont think he was talking about not wanting the dancers to have their own unique style. I disagree that it is okay for a ballet to "evolve". Dancers under Balanchine know what his intention was, not us, and they know how vital it was to keep that intention and save the integrity of the ballet. If you go past the intention of style etc you have diminished and altered that which should not have been diminshed and altered.

[@Qacc6]

Wow the Russians never once made the beat.

[@user-bh4ym3zj6s]

А как же Миша.?

[@BytomGirl]

There is only one more performance of Rubies that I like as much and danced in a similar style, very playfully .. Tsiskaridze and Nioradze..

[@lorakarlash248]

poor performance (

[@sanniepstein4835]

If they'd just allow the men some dignity, and not put them in those froggy white tights, ballet would be better.

[@blender_wiki]

If they'd just allow the men some dignity avoiding ignorant comments

[@olmairamai]

Ballet is not about dignity or tights