Jerome Robbins' The Mistake Waltz

[thewayne]

I have increasingly become an admirer of ballet, and this one is amazing! How professional ballerinas, at the top of their game, can purposely make mistakes: I'll never know.

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[acelightning]

They're not making mistakes. They're performing a set of moves that they have carefully rehearsed to be other than what the audience expects to see. (After being litereally manhandled like inconvenient "props" by the male dancers in army fatigues.)

[thewayne]

I know they’re not mistakes, very carefully choreographed poses. I should have said purposely make moves that look like mistakes.

[acelightning]

You know what's even more difficult than that? Purposely singing or playing an instrument out of tune! (I have perfect pitch, and sour notes are almost physically painful to hear.)

[thewayne]

I can imagine!

[moonhare]

Cute! I’m amazed by the ease of the men’s moving the ballerinas about, by how the women can ‘plank’ or just be rag-doll flexible.

The ballet itself loosely reminded me of Robert Preston’s finale in Victor Victoria https://youtu.be/EV6-Fgfc7Lk

[acelightning]

What a well-done bit of "knockabout comedy" - and I wouldn't have suspected that Preston was capable of such. (Although in The Music Man he did have some moments.)

[moonhare]

I found movie to be extremely funny. Preston and Andrews were a fantastic team.

[thewayne]

I thought something in the audio of the video referenced 1954, which would place it nearer Music Man.  I'm not well-versed in choreography, but I love work like this!  I did love Dick Van Dyke and Buddy Ebson for their dancing, but they pretty much gave that up for straight acting.

[silveradept]

It's difficult, sometimes, to be the person whose choreography is different than everybody else's, and to be confident enough in appearing wrong that you sell the idea well enough to the audience.