Vera Nemtchinova Katherine Healy Ballet Class Prelude 1979

Vera Nemtchinova giving Katherine Healy a private lesson in 1979 when Healy was ten years old. This shows some portions of barre work during the lesson, most of which Nemtchinova trained Healy to execute in the center without holding on to the barre as a matter of course. I chose bits of footage, left out the tendues and frappes, etc. The whole barre with the exception of the rondes en l'air was done in the center. Penchee went with the grand plies on each leg! She also made Healy test her balance at the barre--you can see her letting go of the barre sometimes during the ronde de jambes en l'air when she was on demi pointe. At the beginning, you can hear Nemtchinova talking about one of her own teachers saying something was like a hook that you open and close, but it is hard to make out the name of the teacher (something with a G--Gregor?). The variation is the Prelude from Chopiniana, or Les Sylphides (choreography by Michel Fokine) in its original version.

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Tags:

• Vera
• Nemtchinova
• Katherine
• Healy
• 10
• years
• old
• 1979
• Ballet
• Class
• Prelude
• Chopiniana
• Fokine

[TheJerrycitot]

Vera was the one and only completely trained dancer within Diaghilev's company, and she showed it - what a wonderful, completely perfect classical dancer she was - I saw her teach class in 1980 and she was still a wonder to behold. Thank you Serge and Vera.

[bluehydrangeaa]

@TheJerrycitot Yes, she was really something. This is very, very fine classical training, and very pure. Lucky if you could have that as your foundational training.

[TheNoirRouge]

the image is in black and white but the windows are blue...why?

[SLYCoopaEatsChicken]

she looks like a beautiful ballerina ghost her first is really high though

[suzannekatherine]

She looks like a little ghost in parts of this.

[svetaswan]

Oh - and it's so interesting to see the still images of "A Very Young Skater" (there were a couple of photos of her training with Nemtchinova in there) come to life - so many years later! As a young girl - I read "A Very Young Skater" over and over and over again, immersing myself in Katherine's world...

[sy586]

oh~ nice! Thanks~ ^-^

[trondergirl]

It is true that Healy had extraordinary technique at a very uoung age. She reminds me of a very young Francesca Corkle, who was also a precocious dancer. But I find myself wondering about the degree of economic privilege that made Healy's one-on-one coaching with Mentchinova possible. I'm very curious about how this came about.

[lollylamb1]

woah do you see the speed of her pirouettes!