A Midsummer Night’s Dream

(George Balanchine, Dan Eriksen, US 1967, 93 min., 35mm)

Choreography for Camera. A film recording of a famous 1962 two-act ballet choreographed by George Balanchine, one of the most celebrated choreographers of our time, based on the Shakespeare comedy. The ballet, through its themes of reality versus illusion, and change versus constancy, displays love in all its guises. In the first act there are dances of unrequited love and love that is reconciled. There is a pas de deux for the Fairy Queen Titania and Bottom, who has been turned into an ass—a perfect illustration in dance of the old proverb, “love is blind.” In the second act, which opens with Mendelssohn’s familiar Wedding March, there is a pas de deux representing ideal, untroubled love. Introduction by Douglas Crimp, Fanny Knapp Allen Professor of Art History, University of Rochester.