Jean-Luc Godard once called Ingmar Bergman’s Summer Interlude (1951), “the most beautiful of films”. Bergman himself said that “Summer Interlude is one of my most important films. Even though to an outsider it may seem terribly passé”. This classic film is anything but “passé”. It’s based on a tragic love story that mirrors a well-known ballet: Swan Lake. It tells the story of a Swedish prima ballerina, Marie, who recalls a youthful affair she had with a young man, Henrik, during rehearsals for Swan Lake.

Summer Interlude is the product of Bergman’s unique imagination and particular cinematic style. He is known for using the aesthetic of black and white in often highly symbolic ways. The film is not simply shot in black and white, but is thematically structured according to the symbolism of light and dark. On the one hand, this mirrors the thematic distinction drawn between the white and black swan in Swan Lake. But Bergman takes things further by suggesting that the aesthetic of light and dark is part of a wider philosophy of love and loss. As the dancers move through shadows and light on stage, they become emblems of the precariousness of life, expressing one of the central ideals of Bergman’s cinema: the need to feel art and ideas through the body.

Marie too is drawn into this aesthetic logic of light and dark. For her, life is series of black and white contrasts. Her love affair during her youthful summer is compared to a lustrous white pearl, while her sense of loss is expressed through her dancing body encased in a black leotard, which her dance-master compares to a series of black lines on the stage. She is undeniably one of the most classic ballet heroines, adorned in classic 1950s attire, like a ballerina version of Audrey Hepburn: trench coats, black turtlenecks, white shirts and high-waisted cigarette pants. Like the film, her simple wardrobe is something that will never become “passé”.

A peek into Marie’s classic wardrobe:

Toast fine-wool cigarette trouser

Toast polka-dot Bather

Theory Orencia tie-front silk blouse

A.P.C. short trench coat

A.P.C. crew-neck pullover in sheer knit

Tiffany pearl earrings

Set to Phillip Glass’s impassioned String Quartet No. 3, (Mishima): IV. 1962: Body Building, Peck’s ballet unfolds to the billowing shapes and textures created by Chloe’s Spring/Summer 2011 collection, with the dance artfully shot from different angles to showcase what Peck describes as the multidimensional aspects of performance on camera. Finely-pleated dresses in crepe jersey, mousseline and soft viscose fabrics unfurl and flow to Taylor’s graceful, sweeping movements, creating an airborne vision of ballet

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Dynamic Blooms channels the spirit of ballet in all its ardent, blazing splendour. The editorial and accompanying film for Another Magazine’s 10th Anniversary are so true to their title that the term ‘foliate haute couture’ was artfully applied. Photographer Nick Knight casts model Monica Jagaciak as a blooming flower, the effect created by a glorious interplay of colour and soaring movement. There is little actual dance; rather, the illusion of motion is created using held poses, fast-cut edits and the transformative powers of a wind machine. The relationship between the wearer and her garments – ruffled tulle gowns, kaftans and ball gowns by luminary designers including Valentino, Bottega Veneta and McQueen – flourishes as she freefalls through yards of billowing, petal-like fabric.

Iconic dance maker Pina Bausch and her long-time friend, film maker Wim Wenders, had been talking about making a film together for 20 years. Finally, with the advent of 3D filmmaking technology, Wenders saw a medium that could justifiably “capture the immediacy, physicality and contagiousness of Pina’s art”. Bausch’s death in 2009 (just before filming was to commence) almost dictated an unfortunate fate for their project, but Wenders eventually agreed to proceed as a means of coming to terms with his grief at the sudden loss. With Bausch’s disciples – her dancers at Tanztheater Wuppertal – he embarked upon the creation of a tribute to their leader, and a journey of healing.

Such a deeply personal purpose for making a film is apt when it concerns Pina Bausch. Using ‘dance theatre’, a unique fusion of dance, often-surreal theatrics and drama, Bausch was one of the foremost dance innovators of the 20th century. Renowned for her visceral depiction of humans and their relationships, her core themes of love, loneliness, angst and hope resonate with audiences universally.

Bausch was perhaps equally renowned for the eclectic group of dancers she chose to work for her; each dancer was utterly important, and she was meticulous in choosing them, from all over the world, younger and older. This was because the crux of Bausch’s choreographic process was the exploration of the depths of the individual dancer’s personality – to the extent that when she was creating a new work, no one but the required dancers and Bausch herself was allowed in the studio. She asked the dancers questions (“What are you longing for? Where does all this yearning come from?”) and their answers would manifest in movement, their bodies eloquently articulating previously unknown vocabulary. The conversation’s conclusion was the discovery of beautiful qualities that the dancers themselves were unaware they possessed. Their body’s language would, therefore, be formed by their own experiences, so in performance the audience could be moved by the expression of human emotion in its most raw and honest state. “I don’t care how they move, I want to know what moves them,” Bausch famously said. Wenders muses that the communication of “this existential urge that they have found is what is so touching for us as viewers.” Wenders himself says that he was brought to tears the first time he saw one of Bausch’s works.

It is appropriate then that the study of these individual dancers is the pulse of the film. We meet each dancer in front of a plain black screen, seated and motionless but for their faces, keenly etched with personal narrative, as their pre-recorded voice shares, in their mother tongue, their memory of Bausch. We are then taken to a scene of the dancer in an excerpt from one of Bausch’s pieces, many of them in a surreal urban landscape, like a traffic island in a busy intersection or onboard one of Wuppertal’s famous monorail carriages – reflective of Bausch’s belief that “dance is everywhere”.

There are also onstage excerpts from some hallmark works like her Rite of Spring (surely the most impressive part of the film in terms of the success of the 3D element, with the camera immersed onstage, participating in the action – even appropriating a dancer’s eye view), Cafe Müller and Full Moon. One of the dancers in the film tells us that Bausch saw her dancers as paints, each playing a vital role in colouring and illustrating her work – so the film’s format echoes this ethos, creating an artwork itself that vividly captures the spirit of Bausch’s art. With each dance excerpt, we are not just confronted with the dancer’s story. With the aid of 3D technology, we are absorbed in it. It’s far from self-indulgent, though; the dancer’s expression of their personal experience and story provokes a connection with the dancer, and thus a connection with our own deepest emotions. Bausch’s belief that dance was the most faithful way of communicating and expressing emotion can be appreciated more clearly with this format, too; each dancer’s memories are shared with words in their mother tongue, and we understand what they’re saying with the help of subtitles. But when they dance, the language is universal. “Words,” she used to say, “just evoke”. Bausch’s dance, even her most devastating pieces, brings us closer together. She makes us look into ourselves and realise that we all face the same existential challenges, and it’s the way in which we construe them and seek out their meaning that makes us individual, and is the very essence of life itself.

Dance, for Pina Bausch, is simply the most true and complete vocabulary any human can use to express. Our body’s instinct to move is a response to our primal urges and has the potential to be an articulation of our innermost selves. And anyone can experience it – even vicariously, as any dance lover can attest to as their heart dances in sympathy with the dancer they are watching onstage.  Or perhaps this dance is more pedestrian; walking hand-in-hand with your partner, moving in sync, hearts beating in tandem, energising each other through the sense of touch. At the end of the film, the significance of its subtitle and Pina’s famous mantra: “dance, dance, otherwise we are lost” is clear. Dance is life. Life is dance. And we are all dancers.

When Nic Briand and Susien Chong, the creative duo behind Australian label Lover, asked if we’d be interested in partnering with them on their latest collection video, A Dance For One, much jumping up and down with excitement ensued. A natural extension of our ongoing ‘Ballet v Fashion’ collaboration with Australia’s top designers, this project would see one of our dancers model Lover’s latest collection of ballet-inspired treats. Senior Artist Amber Scott was the lucky ballerina who spent a weekend filming with Lover and The Aeon, who were also responsible for Lover’s 2010 film The Harvest, starring Australian actress Sophie Lowe.

The process was on organic one, with Lover providing the overall theme and mood boards to set the scene. It was a true collaboration in the sense that the piece was choreographed entirely on the day by Amber, who used the beautiful clothes as inspiration for the fluid movement, creating shapes that would enhance both body and the collection. Gorgeous silks, delicate laces and a nude palette create a seductive synergy with Amber as she dances for one.

Lover’s latest collection is in store now.

Mader says that Time Doesn’t Stand Still explores the idea of a ‘universal language’, expressed through the simple storyline of a couple’s courtship and Millepied’s intimate choreography. With the added simplicity of sparse French dialogue and a classic aesthetic borrowed from Ralph Lauren’s current collections by stylist Aleksandra Woroniecka, the film uses dance movements to represent the gestures of love as a form of universal ‘speech’. The highlight of the film is the couple’s late-night tango, which expresses through dance what does not need to be spoken in love. Like this tango, the film as a whole is an accumulation of gestures, movements and bodily expression that transcend spoken words.

Millepied’s collaborative venture with Mader is similar to his choreography in Black Swan, which has the same evocative tone. In both films, psychological and emotional states are expressed through the body as it moves in dance, suggesting an unspoken internal language. They are films that make even the simplest gestures, such as a scratch on the shoulder or clasped hands, seem fascinating.

Mader and Millepied have premiered a short excerpt of Time Doesn’t Stand Still online, with the full version expected to be released later on in 2011.

While I don’t believe that Darren Aronofsky’s film Black Swan should be understood simply as ballet film, and certainly not as an accurate depiction of the ballet world, being familiar with the setting did make it easier for me to relate to some of its themes – and I’m not talking about the split toenails and bone crunching.

It was during barre this morning, as I went through my daily negotiation of various kinks, knotted muscles and long-term physical imbalances, that I realised the extent to which Aronofsky probes and articulates a theme that is truly pertinent for ballet dancers: perfectionism. I wondered: what is perfection? Is the quest for perfection futile, or even worthwhile? How far will a perfectionist go to attain their ideal?

I glanced around the studio at the 20-odd dancers in that class, and could safely say that every one of them, including yours truly, is a perfectionist. That would imply that each one of them believes in the existence of perfection. But each would perceive perfection differently. A good thing too; it would be destructive if each dancer, so completely distinct in their physical and artistic strengths, was aspiring to exactly the same ideal. Not superficial ideals, like becoming a principal artist and getting to dance Giselle, but a uniform ideal of the perfect dancer.

Black Swan opens with the central character, Nina (Natalie Portman), a naive corps de ballet dancer, dreaming about dancing the Swan Queen in Swan Lake, as porcelain-perfect as the obediently twirling ballerina in her jewellery box. The presentation of this rigid, pre-conceived ideal almost devalues the idea of perfectionism. Sure, what aspiring young dancer wouldn’t want to dance an immaculate Swan Queen (especially in that stunning Rodarte costume)? I certainly had plenty of pictures of lone, pink-clad ballerinas in idealistic sun-dappled studios lining my childhood bedroom walls. But what a dancer learns very quickly, when they get to an age where they must take training seriously, is that the path to that jewellery box, pastel-perfect dream is stained with blood, sweat and tears.

Aronofsky records with explicit, startling intimacy this side of ballet, with close-ups amplifying the heavy breathing, magnifying the perspiration, highlighting the physical exertion, at times, yes, exaggerating the painful aspects (dancer’s feet are an endless source of fascination for filmmakers), but portraying in a beautifully raw light the artist at work. But it is made apparent that Nina is never content – always solemn, frustrated and overly studious. Constantly at the mercy of her superficial ideal, her impressionability and external motivators, how can she even hope for happiness? She is clearly a troubled soul, out of touch with her inner self and a realistic ideal.

With more experience and exposure to the work of different choreographers, performers and creative minds, a dancer’s ideal can, over time, shift and evolve. In the film, the artistic director of the company, Thomas (Vincent Cassel) gives Nina some sage advice: “Perfection is not just about control, it is also about letting go.” Letting go, becoming receptive to experience, stepping out of her comfort zone – ultimately, acknowledging her own humanness – are foreign notions to the pedantically vigilant Nina. Another dancer, Lily (Mila Kunis), embodies Nina’s antithesis: carefree, sensual, experienced and expressive. When Thomas becomes overtly approving of Lily’s dancing and taunts Nina’s frigidity, her ideal shifts to this enigmatic spirit.

Aronofsky suggests that we all need to temper our search for perfection with reason and an acknowledgement of our own idiosyncrasies. My childhood fantasies of dancing nothing but the Sugar Plum Fairy were soon replaced by aspirations formed more pragmatically as I became aware of my strengths and weaknesses as a dancer. I became inspired by new experiences; I fell in love with the art of storytelling, of transcending mere acrobatics and moving hearts and minds. Performances by Sydney Dance Company in the 1990s, old videos of Margot Fonteyn and newer ones of Alessandra Ferri, along with my own realisation that I was never going to be a 32-fouette, technical-trickery type dancer, led me to a fresh pursuit for an ideal that, for me, is ultimately more attainable: in essence, a betterment of myself. It’s dangerous trying to be someone you’re not, and Black Swan illustrates this notion in its most extreme form: Nina doesn’t just let go, she spirals out of control.

Every day we grind it out in the studio in a continual effort to perfect our technique. I’ve written before about this constant striving for the ostensibly unattainable – for an intangible end product. It’s a source of frustration for all dancers, but paradoxically, it’s also what maintains our motivation and passion. Nina’s exploration of ‘letting go’ is dramatised as a series of nightmarish hallucinations; she becomes so deluded in the fanatical pursuit of this new ideal that facing these ‘demons’ isn’t enough: she has to inhabit them. She literally becomes the Black Swan onstage, starring in the climactic mad scene of her own distortion of the Swan Lake fairytale, realising a slanted vision of glory for all the wrong reasons.

In such an insular world as ballet, and with such a relentless workload, there’s a danger of losing perspective; that’s why it’s important to maintain a balanced life. I’ve often discussed this with other dancers. It’s easy to imagine a less extreme version of Nina in our company. Many of us understand how working on a new role in a ballet can consume your thoughts, and how the constant pressure to perform at an elite level, with the weight of our own and others’ expectations, makes us susceptible to paranoid thinking. This is the potentially destructive flipside of perfectionism.

In an artistic profession, extreme characters consumed by obsession are not such a wild imagining. And as continual refiners of our art, we all fear losing control of the steering wheel, especially when our goal posts are forever shifting, and when there are so many grey areas to navigate. I dare say not just dancers but anyone who has had perfectionist tendencies could see something of themselves in Nina. It’s just up to us how we drive that inner beast.

Take a look at our photo gallery to see The Australian Ballet’s scintillating black swans