Dayna Goldfine's and Dan Geller's magical documentary traces the rise and fall of the three companies that went by the legendary name, Ballet Russe. The film combines ravishing clips from the 1920s through the 1950s - some shot with a wind-up 16mm Bolex by dance critic Anne Barzan - with interviews with icons of ballet history. The interviews include the last footage of the very proper Alicia Markova, the irrepressible Mia Slavenska and the vivacious Tatiana Riabouchinska who was one of the three "baby ballerinas" chosen when they were in their early teens by the audacious, young Georges Balanchine, to be stars of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Irina Baronova - another of the baby ballerinas - and the acid-tongued Frederic Franklin, still dancing and teaching at age 90, are excellent informal historians. ("The Russians treated each other terribly" comments the English Franklin.) All the dancers display the combination of wit, romanticism and pragmatism that made them captivating performers on stage and off. (Amy Taubin)

Directors: Daniel Geller, Dayna Goldfine, Robert Hawk, Douglas Blair Turnbaugh
Writers: Daniel Geller, Dayna Goldfine, Celeste Schaefer Snyder, Gary Weimberg

For more than sixteen years, Emmy-award winning director/producer Dayna Goldfine has worked jointly with Dan Geller to create critically acclaimed multi-character documentary narratives, including their award-winning ISADORA DUNCAN: Movement from the Soul. Geller and Goldfine's work includes NOW & THEN: From Frosh to Seniors, which aired on PBS in October 2000;and KIDS OF SURVIVAL: THE ART AND LIFE OF TIM ROLLINS + K.O.S. (1996), which received two national Emmy Awards.