DANCER

UK, 2016, 85 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Steven Cantor.

The title reveals all – except for the name of the dancer who is the subject of the film, Ukrainian-born Sergei Polunin.

This is a film which will definitely appeal to audiences who delight in dance and in ballet. In fact, it will be of quite some interest to audiences who are not so interested in ballet or do not know much about its style or its history. The film does not depend on strong audience knowledge of the subject.

The film opens with a close-up of the dancer himself, waiting to go on stage, reflecting on his life, revealing himself something of a larrikin, myriad tattoos, taking pep-up drugs, which may make audiences wonder about him.

The film is interesting as a biography, going back to a poor town in southern Ukraine in 1989, on the verge of the collapse of the Soviet Empire. The young Sir Gay is seen going to school, skilled in gymnastics, open to the possibility of studying ballet which he embraces. He speaks with admiration of the teacher who influenced him and she is seen later in the film. Sergei is very much influenced by his mother and her desire for him to study ballet. Fortunately for posterity, she had a video camera and she was to film many of his classes, many of his dances, showing his agility, ability and skill at an early age. His mother makes a remark that when he was born and the nurse moved his limbs, there was great mobility and stretch in his legs.

The boy was supported by his two grandmothers, who are also seen in conversation, with his father going to work in Portugal for financial support and his mother taking the boy to Kiev and his auditioning for the ballet school there, which he entered and again excelled.

The plan was for him to go with his mother to England and audition for the Royal Ballet school in London. It is a new world for them and they have to wait some weeks before the acceptance letter arrives. Given the financial circumstances, his mother returns home creating a distance between mother and son, news of the divorce between his parents which affect him greatly, on which he ruminates for years.

There are interviews with some of his close friends and fellow-students at the school, commenting on his initial impact, the recognition of his skills, the progress over the years until, finally, he is accepted as a principal dancer in the Royal Ballet before the age of 20. Reviews were most favourable.

In many ways we do not really learn all that much about Sergei Polunin as a person, more about his relationship with his family, the testimony of his friends, but no indication of any relationships. We see him in the snow, stripping to roll in the snow. We hear about his breaking loose as a teenager, drinking, an introduction to drugs and a looser way of living. Tattoos which had to be covered for performance, especially as seen in his dancing Spartacus in Siberia – with the physical toll for him.

While he was successful at the Royal Ballet, with a touch of kicking over the traces, he decides to walk out, giving the media a lot to write about and considering him the bad boy of ballet. His next step was to go to Moscow, almost beginning again, enjoying the dancing and rehearsals, and finding a patron and mentor in an entrepreneur. And, yet, this was not enough for a young man moving towards his mid 20s.

Going to America and relaxing there, he decided to make a video of a dance, partly choreographed by his close friend, and photographed and directed by Dave Chappelle, Hozier’s Take Me to the Church. When released on YouTube?, the dance went viral to Sergei’s surprise. However, it meant that he did not give up dancing but has continued, giving concert performances – and the film ends with his mother and father and his grandmothers coming to a performance for the first time to see him, something he had forbidden in the past.

To that extent, while the film is very interesting about childhood, adolescence and early adulthood of the talented dancer, it is only an interim story.