Ballet legend Rudolf Nureyev made several theatrically released dance features during his storied career, of which filmmaker Pierre Jourdan's I Am a Dancer is probably the best known, and most recommended for the variety on display. It is practically an anthology of short/abridged dance numbers, with very brief interviews and behind-the-scenes footage. Margot Fonteyn speaks at much greater length than the sphinx-like Nureyev, who, it is declared, lives out of a suitcase and has an ascetic existence mainly broken down between dance workouts at the barre, rehearsal practice, and, finally, performance.
No effort is made at any biography of Nureyev's dramatic life arc, with his early-1960s defection from the Kirov troupe of the former USSR to the West, and the way he partnered with the appreciably older Fonteyn, to the extent that she postponed retirement to dance with him for several more years. In her Q&A segment Fonteyn does describe the infinite trust required between two ballet-dance partners, an ideal situation she says she enjoys with Nureyev.
One of the ballets performed is La Sylphide, pairing a kilted Nureyev with Carla Fracci. In stark contrast to that antique, we see Nureyev in equally fine form in the modern-dance style of Glen Tetley's Field Figures, with Deanne Bergsma, in minimalist costumes and a Stockhausen electro-music future-shock score.
The next installment, Marguerite and Armand, pairs Nureyev and Fonteyn in a more or less complete record of the short dance taken from the pages of the Dumas tragic novel La Dame aux Camellias (perhaps better known as source material for the opera La Traviata). Finally comes Nureyev's own choreography for an excerpt from the Petipa/Tchaikovsky The Sleeping Beauty.
The Film Movement Classics release comes with two bonuses, dance insiders Terese Capucilli and Skylar Brandt speaking separately about this film and the Nureyev-Fonteyn working partnership. There is also a booklet insert by arts writer Kenji Fujishima. Recommended for fine arts/dance collections. Aud: J, H, C, P.