Late Flowering Lust

This is beautiful, a musical English love story narrated through the poems of John Betjeman, and starring Nigel Hawthorne. No dialogue, just the background sounds, music, and Betjeman’s poetry. Irresistible.

Puttin’ On The Ritz

Fred Astaire putting the savoir into faire. Timelessly cool.

Cool enough for vampires, too. Here’s Being Human’s homage, 40 seconds into the clip.

Swing Kids

Swing Kids is a 1993 film about an anti-Nazi German youth movement. They loved American jazz and swing music, which didn’t go down well with the authorities. The film is excellent, with Kenneth Branagh playing a creepily empathic Gestapo agent who is dating the protagonist’s mum. But the dance sequences are the core of the film, and someone has kindly put them all together in this video.

Falling Angels

Netherlands Dance Theatre, with music by Steve Reich.

Royal Ballet Daily Class

A glimpse into what it takes to produce world-class ballet, from the Royal Ballet.

Joy of Life

Nobody expressed it better than Henri Matisse, particularly in the first painting, Le bonheur de vivre (1906). It’s a secular, sensual Eden, without greed or jealousy. The dancers in the background are reproduced in the second painting, Dance, from 1910.

A documentary about Matisse and his influence on our world.

Flash Mob at Seattle Public Library

These days you can’t go anywhere in public without tripping over a flash mob – and frankly I’m underwhelmed by the actual dancing – so this video is more about brilliant architecture. Though the two sour-faced customers filmed leaving did amuse me. Seattle Public Library, designed by Rem Koolhaas, is a glorious bit of bling that works superbly as a library. I spent many happy hours there.