The online archive of ballet videos and performance footage is so incredibly expansive.  It is always interesting to find out what kind of “lost gem” videos your new dancer friends will show you.  Last night I was introduced to the following pas de deux, and have replayed it 3 times since.  Safe to say I’m mesmerized.

While watching this stunning (floaty, fluid, soft, smooth, gorgeous) pas de deux is fantastic on its own, knowing the story behind this performance really is the cherry on top of this hauntingly beautiful contemporary ballet sundae.  The female dancer in this video, Evelyn Hart, was the first Canadian-born to win the gold medal at the Varna International Ballet Competition- an extremely prestigious competition to say the least.  She and her partner, David Peregrine, both of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in Canada, performed this breathtakingly airy and sensual pas de deux that night and subsequently received so much applause that for the first time in the history of the competition, the dancers actually had to return to the stage to ask the audience not to applaud anymore.  As the journalist in this clip points out, that “must be a pretty unique compliment”.