A while back I wrote a tribute to a ballet teacher of mine, Stanley Holden. A little recap is in order:

One doesn’t ordinarily think of comedy in connection with ballet dancers, but Holden was a master of it, best known for originating the en travesti character Widow Simone, choreographed on him by Frederic Ashton in 1960 as part of the ballet “La Fille Mal Gardee” with the Royal Ballet.

Holden is said to have performed the role””and its most famous number, the clog dance””with far more humor than anyone has ever managed to bring to it since. But alas, there is no video of him that I can find online…

Since I wrote that in 2010, guess what? A video has appeared on YouTube of Holden in the role.

Before I present it to you, here’s a bit more from my post, to refresh your memory:

Holden didn’t look like a ballet dancer at all; more like a jockey. He exuded a tremendous amount of energy and an unforced cheeriness that was both unusual and infectious. He never yelled or was even cross, unlike so many temperamental dance teachers.

…Holden excelled at giving the class what are called “combinations,” those little pieces of choreography that make a dance class interesting rather than a mere repetition of the same steps every day.

…He kept them coming at us rapid-fire. Whether he planned these combinations ahead of time or made them up on the spot, or whether he had a secret book with lists of them that he’d memorized, I have no idea. But I do know that””especially towards the end of class, when the combinations featured large jumps and other big movements across the diagonal of his huge studio (a space that, unlike most dance classrooms, was constructed without any obstructive pillars or columns)””the feeling most of us had, along with exhaustion, was sheer joy.

“I want to die teaching” Holden said in an interview in 1997. “That’s my life. I love it.” He managed to convey that love not in any conventionally schmaltzy (or balletic) way, but through his own exuberance.

So, here’s the video. I hope you can see what I mean about Holden’s exceptional personality. Although he could certainly do classical ballet, here you’d never know he had ever danced in anything but the British Music Hall tradition, and you can see how very much he is enjoying himself. So now you can enjoy it, too:

Here’s a video I included in my earlier post. It’s of a more recent dancer doing the same variation. He’s very good, but to me he can’t compare. This dancer’s training as a ballet dancer comes across too strongly, which is at variance with the character. In the same role, Holden hid his ballet background and seems very natural, and that included his facial expressions.

Holden also added a lot of funny bits you don’t see in the later video. Note in particular Holden’s slide (at around 1:34 on the first video) vs. this one (at about 1:44). This guy slides a lot longer and more dramatically. But it doesn’t seem like an integral part of the dance, it seems like a forced thing to show off the fact that he can do it. But, more importantly, you may have noticed that right at the end of Holden’s slide he does a subtle little bit where he looks back and down at the floor as though wondering what on earth he just slipped on (just like a regular person might really do), whereas the modern guy just sliiiides, then turns around and runs back. No rhyme or reason to it. And the omission of those sorts of telling details, those little touches, are part of what makes the difference between Holden and the others.

RIP, Stanley Holden (1928-2007).