This outstanding DVD release contains two magnificent, but rarely performed ballets: Gene Kelly’s Pas De Dieux, and Leo Staats’ Soir de Fete. Pas De Dieux...

This outstanding DVD release contains two magnificent, but rarely performed ballets: Gene Kelly’s Pas De Dieux, and Leo Staats’ Soir de Fete. Pas De Dieux tells the myth of Eros and Aphrodite who come to earth and land on the beach. The god and goddess seduce a lifeguard and his fiancée and enjoy the pleasures of their love. Just as the couples are dancing with their new suitor, Zeus comes to retrieve his wife and the deities ascend to Olympus, leaving the humans alone to their earthly loves. Pas De Dieux carefully follows George Gershwin’s Concerto in F. The ballet earned Kelly the Chevalier of the Legion d’Honneur by the French Government. Leo Staats’ Soire de Fete was choreographed in 1925. The work is especially notable for its remarkable use of the male dancer, who is too frequently overshadowed by his female companion. This ballet includes the males moving freely alongside their female counterparts.