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Baryshnikov Dances Sinatra was originally shown as a Dance in America television broadcast in 1984 under the more appropriate title of Baryshnikov by Tharp and as such won two Emmy awards. It was released on tape the same year. The three contrasted short works on the disk are linked by a dance ABC ("B is for ballon" etc) presented by an ingratiating Baryshnikov. This is cutesy and slightly irritating, but can be bypassed. The works are rather brief (13, 14 and 20 minutes) which probably explains this padding to expand the whole to about an hour.

The first piece is The Little Ballet, commissioned by American Ballet Theatre in 1983 when Baryshnikov was director. Originally called Once Upon a Time, it uses four pieces of music by Alexander Glazounov, mostly in waltz time and extracted from Raymonda and Scenes de Ballet. (Ashton used some of the same music in his Birthday Offering.) It is cast for a principal couple and three women, though the only dancing of substance is by the man. The set is puce with floaty drapes and candles; the lighting is pink; the four women wear chiffon; the mood is largely breathless and sweet. Tharp revered Balanchine (whom she claimed to feel standing in the corner of her studio when she is working) and there's a certain 'Tharp does Mr B.' atmosphere, even down to the female figure eluding the poetic male protagonist. Whether Balanchine's ghost would be nodding approval or wincing is left to your imagination. Tharp likes to explore the relation between classical and popular dancing, and does here, but to no very conclusive effect. It is a fine exhibition of Baryshnikov's dancing, as are all the pieces on this disk.

Tharp's Sinatra Suite (1984) is a reworked and shortened version of her Nine Sinatra Songs of two years earlier. That had a cast of 14, this has two (Baryshnikov and the elegant Elaine Kudo, now in the business of staging the ballet), and only five songs (Strangers in the Night, When Somebody Loves You, That's Life, My Way, One For My Baby). It charts an affair from mutual seduction, through brutal confrontation, to reconciliation and abandonment. The idiom is ballroom (evening clothes, high heels) but extended, as you might expect, and the result is an effective piece of Broadway show dancing. It was That's Life, a modern Apache dance, which reputedly prompted Mark Morris to yell "No more rape!" and stomp out of a performance. Nine Sinatra Songs is in ABT's autumn repertory this year.
 

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There are too few humorous ballets, but Push Comes to Shove is one of them. It was choreographed for ABT in 1976 at the beginning of Tharp's relationship with Baryshnikov, just two years after he left Russia. It features a group of arrogant, attention-grabbing, upstaging dancers, Baryshnikov himself being the worst offender. It contrasts music by the ragtime composer Joseph Lamb with Joseph Haydn's 82nd symphony and it mixes out-of-kilter classicism with vaudeville dance routines, including a lot of play with Derby hats. The ballet is Tharp's exploration of Baryshnikov and his talents: the virtuoso classical dancer, the clown, the Romeo, the seducer of audiences, the narcissist, the hoofer and Fred Astaire aficionado. Baryshnikov is set against a corps and two principal females (originally the tall Martine van Hamel and the short Marianna Cherkassky, here danced by Elaine Kudo and Susan Jaffe) who compete for attention. The dancing is fun and virtuosic with much mockery of the conventions of partnering.

The recording is from a live performance and is the most interesting, enjoyable and inventive work on the disk, made special by seeing Baryshnikov in his original role. Unfortunately low and close camera positions make the complicated work of the corps of 16 go for little, which loses much.

There is good dancing on this DVD and it gives a fair idea of Tharp's range. A must, of course, for Baryshnikov aficionados, showing him at the height of his powers and intent on expanding his range.