Dance on BBC       Dance on TV

This is a sneak preview from ballet.co of the classical offerings on BBC2 over Christmas.

Dance Night, is of course the major attraction, and it airs on December 28. Its schedule includes two ballet films - 'Dance Ballerina Dance' and 'The Magic of Dance'. Made twenty years apart by Royal Ballet principal dancers, they show very different attitudes to ballet - and women.

Deborah Bull's 'Dance Ballerina Dance' questions choreographer's interpretation of women. Deborah Bull asks the question "Why is nearly every woman I dance created by a man?" and looks at five twentieth-century choreographers - Petipa, Ashton, Balanchine, MacMillan and Forsythe. Her consideration of their work is a cross between character and technique - and the choreographer's personal opinion of women. Balanchine really loses out here - and Ashton isn't far behind. With Petipa, Bull points out that Aurora was a revolutionary creation for her time; she actually has a character! Seventy years elapsed between 'Sleeping Beauty' and 'Two Pigeons' and Bull briefly summarises differences in technique - from grand, upright style, to fleet, fast footwork and pliant bodies.

Ashton and Balanchine come off worse - there are some great moments as Lynn Seymour describes 'Two Pigeons' as "saccharine" and the lead character as an "exasperating girl" before defending Ashton, while Balanchine's opinion of women (with some choice quotes) is lambasted during a walkthrough of 'Duo Concertant'.

MacMillan and Forsythe, unsurprisingly come off best. Bull is more in her element here, not criticising the characters MacMillan creates, but claiming that they are far more human than previous creations. It's quite a shock to realise that 'Two Pigeons' and 'The Invitation' were created only a year apart. Bull doesn't mention age, but the middle-aged woman she dances in 'The Invitation' is the first "non-girl" role in the programme - a telling point in itself about attitudes towards women. This is the first piece in which the ballerina takes control, as in Forsythe's 'Herman Scherman', the last piece featured. It's obviously to Bull's taste - she particularly likes that her partner also has to learn her steps, and that Forsythe is not discriminatory about which sex gets to dance which steps.

It's a hugely interesting programme. Bull asks many questions, and if she misses some that need to be asked, she lays the ground for plenty of arguments. Forty-five minutes is a short time to manage everything in, and a wider discussion of technique, in particular, would have been welcome, but from this programme, it seems likely that we will see more of Bull on our screens.

There is of course, a companion programme to this begging to be made, with the same five choreographers. When are we going to see 'Dance Ballerino Dance'?

In contrast, Margot Fonteyn's 'The Magic of Dance' seems unbelievably old-fashioned. Bull commented that ballet is twenty years behind the rest of the world - those twenty years are on display right here. Fonteyn's programme is consistently sweet, with a pretty princess image of ballet that jars after 'Dance Ballerina Dance'. It's shows the strengths and weaknesses of archive footage -everyone is terribly well-behaved and formal, and the whole programme, although filmed in 1979, could have been made in the 1950s and no-one would have been the wiser.

Most of the programme is taken up by 'Marguerite and Armand'. While this is the only way one can see this Ashton ballet now, it doesn't project onto film. It's going to be interesting to hear reactions from people who actually saw Fonteyn and Nureyev - in this ballet or in others.

First of all though, on Christmas Day, we have David Bintley's 'Nutcracker Sweeties'. Featuring Bintley himself as a GI who encounters assorted characters while listening to his car radio, it's a clever attempt to film ballet in a more interesting way. While inevitably it lacks the atmosphere of the theatrical production (not least because the band, Echoes of Ellington, are uncharacteristically well-behaved), the Hollywood glamour of Bintley's creation lends itself well to film. To answer the most important question first - yes, Monica Zamora's legs look terrific. It's the original cast, including Zamora as Sugar Rum Cherry, Leticia Muller as Arabesque Cookie, Robert Parker as the excited sailor chasing Andrea Tredennick in Chinoiserie., while it's a case of swings and roundabouts in the filming. The chaos of the Floreadores is lost on the small screen. Chenca Williams' fixed grin was obvious from the back of the gods, and scarcely needed a closeup. In contrast, the Peanut Brittle Brigade look great on screen - possibly because they were always the most filmic section.

Dance programming this Christmas is much better than average and well worth catching up on. Dance Night is a rare treat from the BBC and a very nice Christmas present too.