'Bolero Juilliard': Inside the Making of a Lockdown Musical Miracle

Bebe Neuwirth dances in her kitchen. A young woman buries herself in a sofa. Christine Baranski opens her arms wide. A musician almost trips over a dog. Patti LuPone blots her lipstick. A dancer launches herself into the air beneath a tree heavy with blossom. Laura Linney brushes her teeth. Heads are in hands in despair, and then joyously bathed in sunshine. The musicians Jon Batiste and Yo-Yo Ma duet.

The screen splits into Zoom collections of classical and jazz musicians playing instruments, dancers in their living rooms whirling around upended furniture, and actor Bradley Whitford on his sofa tapping at his cellphone, dog nestled in lap.

The short film, Bolero Juilliard, may be only just shy of ten minutes, but it’s a mighty and striking work. It features Ravel’s famous piece of music—which first premiered in 1928—reinterpreted by current students from the famed performing arts school’s music, dance, and drama divisions, alongside famous alumni.

Filmed via cellphones in lockdown, and then scored, directed and edited seamlessly, it re-crafts the originally purely orchestral Boléro into a piece of contemporary musical theater. A dramatized, collective diary of a day living under the pandemic, it is also a witty, moving celebration of art as a life force.