Film Screening to Benefit the Parachute Fund December 3, 2009

Dancers' Group and the Rialto Cinemas Elmwood invite you to attend a one-night only benefit screening, and the Bay Area premiere, of Frederick Wiseman's latest documentary LA DANSE: Le Ballet de l'Opera de Paris.

This special event will help raise needed funds for The Parachute Fund, which provides grants to members of the Bay Area dance community facing HIV/AIDS or other life-threatening illnesses. Since its inception (1987), The Parachute Fund has granted nearly $100,000 to dancers, technicians and administrators, so that they can live and create fully. Grantees have used their award to pay for medication, rent, rehearsal space and dance classes. To learn more about fund go to: www.dancersgroup.org/programs_parachutefund.php

THE FILM: Documentary master Frederick Wiseman's 38th film in a career that has spanned more than 40 years, turns his attention to one of the world's greatest ballet companies, the Paris Opera Ballet.

LA DANSE devotes most of its time to watching impossibly beautiful young men and women - among them Nicolas Le Riche, Marie-Agnes Gillot, and Agnes Letestu - rehearsing the choreography of Mats Ek, Wayne McGregor, Rudolf Nureyev and Pina Bausch. For balletomanes and the curious alike, LA DANSE serves up a scrumptious meal of delectable moments, one more glorious than the next, made even more precious by their ephemeral nature.

LA DANSE opens on Friday, December 4th exclusively at the Balboa Theatre in San Francisco, Rialto Cinemas Elmwood in Berkeley, and Rialto Cinemas Lakeside in Santa Rosa.

Official Website: http://www.dancersgroup.org/benefit.php