Feature:
Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake

Ballet for most people is mystifying. Elegant women performing a puzzling series of movements telling a classic story of love and tragedy. It exists in the rarified air of the worlds opera houses, understood by a select group. This was all that was expected for ballet, a renaissance art form doomed never to make it in the realms of contemporary popular culture.

British choreographer Matthew Bourne changed all this with his dazzling, sexy reinvention of Swan Lake . Transforming the Archetypical ballet, Swan Lake into an intense psychological drama Bourne has infused it with raw passion whilst maintaining its mysterious beauty. Taking Tchaikovsky's beautiful score and the classic tale of constant yearning for an unattainable idea and thrusting it into the 21 century. Bourne's major innovation was casting a male dancer in the lead role of Odette/Odile known as ‘the Swan'. “The idea of a male swan makes complete sense to me,” says Bourne, “the strength, the beauty, the enormous wingspan of these creatures suggests to me the musculature of a male dancer more readily than a ballerina in a white tutu.” The sheer physicality of the male dancers, their strength, power and grace as they launch themselves into the air, breaks with the dainty hushed performances of the past. The male dancers truly do fly but they also add an element of humor and irony, combine these two elements and you have a unique and mesmerizing performance.

The production, which has won more than 30 awards, including three Tonys manages to transforms Tchaikovsky's endlessly performed work into a human story with the potential for great dramatic power and range, with a satirical and humorous edge, and some of the most awe inspiring dancing you will ever see. A breathtaking leap of imagination.

Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake is playing at the Capitol Theatre from the 21 February 2007 to the 18 March 2007 , tickets available through Ticketmaster.

Words: Megan Taylor