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Feb. 10th, 2010 10:49 pmYesterday I achieved an ambition. I saw Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake. And oh it was... *flails* It was everything I expected to be and yet MORE, more story, more emotion, more absolutly fantastic dancing!
The Swans were just enthralling, menacing, uncanny. Simultaneously both graceful yet so sharp and animalistic - almost jerky. The way the moved their heads - and they hissed - and there were times when they bowed and curved their arms and you saw swan. The dance between The Prince and the Lead Swan was absolutly amazing. It began with the Swan and his troupe contemptuously rebuffing and mocking all the Prince's desperate attempts to join them, and then when the Prince was a cowering, broken heap on the floor - the Swan decided that he wanted his attention after all. And he began dancing this solo for him but the Prince had his face pressed against the floor and didn't see and eventually the Swan pushed at him and then leapt back as soon as the Prince pun round to look at him, and then went back to playing coy and hard to get. But this time he allows the Prince to dance with him for short stretches before chasing him off and ee, so contrary!
And even as the Prince and the Swan were dancing as mirrors there was something just slightly off - the Swan's movements sharper, wilder, than the Prince's. And then the last scene in the Prince's bedroom in the asylum when the Swan's come crawling out from under his bed, out of his mind, taking over the room is the graceful, whirring, menacing mass - and the Lead Swan crawls out of the mattress and...
The Swans were absolutly fabulous of course, but everything else was so awesome as well. The Queen was wonderful, cold and elegant and distant but ever so slightly pitiful beneath that. And The Girlfriend! Gauche and silly and she did some stupid things but she felt real and likable and-
There was this scene where the Royal Family and the Girlfriend watched a parody of an uber traditional romantic ballet and when the lumbrejack 'hero' pranced out she just howled.
And then at the dramatic conclusion this mobile phone went off and you could FEEL this ripple of tension and horror ripple through the entire Hippodrome - and then you realised it was coming from the stage.
So yes, v v awesome and wonderful and want to see again!
As an added treat the production we went to see had a five minute opening performed by a local dance school who had don some workshops with the company which was amazingly good and Matthew Bourne came on and introduced them!
Fabulous, fabulous evening.
The Swans were just enthralling, menacing, uncanny. Simultaneously both graceful yet so sharp and animalistic - almost jerky. The way the moved their heads - and they hissed - and there were times when they bowed and curved their arms and you saw swan. The dance between The Prince and the Lead Swan was absolutly amazing. It began with the Swan and his troupe contemptuously rebuffing and mocking all the Prince's desperate attempts to join them, and then when the Prince was a cowering, broken heap on the floor - the Swan decided that he wanted his attention after all. And he began dancing this solo for him but the Prince had his face pressed against the floor and didn't see and eventually the Swan pushed at him and then leapt back as soon as the Prince pun round to look at him, and then went back to playing coy and hard to get. But this time he allows the Prince to dance with him for short stretches before chasing him off and ee, so contrary!
And even as the Prince and the Swan were dancing as mirrors there was something just slightly off - the Swan's movements sharper, wilder, than the Prince's. And then the last scene in the Prince's bedroom in the asylum when the Swan's come crawling out from under his bed, out of his mind, taking over the room is the graceful, whirring, menacing mass - and the Lead Swan crawls out of the mattress and...
The Swans were absolutly fabulous of course, but everything else was so awesome as well. The Queen was wonderful, cold and elegant and distant but ever so slightly pitiful beneath that. And The Girlfriend! Gauche and silly and she did some stupid things but she felt real and likable and-
There was this scene where the Royal Family and the Girlfriend watched a parody of an uber traditional romantic ballet and when the lumbrejack 'hero' pranced out she just howled.
And then at the dramatic conclusion this mobile phone went off and you could FEEL this ripple of tension and horror ripple through the entire Hippodrome - and then you realised it was coming from the stage.
So yes, v v awesome and wonderful and want to see again!
As an added treat the production we went to see had a five minute opening performed by a local dance school who had don some workshops with the company which was amazingly good and Matthew Bourne came on and introduced them!
Fabulous, fabulous evening.
