'Swan Lake'- Matthew Bourne

Matthew Bourne is one of the most world famous choreographers, known for his unique and contemporary remakes of traditional ballets. He is the Artistic Director for ‘New Adventures’, who are currently on tour in the UK performing ‘Swan Lake’. Realistically, this choreographer and company need no introduction.

On the 16^th February, the company performed their last show at The Birmingham Hippodrome. This production follows a similar narrative to the traditional story line, whereby a prince falls in love with a swan, however Bourne famously swaps gender roles, and instead creates a chorus of male swans.

The production has been raved about in numerous existing reviews and written about for several school essays, so the world is already aware of its astonishing choreography, beautiful dancers, and comedic moments, but what most struck me was the significance of the gender roles chosen. It was such a refreshing change to see ballet that wasn’t afraid to come into the twenty first century and represent the LGBT community. They didn’t do this in a crude way to try and show off to the world a representation of the gay community, but rather, it just was what it was and was left to be enjoyed the same way any traditional ballet should.

What was lovely was the masculinity the male dancers maintained, without feeling it necessary to  become camp, but instead encouraging audiences to have a different perspective on the male ballet dancer. It is well known in a ballet that the females are the spectacles of the show, the focus of breath-taking lifts, with the most extravagant costumes, who also usually make up the most part of the ballet corps, so it was lovely for the males to gain this attention for once. Of course, the female dancers still had their moments to shine, in particular the character of the prince’s mother, who had whole numbers devoted to her, but it is the male swans who truly captivate audiences, and perform the most famous sections.

A traditional pas de deux is danced male to female, which creates huge opportunity for original choreography when adapted for male to male partnership. Both dancers could lift or be lifted, and they were able to work off each other rather than dancing around each other, in beautifully complementary styles. This enabled more intimate moments to be created and allowed the audience to access the narrative that little bit more easily. It could be argued that ballet can become so focused on technique and performing the correct set moves, that is can sometimes detract from the story, but Bourne verged on an almost contemporary duet in this situation. This was enchanting to watch and inspirational to see the bravery of stepping away from tradition

His deviance from ballet only escalated with the inclusion of a jazz section in the ‘Swank’ bar, danced by males and females. I love that Bourne isn’t afraid to cross style boundaries, or contest the norms, even to challenge that ballet wouldn’t be acceptable in a bar, and this kept the choreography new and exciting for an audience.

Huge praise deserves to go to principle dancer, James Lovell, who at the age of only 18, is the youngest ever prince New Adventures has ever had. He danced with the passion and talent of someone who has performed for years, and deserves recognition for his incredible achievement.

Overall, in our modern society, we should all be big supporters of gender equality, however it’s nice to see a performance that centres on men and praises them for their masculinity rather than their ability to dance in heels. It was not just the choreography that was stunning, set to the traditional score by Tchaikovsky, the set, lighting and costume also all deserve huge recognition of their own. It was brilliant to see all these elements come together to create such a modern piece that could be enjoyed even by those who aren’t particularly interested in ballet.