ballet design

This is the design for the ballet bodice and romantic tutu I will be making during this project. The purple on the design will instead be the shades of greens in the top right corner.

Matthew bourne's swan lake

Mathew Bourne’s Swan Lake was first performed in 1995 in Sandler’s Wells Theatre London and takes Tychovski’s score and sets it contemporary dance. Watching Matthew Bourne’s swan lake was such a contrast from Tychovski‘s.  Matthew Bourne’s version seemed a lot darker with the swan having a more aggressive quality. The story is also quite dark with the prince drinking and longing for his mothers loving leading to his obsession with the swan. This version some people see as homo erotic but I feel that the relationship between the swan and the prince is like a love for a pet which the prince uses as a substitute for his mothers love.  This obsession leads to paranoia through the piece and then leads to the prince’s death just like Odette’s and the prices death in the original Swan Lake.

I though the costumes portray the characters really well for example the prince’s girlfriend wears a pink short low cut dress communicating to the audience that she is trashy and not suitable for the prince.   The wool cropped trousers on the swans gave the look of feathers without being too pretty and feminine adding to aggressive and intimidating quality of the swans. The set for whole production was very effective and the pillars either side of the stage even though quite simple adapted to every scene.

Trockadero

Trockadero is an all male drag ballet company which take classical ballets and add comical elements to them. In our screening we watched their version of swan lake act 2 where the prince meets Odette.  The whole piece was very entertaining with the dancers falling over being very cheesy and the use of different height dancer to add comedy.  All the dancers were very talented and did all the steps from the original Swan Lake. Even though I really enjoyed the piece I thought the comedy did take away from the technical techniques performed by the dancers.

The costumes were similar to the original the only problem I had with the costumes was the bodices playing the female roles didn’t fit the chest very well. Odette’s tutu in the piece seemed quite small emphasising the height of the male dancer adding to the comedy.

Moscow Ballet- swan lake

On Monday the 12th of March as part of this project I got to see Moscow Ballet version of Swan Lake. Act 1 starts with prince Siegfried arriving to his 21st birthday party. The prince had a black bodice and his friend had white I thought this was an odd choice because the white looked more prince royal and black is normally associated with evil. The court were all in a horrible peach colour but two of the female dancers trying to catch the princes attention were in a more subtle shade which I thought looked much better and more delicate. The dancing of the court and the prince was very technically good but the jester stole the show with his enthusiasm.

Act 2 when the prince meets the swan Odette for the first time I didn't get the sense that he was falling in love with her or that the swan was scared of him. The mime that explains how she became a swan was also missed out which was disappointing seeing as the Moscow ballet is suppose to be one of the best ballet companies in the world. When Von Rothbart appears to take the swan away once again he was technically very good but he didn't portray being powerful and evil very well. His purple velvet cape looked quite vibrant to the rest of his costume which I felt didn't work well.

Act 3 is when we first see Von Rothbert's daughter Odile. I thought this part was done better by the prima ballerina than the swan I felt the she danced the role more convincingly. Even though she was suppose to seducing the prince with her dance the male ballet dancer didn't give the impression that he was totally entranced by her. Also in the dance when Odette is suppose to be seducing the prince the choreography normally has 32 fouettes but sadly the ballet dancer didn't manage to do the full 32.

Act 4 when Odette and prince are finally together and die I felt that the whole scene was very messy and confusing because the core of dancers were covering Odette and the price at the back of the stage making it difficult to see what was going on. From seeing this performance I can now see the difference between a well performed and costumed ballet to one that isn't so well executed.