Solo one; Swan Lake

 Swan Lake;

Practitioner;

- Julius [Wentzel] Reisinger

[ Swan lake first 1:40 ]

Julius Reisinger

Julius Reisinger was a Czech ballet choreographer and created more than 22 works on various European stages. One thing that he is well know for choreographing was swan lake, which he choreographed the first stage production of it. However to other people, swan lake was considered his most unsuccessful work despite the ballet itself being quite popular. 

He was born in February 1828 in Prague and sadly pasted in 1893.

When it come to his career he was originally a professional dancer with corps de ballet and over time he gained the position of leading soloist there.

Chloe Calvesbert

"Dance of the cygnets"- preformed by pointe dancers from the 2018 version of swan lake by Tchaikovsky.

"WHAT WE SEE IN THE THEATRE IS A REFELCTION OF THE SOCIETY IN WHICH WE LIVE"

My solo, The dance of the cygnets, from Swan lake, was created as a piece to imitate the way that swans huddle and move together for protection. If we were to look further into the meaning of Swan lake as a whole, we can see that Swan lake seems to be the driving force of the same passion of abandoning everything for the sake of art, at the risk of losing one's life. When it comes to how Swan lake reflects the society we live in, it seems to be more relevant to now than when it was created.

In Swan lake there is a character called Odette, who is the white swan. This character is here to represent the perfect woman, which is the one that the character Siegfried must go for. But in the piece it is apparent that he is more attracted to the darker swan, Odile, who is seen as a shameful desire. Although the desire is not really explained, it can be inferred that it could be representing Homosexuality. This can be mainly inferred due to the fact that Tchaikovsky himself was homosexual and in the times that Swan lake was created being homosexual was frowned upon and seen as a sin. This is still relevant to today as homosexuality is still frowned upon by some, but not as much as it used to be, But it is still seen in society as "wrong" and "bad". 

So using this analysis of Swan lake and its characters and how they bond, We can see that theatre reflects society and social norms that are and were in place. In the case of Swan lake, The way that it reflects society is in the way that it uses characters and their looks to show the good side and bad side of sexuality. In this instance, the male character is encouraged to go for the white swan, who represents the perfect woman, whilst he is frowned upon if he was to go for the black swan, that represents homosexuality in the instance of this analyst. We can see that the black swan is seen as the wrong choice and the colour black infers that it is something bad.

In conclusion, What we see in theatres reflects the society we live in and it is made apparent in Swan lake when we take a deeper look at it.