The Royal Ballet’s 2012-13 season opened last night with a magnificent performance of Swan Lake. Happily I seem to have pulled through the worst of the recent ME relapse and was able to get to the theatre and enjoy the show. It was great to be back after a summer without ballet. For anyone who doesn’t know how this works, ballet seems to be a little like football in that (as far as I know) it has a distinct season giving the dancers a few weeks off in the summer. That’s not to say that ballet doesn’t happen over the summer months, but it tends to be a time for companies to go on tour or theatres to stage one-off galas (especially in Japan) or short runs of a touring production. For one reason or another, I seem to have missed seeing any touring companies this summer, so I haven’t been to the ballet since July…it’s a long break!
You may be wondering what ballet has to do with beading. Well, in my world, I couldn’t resist the temptation to combine my two favourite hobbies. Many years ago, when I decided to teach myself Peyote Stitch, I decided to start by learning Circular and Tubular Peyote because I realised I could combine these to make miniature ballet tutus! Looking back, I don’t think that’s the most conventional route into Peyote, but it seems to have worked for me as this is the stitch to which I most often return. My first attempts at tutus were pretty reasonable, but I have refined my techniques over the years, so my latest efforts are an improvement on the early years (I hope!). I soon expanded from tutus to other ballet costumes, making replicas of quite a number of the costumes in the Royal Ballet’s repertoire. It always proves to be a challenge as the real things contain so much detail that it’s almost impossible to reproduce with beads in miniature, but it’s always fun to try!
Of course, to return to my original question, ballet and beading are really linked in that most tutus are decorated with fabulous beadwork, designed to sparkle under the stage lights. Many years ago, I was fortunate enough to go ‘backstage’ and see some of the tutus up close. The beadwork on them is truly beautiful. I would love to be able to replicate it on my miniature versions, but the best I can achieve is an overall impression of colour and pattern. At least the sparkle remains! Having taken some of my tutus to craft fairs, I realised that they proved pretty popular with all those other ballet fans out there. It has long been my intention to introduce them to my website as well, but I’m only now just getting round to doing so. I’ve started by adding my version of the Black Swan and White Swan tutus from Swan Lake – it seemed appropriate.
This set me thinking again about a theme that seems to be developing here: design inspiration and the way in which different art forms inform one another. The entire run of Swan Lake at the Royal Opera House seems to be sold out. Of course Swan Lake is one of the most iconic ballets and probably one of the first that many people would list if asked, but I couldn’t help thinking how big an impact the film ‘Black Swan’ has had on sales of this particular ballet for all ballet companies. Surprisingly, I haven’t actually seen the film yet. I thought about it when it was out at the cinema and I must admit to being very intrigued as to how the Swan Lake story was manipulated and woven into the cinematic drama. Opinion amongst dancers and ballet-lovers has been rather mixed. I get the impression that the film has merit if viewed as a thriller, but not if it’s taken as a view of the realities of the ballet world. Like all good cinema, there is a good deal of exaggeration and truth-bending to provide the audience with a good story and an evening of escapism. If it has piqued the curiosity of people who would never otherwise have thought of going to the ballet, then that has to be a good thing.
Ballet still tends (in Britain at least) to suffer from an elitist image which is simply not deserved. Perhaps people fear they will not understand the language of dance, but really I do not think it has to be ‘understood’, just ‘felt’. Like all art forms, it is intended to invoke a response in the watcher. That response will be individual and open to interpretation. Part of the appeal of art, in all its forms, is that it has no right or wrong – every opinion is as valid as the next because it will speak to all of us in different ways. Take Swan Lake: the story is a fairy tale which, if taken literally, is really a pretty silly story. Prince comes of age, is told he must choose a wife, but isn’t too keen on this idea. He decides to console himself by going off hunting swans, only to discover that the swan he is about to kill turns into a beautiful Princess in front of his eyes. She explains that she is under the spell of an evil magician and is doomed to live as a Swan-Princess unless someone falls in love with her and swears eternal love and fidelity. Prince falls in love with Princess, but doesn’t get the chance to swear his love before she changes back into the Swan. The next evening happens to be his formal birthday celebration in which he is supposed to be choosing a wife from a selection of human princesses provided by his mother. The party is interrupted by the arrival of unexpected guests: a strange man and his daughter who looks exactly like the Swan Princess. Prince declares his eternal love to this woman, believing her to be the Princess he met the night before. The man then reveals that he is in fact the evil magician and his daughter is simply pretending to be the Swan Princess. The Prince realises he has betrayed his real love, the spell upon her can now never be broken. Heart-broken, the Swan Princess throws herself into the lake and drowns. The Prince swiftly follows suit. The evil magician dies because his power has been destroyed by the triumph of true love and Prince and Swan-Princess live happily ever after in eternity (except in the version danced by the Russian ballet companies in which Prince and Princess unite to kill the magician and then live happily ever after without the double suicide!). Why is this still appealing to audiences and dancers today? Some may enjoy the story – after all it is about betrayal, love and the triumph of good over evil, so that’s never going to go out of fashion. From the perspective of the audience, this ballet is beautiful, it is impressive to watch 24 or 32 women (swans) moving as one in the Corps de Ballet and of course there are the famous 32 fouettes (turns on the spot that are incredibly technically challenging to dance and stunning to watch) in the third act. From a dancers’ perspective, it remains one of the most challenging roles to dance, even though it was choreographed over a century ago. Not only are the steps difficult, but they require a huge range of emotional expression. The white swan Princess (Odette) must be soft, lyrical and vulnerable. The magician’s daughter (black swan – Odile) must be flashy, seductive and hard. Finding that range of technical ability and emotion in one dancer is difficult. In some productions, the two roles are danced by two different dancers to play to the strengths of each. Mastering the challenge of performing both styles in one evening is certainly enough to entice most dancers and make Odette/Odile a very coveted role!
No art form will be to the taste of everyone, but it’s not right to dismiss anything without giving it a try. Who knows what will speak to one’s soul until one is exposed to it?
