Fleeting minutes earlier than the debut of their present, ballerinas line their eyelids, glue on lashes, polish leather-based pointe footwear. They’re lithe, critical, preternaturally poised. It may very well be any opening evening of Swan Lake, Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece that, regardless of its ho-hum 1877 reception, has develop into probably the most well-known ballet of all time — hailed for its imaginative and prescient of fragile female magnificence and the parable of purity that flutters in its wake.
However this time the parable crumples like a sublime fowl after a moonlit arabesque. “We’re gonna be actually fucking good,” quips a raven-haired dancer to the choreographer wishing them luck. A rainbow flag displays from her mirror, in entrance of which a espresso mug reads, “Beneath all of the tattoos, you’re nonetheless a mainstream cunt.”
Verify your ticket (and expectations) for Swan Tune, Chelsea McMullan and Sean O’Neill’s bracing tour-de-force documentary that pulls again the curtains on up to date ballet. On one stage, the movie pays tribute to ballet icon Karen Kain’s final hurrah earlier than she retires as Inventive Director of the Nationwide Ballet of Canada, but on a deeper, extra profound stage, Swan Tune sings to the expertise of the corps — the physique of dancers onstage whose synchronicity and homogeneity are inclined to render them nameless and forgotten.
On this movie they’re, fairly, probably the most cogent characters — a motley group of younger girls as numinous as they’re quite a few, as self-aware and humorous as they’re disciplined and resilient. Amongst them, we get to know Tene Ward, a Black dancer from Australia whose mom warned her that “it will be more durable for you” to get forward; Arielle Miralles, who jests in regards to the impossibility of relationship an unstylish man; and, little question the corporate’s enfant horrible, Shaelynn Estrada, a queer, half-Mexican “Military brat” whose mom labored as a receptionist at her Bible Belt studio to pay for courses.
“It’s onerous to have a character in direct battle with the factor you’re keen on most on the planet,” she explains, drolly exhibiting off her quartet of bracelets that learn “Socialist Marxist Libertarian Slut.” Throughout one of many movie’s most beautiful scenes, Shae performs alone in a pool with no water, her toe footwear grazing the mildewed vintage tile. “Ballet is the one factor that helps me,” she shares. “It’s like my angel, but additionally my fucking demon … I like ballet however typically it feels prefer it doesn’t love me again.”
This sense of stress ripples by issues of race, class, and gender. “The world of ballet is having a really gradual reckoning with its deep, lengthy downside of racism,” explains dance scholar Seika Boye, one of some speaking heads to floor briefly in a movie dominated by motion. Breaking with classical custom, Kain decides that the corps will dance of their naked legs, in order that their humanity and individuality as girls are extra visually palpable. However tossing the tights doesn’t repair all the things; some dancers complain of legs slippery with sweat, whereas others, like Estrada, desire them exactly for their potential to hide. “We’ve to be very clear that that is Karen’s choice,” says choreographer Robert Binet throughout a employees assembly. “No one will get to say, ‘I need to put on tights,’ ‘I don’t need to put on tights.’” Clearly, autonomy for the corps has its limits.
Jurgita Dronina is the star of the stage manufacturing, and epitomizes grace underneath stress. Raised in poverty through the tumult of the Soviet Union’s fast collapse, the 38-year-old principal dancer prepares for her eleventh flip because the Swan Queen whereas battling a debilitating nerve harm. “I don’t speak about this harm,” she says, barbell squatting on the gymnasium after dropping her two sons off at sports activities follow. “I don’t assume my colleagues even know. I simply cope with it each single day.”
In contrast to many ballet narratives — or, certainly, the narratives that dominate the artwork — Swan Tune has no villains. The closest we get to 1 is ballet itself: directly demanding, debilitating, and terribly exhilarating, a polarizing artwork if ever there was one.
“The ‘female’ lady is eternally static and childlike,” argued feminist Susan Faludi virtually 35 years in the past. “She is just like the ballerina in an old school music field, her unchanging options tiny and girlish, her voice tinkly, her physique caught on a pin, rotating in a spiral that can by no means develop.” Certainly, a visible motif in Swan Tune is a plastic dancer spinning slowly in a jewellery field. However it’s performed for ironic impact — the dancers we develop to know (and love) are sweating, swearing, hovering girls, completely at odds with conceptions of purity and frailness. Their supreme effort to drift seemingly with ease is fraught with the cultural connotations of “femininity” generally.
“Ballet is fucking punk rock,” says Estrada. And by the tip of Swan Tune, we consider her.
Swan Tune is at present in choose theaters and is offered to buy on numerous streaming companies.