Friday, February 23, 2018

Day 267-Pittsburgh Ballet-Swan Lake-Masterful, Classical, Beautiful –A Fairy Tale



My blog inspiration book, “Everything I Need to Know I Learned From a Little Golden Book” reminds us to “Take in some culture once in awhile”. There is nothing more cultural than the  ballet Swan Lake. In fact, this love story is the pinnacle of classical ballet with the demanding technique of the dance for the principle dancer  who takes on the roles of both  Odette (White Swan) and Odile (Black Swan). With the  additional pairing of  Tchaikovsky’s  score which was performed  live by the  PBT Orchestra, this was a masterful performance!


Masterful performance **

Reflection
 Even  if you're new to ballet, the story in  Swan Lake is easy to follow. As it unfolds you can’t help being in awe of  the beauty and  skilled dance  in  all four acts. In this ballet an evil sorcerer casts a spell that turns a princess into a swan by day and human at night. The spell is only broken by true love (of course). The princess(Odette) and prince (Siegfried) fall in love but the sorcerer (Von Rothbart) sends his daughter (the Black Swan) to trick him into professing his love to this impostor which seals Odette's fate as a swan forever. This is a fairy tale drama to match the fairy tale dance.

Swans dance in unison** 
Swan Lake was filled with those iconic poses characteristic of a classical ballerina. As I watched the graceful  arms and  soaring dance of the White Swan,  I smiled as I thought about that little ballerina  in my childhood jewelry box that repeatedly turned to the  music.

Four swans dance in unison with speeding precision on point**

 Odette(Amanda Cochrane)* fluttered her arms like a bird and seemed to be on point forever with so much grace. The stage was often filled with dancers in white  who were easily identified as swans with one arm raised and with a slightly flexed hand resembling the neck of the bird. Then the dancers in sets of four, with hands clasped, moved in unison with speeding precision across the stage on point- amazing!

Not to be outdone by the swans in the Act 1 and 3, the men filled the stage with power jumps and multiple turns  at the prince’s 21 birthday party and in the Great Palace Hall. I am not sure how many times I leaned over to the wide eyed little girl beside me and said, “that’s amazing”!
Prince and Black Swan
The famous powerful dance of the Black Swan  in Act 3  had us counting the 32  consecutive fourette turns (whipping turns). She spun around and whipped the other leg around her body jockeying up and down on point. 

There was just so much to take in and it was all augmented by the beautiful set and sound of the full PBT Orchestra (listen to the Swan theme here). This was a classic, masterful, beautiful fairy tale night!
fairy tale night!

(Pittsburgh Ballet Theater's  Swan Lake runs from Feb. 16-25, 2018 at the Benedum Center. For tickets and for more about the 2017-18 ballet season go to www.pbt.org )





* also preformed by Hannah Carter, Alexandra Kochis and Julia Erickson
** photo by Rich Sofranko.

Spiritual Refection
Look at the birds in the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns,and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? (Matthew 6: 26)
Other Sources
Pittsburgh Ballet Theater https://www.pbt.org/