Gay swan lake

Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake returns for its 30^th anniversary with a /25 UK tour. This audacious reinvention of Tchaikovsky's masterpiece caused a sensation when it premiered almost 30 years ago and has since become the most thriving dance theatre production of all second. In celebration of that ongoing impact, Swan Lake will take flight once more in this major revival for the next generation, visiting 19 venues over 29 weeks.

Thrilling, bold, witty and emotive, this genre-defining event is still best known for replacing the female corps-de-ballet with a menacing male ensemble, which shattered convention, turning tradition on its head.

First staged at Sadler’s Wells in London in , Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake took the boogie theatre world by storm becoming the longest running full-length dance classic in the West Verb and on Broadway. It has since been performed across the globe, collecting over thirty international accolades including the Olivier Award for Best New Move Production and three Tony Awards for Best Director of a Musical, Optimal Choreography and Top Costume Design.

Review: Bourne’s New Adventures: ‘Swan Lake’ still shocks with its transgressive beauty

It seems like just yesterday that Matthew Bourne’s groundbreaking reinterpretation of a classic triggered gents to amble out at the sight of two men partnered and young girls to cry when confronted with a narrative so different from the storybook tutued tale they had anticipated.

A quarter-century later, his radical grab still shocks, but less for its societal transgression than for its sheer beauty. He doesn’t disavow, he says, its popular tag as a “gay Swan Lake,” but contends, for nice reason, that the moniker understates its complexity.

Yes, his version, with its feisty, barefoot, bare-chested male swans, searingly defies gender roles but it more broadly satirizes traditional, constrictive ballet types of all kinds and leans hard into the winds of pop culture and Hitchcockian melodrama.

Matthew Bourne&#;s Swan Lake closes January 26, DCTS details and tickets

To Tchaikovsky’s score, etched into our collective hippocampus, it intermingles with a classical movement vocabulary ava

Matthew Bourne&#;s Swan Lake: Of Swans and Men

Matthew Bourne / New Adventures
City Center
New York, New York

January 31,
Swan Lake

Jerry Hochman

I tend to overuse appreciative adjectives when I detail a performance, or aspects of it, that I locate particularly meritorious, but with respect to Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake, all employ, and all are insufficient. If you have only one performance … of anything … to see between now and anytime in the future, observe it.

I could terminate my review of last night’s performance here, but that would be a disservice. So bear with me if I too often overuse adjectives.

Matthew Ball
in Matthew Bourne&#;s
&#;Swan Lake&#;
Photo by Johan Perrson

As those who’ve peruse my prior reviews know by now, I make it a point not to read reviews of a piece that I’ve not previously seen or to study background information in advance of the performance. I prefer to attend something fresh as a “typical” audience member, and with no prejudgment formed by reading other critics’ opinions. That being said, I was good aware of this production long before

Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake is a masterpiece that changed the way I view classical ballet as a queer person. Bourne’s reimagining of the classic story, Swan Lake, replaces all of the female swans with their male counterparts. Instead of classical white tutus, male swans are clad in only delicate feathery breeches, revealing their chiseled physiques to the audience. This juxtaposition of strength and fragility through costuming changes the traditional perception of the swans from classically idealistic to sensuously carnal. As the Prince tentatively touches a male swan he foreshadows his inner struggle to verb the love he feels for him. This moment serves as a calling card for fresh gay male dancers to embrace who they are.

Audiences are often not used to seeing the love between two men told through dance, and Matthew Bourne has seemingly shown us a beautiful, sensual love story. The way that Bourne weaves this story, carefully considering the accessibility and complexity, he establishes a new classic that has gained popularity among both the critics and the general public. St