Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake was made by AMP, choreographed by Matthew Bourne, the composer was Tchaikovsky and the set designer was Lez Brotherson. We watched two sections of Swan Lake, where the adult swans where dancing and where the cygnets were dancing.
The movement material used in Swan Lake is very different from the movements used in The Tales of Beatrix Potter. The movements the adults use are very fluid and graceful. The dancers use their arms as their long necks and their hands as their beaks. In one scene, the swans gather together and start waving both of their arms around in different directions. This is effective because it looks to the audience as if the number of swans has doubled. The swans use arabesque movements to make them look graceful like swans. When the cygnets dance, they are not graceful like the adult swans. They are quite clumsy, their movements are overbalanced and they flap their arms to gain control. The cygnets also stare at the audience a lot while they dance. The relationship between the cygnets is that all 4 of them have a partner, there is a lot of close contact with the partners, such as at the end of their section where they jump onto each others back.
The moves performed by Jeremy Fisher are jumps, which is why the two dances are very difference. The jumps include jetès, where he leaps from one foot to another, assemblés, where he jumps from 1 foot to 2 feet to join them together (assembling them) and pas de chat’s, a jump in which the feet are side by side with your legs crossed and then you jump up and land in the same position (step of the cat). Jeremy Fishers legs, are at a bent angle, and so this makes the pas de chat more frog like.
The costumes in Swan Lake were quite rough and bare. The swans had to wear white, feathery pedal pushers and nothing else. The reason behind this is because swans are naturally aggressive birds and so M. Bourne used the costume to make the dancers look as rugged and aggressive as possible. The swans are covered in white powder and have a single black stripe from their noses to their head, just as swans do. Jeremy Fisher wears a red smoking jacket, a white shirt and black slippers. Later he puts on a gold rain jacket. He has a big, realistic, greenish brown frog head, webbed hands and frog like legs, which are bent at an angle. The difference in the use of the costume, is that F. Ashton uses the costume to show what animal the character is (a frog) but M. Bourne uses costume to show the character of the animal (aggressive).
In Swan Lake, the music is by Tchaikovsky and is old and classical. With the adult swans, it is slow and graceful but with the cygnets, it is fast and snappy. The music played when the cygnets dance, helps to make the dancers look more silly and clumsy because they have to move in time with the music. The set is proscenium arch, and very dark with white light to see the dancers. The Tales of Beatrix Potter, Jeremy Fisher, the music is happy and jumpy and when Jeremy comes out of the water, the music plays in time with him crawling out of the water. The set is made for camera, it is a scenic river bank where there is a lake. Jeremy’s house is quite plain and has a slippery floor. I don’t think Swan Lake could be made for camera as it would be to difficult for the dancers to move gracefully in water, likewise I don’t think The Tales of Beatrix Potter could be done proscenium arch because there are parts which are cut out on camera (when Jeremy goes to the lake with his fishing rod) and Jeremy would not be able to fall into water on stage.
There is humour in both dances. In Swan Lake, it is the cygnets that provide this with their clumsy, struggling moves which go perfectly in time with the music. They are also quite camp and cheeky which adds to the humour. Jeremy Fisher is made humorous by his forgetfulness (when he forgets his rod) and clumsiness. He is also funny when he starts crying as soon as he’s sat down on the land, and when he checks to see if he’s broken his bones. Music adds to the humour, when it goes in time with Jeremy plodding out of the water.
I think in both dances, one similarity is that the choreographers are trying to show something that has never been seen before, a dancing frog or a ballet where males are dancing a typical female part, which is obviously taking the mick out of the traditional Swan Lake.
