Let It Go

In the end, after all the dissection of the Swan, the most important thing in the dance is to have a sense of freedom and not holding back. Were you on the edge for 3 minutes? Are you spent? Did you feel as if you made a personal statement? Did you expose something inside you? Did you communicate with the audience?

Years ago, I was lucky enough to see Maya Plisetskaya perform the Dying Swan. I actually had decent seats. I was sitting next to Walter Matthau (who knew he was such a balletomane?). Anyhow, she was kind of on a farewell tour.  When she came out with her back to us, she had perfected a technique that gave her arms a sort of boneless, snakey, ripply water quality. The audience applauded immediately. After that her performance was a bit past the prime of a great artist but you could see what had once been there. The thing I will always remember is that when the dance was done, she went into a series of elaborately choreographed bows. The audience went wild for the great Russian Ballerina. And then she did an encore... of the Dying Swan again. As were her choreographed bows afterwards. It was exactly the same. Every accent. Every nuance. And while I respected the integrity of her performance and her dedication to her art. I couldn't help but be disappointed. So here was a great artist doing the same piece twice. And she was trapped in the rigidity of simply repeating all of the effects that she knew "worked" in a 3 minute piece, night after night.

In the end, withis this particular piece, that doesn't interest me. Funny, but in a piece that is all about dying, I want the dancer to be... alive. :)