A camera shakily meanders through the chaos of 15 minutes to the curtain going up. Anxiety and excitement are suspended in the air. The feeling is synonymous with only one kind of moment in theatre — it's opening night.
Chelsea McMullan and Sean O’Neill’s documentary is a moving depiction of the painful backstage labour of love that goes into creating the magic of the ballet Swan Lake.
With a flurry of white-feathered tutus, the audience is introduced to the corps de ballet of Karen Kain’s long-anticipated direction of Swan Lake, having been postponed due to the pandemic.
As esteemed ballet dancer and choreographer Robert Binet describes her, Karen Kain is the “Princess Diana of Canada.” She is a cultural icon, but a more accurate title would be an “étoile” — the highest ranked dancer in a company, according to ballet terminology.
Kain is a legend, having achieved what very few dancers do. She traveled all around the world to perform in productions with countless companies. Her impressive career spanning 50 years was marked by many notable recognitions, including an honorary degree from UBC.
Swan Song follows Kain as she navigates first-time directorial duties in an endeavour that would also mark her retirement as artistic director for the National Ballet.
Showing the weeks leading up to opening night, the film also weaves together the individual experiences of some of the dancers in the production.
Six weeks to opening night.
Perhaps most notable is the story of Jurgita Dronina, principal ballerina and playing the role of Odette. Having garnered international acclaim after coming up from the bare bones of a collapsing Soviet Union, Dronina’s career parallels that of Kain’s prime in many ways.
Throughout the film, audiences observe in anxious suspense as Dronina’s long-standing shoulder injury threatens to keep her from performing. But what is admirable about Dronina is her ability to push through the pain and through to the art.
“I [see ballet] as a way of living,” Dronina says at one point in the film. She has the rare ability to fully immerse herself in a role — her pain, joy and all the emotions in between are immediately observable and universally understandable.
Four weeks to opening night.
Dancer Shaelynn Estrada brings a darkly comedic and humbled energy to the corps de ballet.
“What, are you trying to make me a villain?” she jokes, while leaning against a concrete wall on a buzzing Toronto street with a cigarette between her fingers.
Estrada grew up in Texas before relocating to Toronto to fulfill her aspirations of committing to professional ballet. For her, this was always the only way forward; an ode to her “unrequited love,” as she describes her relationship with the art form.
“It’s hard to have a personality that’s in direct conflict with the thing you love the most in the world,” she says, referring to her independent and strong-headed nature that often contrasts the lightness, discipline and unison that is expected in ballet.
The film also showcases how ballet is rooted in unspoken racism, which Kain pushes back against throughout the documentary.
Traditional ballet tights are peachy pink. They've been used to standardize dancers’ alignment in the past, but have only ever catered towards light skin tones.
Kain persuades the production’s costume designer Gabriela Týlešová to allow the dancers to perform with bare legs, and her production emerges as the first ballet of its kind to fully eliminate ballet tights from the costume design.
“We get to be ourselves on stage,” noted corps de ballet dancer Tene Ward. “It looks better on everyone.”
Two weeks to opening night.
Audiences can feel hundreds of hours of labour slowly synthesizing into one coherent show.
In the studio, dancers rehearse in their costumes for the first time, and practice is laced with tension. Kain begins to fear that her vision will not come together in time.
Rehearsals on stage add an extra layer of frustration. Binet looks apprehensive in the stands. The ensemble seems to struggle to run to their spots to the cue of a far off piano. They mumble under their breaths in exhausted amazement as one dancer’s exercise tracker records that the ensemble has burned energy equivalent to a five kilometre run in just one practice.
Backstage once again, they soak their aching feet in buckets of water and work with physiotherapists to release tension from their bodies before the big day.
Opening night.
There’s a new vivacity in the room as we are brought back to where we began.
An oboe hums the unmistakable sound of an A note, the orchestra tunes, the lights dim and audience members decked out in glitter and vibrant colours shuffle to their seats.
The distinct B minor chord that commences the first act rings throughout the theatre. We hear the soft rumbling of rosined pointe shoe boxes from bourrée-ing feet on the floor. A sea of elongated limbs, chaînés and jetés. The music crescendos with the dancers’ movements.
“There’s moments when they stop being dancers and become human beings,” Kain says. She chose to depict her corps de ballet as women trapped in the bodies of swans, at the mercy of the ballet’s villain Rothbart. It humanizes the roles that were traditionally performed as a flock of synchronized and constituent birds.
The documentary’s audience is backstage, feeling the intense emotion — the relief as Dronina’s Odette slowly backs away from Prince Siegfried, her chin raised and eyes glossed over, into the darkness of the back of the stage as the curtain draws down.
Opening night was a miracle.
Swan Song is more than a commentary on the sheer amount of work that goes into a seemingly effortless production. It captures the ongoing paradigm shift in ballet that is aiming to liberate the art form from inherently biased tradition, making individuality the forefront and foundation of the craft.
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