Seeking Freedom: Analyzing the Use of Male Swans in Swan Lake
Closed in, trapped. This is what societal expectations make many of us feel. When trapped, we all seek to find freedom from those who place such restrictive expectations on us. This freedom may, for some, be found at Swan Lake.
Swan Lake (1995) is a dance production made by Matthew Bourne based on the ballet Swan Lake composed by Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky and choreographed by Marius Petipa. The traditional Swan Lake focuses on a prince, Siegfried, who is pressured to marry to fulfill his royal obligations. One day, Siegfried comes across a swan who turns out to be a woman, Odette. Odette is cursed to live as a swan by day and a woman by night unless someone swears to love her forever. Fascinated by Odette, Siegfried pledges his love to Odette in an intimate dance, setting up the romance that is the central focus of the rest of the ballet.
One of the most notable distinctions of Bourne’s Swan Lake from traditional renditions of Swan Lake is the casting of male dancers for the role of the swans in contrast to the traditional female dancers. Additionally, Bourne’s Swan Lake lacks names. Rather than Siegfried and Odette, the roles are merely named the Prince and the Swan. Throughout this essay, Siegfried and Odette will refer to the roles in traditional Swan Lake productions and the Prince and the Swan will refer to those in Bourne’s Swan Lake.
Since the traditional Swan Lake is considered to be a romance, Bourne’s Swan Lake is often interpreted as a gay romance, due to the featured relationship consisting of two males: the Prince and the Swan. A review by the New York Times states that the relationship between the male Prince and the male Swan is “frequently read as a homosexual one” (Sulcas). Likewise, an article by The Guardian describes Bourne’s Swan Lake as “homoerotic” (Mackrell). This reading of Bourne’s Swan Lake as a gay romance may be due to the close interactions between the Prince and Swan, as detailed later.
In this essay, I will be arguing that Bourne’s Swan Lake is not a gay romance and the central theme is not sexual desire but the trappings that societal roles present. To do so, I will be furthering the claims of Kent G. Drummond. In the article “The Queering of Swan Lake” (2003), Drummond argues that Bourne’s Swan Lake is not a gay romance but a queer piece of theater.
He frames the relationship between the Swan and the Prince to be pedagogical rather than romantic, pointing to certain dance movements that I will describe and analyze later on. Drummond argues that Bourne’s Swan Lake is a queering of the traditional Swan Lake because it challenges audiences’ assumptions of compulsory heterosexuality and fixed masculinity. Both of these points will be expanded upon in this paper.
This paper analyzes the pas de deux in Act Two of Swan Lake, a sensual dance between the Prince and the Swan. A pas de deux is a duet typically danced by a female and male dancer. The traditional gender roles in a pas de deux are a male supporting and lifting the female and a female in need of support from the male. The pas de deux in Act Two of Swan Lake highlights, both in traditional and Bourne’s Swan Lake, the Prince’s and the Swan’s fascination with the other.
The descriptions and analysis of Bourne’s Swan Lake will be based on a recorded performance in West End, London in 1996. A performance of Tchaikovsky’s traditional Swan Lake by the Royal Ballet, performed in the Royal Opera House in London, will be described and analyzed in comparison. The two pas de deux’s will be compared and contrasted to argue that Swan Lake is not a romance.
Before analyzing these performances, a concept regarding gender must be introduced. In Keywords for American Cultural Studies (2014), Jack Halberstam defines gender, claiming that gender is “a bodily performance of normativity and the challenges made to it” (Halberstam 117). In other words, gender is a performative act, not a fixed trait. It can be challenged and changed because it is merely something that is displayed through a body.
Halberstam notes that drag-king acts in which females portray masculinity cause audiences to be “unsure of the proper markings of sex, gender, desire, and attraction” (Halberstam 117). These performative displays of the male gender role by females therefore causes people to question the idea of gender as being fixed.
In Bourne’s Swan Lake, a similar act occurs. Using the idea that gender is performative, Drummond claims that Bourne’s Swan Lake has the Prince and the Swan perform multiple gender roles which causes a questioning of the male gender role and the idea of fixed gender. This, Drummond claims, is what makes Bourne’s Swan Lake a queer production, because Bourne establishes certain gender roles performed by the dancers which are then “confound[ed] by presenting another cluster of gendered behavior” (Drummond 250). In other words, since the dancers perform multiple gender roles, it causes uncertainty on the gender of the dancers.
While I agree with Drummond’s argument, Drummond fails to provide specific evidence of this confounding of gender roles. I seek to provide such evidence through describing the Pas de deux.
In Bourne’s Swan Lake, the Pas de deux is an almost playful interaction between the Swan and the Prince. The stage is set to portray a city park at night, with projections of a full moon, foliage, and park gates against a dark background meant to be the night sky. The background is comprised of black and dark blue while the dancers wear white. The palette of colors is solely cool tones, creating a sense of melancholy, calmness, and pondering. There are four swans, danced by male dancers, lining the back of the stage.
The pas de deux starts off with the Swan at the right of the stage, a traditionally female role now being portrayed by a male, taking note of the Prince before starting to dance towards him. Meanwhile, the Prince remains unaware of his surroundings and is merely on the ground at the left of the stage. He gazes listlessly upwards as if seeking direction or guidance, implying that he feels lost. The Swan continues dancing towards the Prince and eventually nudges him which causes the Prince to take notice of the Swan and subsequently join him in dancing.
In contrast, the Pas de deux in traditional renditions of Swan Lake is less active. The setting also features dark lighting and cool tones. A whole flock of swans in white outline the stage, overlooking the pas de deux between Siegfried and Odette. Odette starts off lying on the ground center stage, turned into herself while Siegfried approaches her. He then lifts her off of the ground, without any input from Odette, before they proceed to dance together.
In Bourne’s Pas de deux, the Prince starts off on the ground likewise to Odette in the traditional Pas de deux. Since the Prince lays dormant and unmoving until a male body, the Swan, coaxes him into movement, the Prince appears to be performing the traditional female role in a pas de deux. As mentioned previously, the female role in a pas de deux has the female supported and guided by a male. By having the Prince seek guidance from the Swan and thus, in a way, dependent on the Swan for his subsequent movement, Bourne relays the female role of the pas de deux from the Swan, or Odette, to the Prince, or Siegfried.
However, later on in the pas de deux, the Prince supports the Swan in a lift, putting the Prince into a male role. Since the Prince is both guided and supportive throughout the Pas de deux, he takes on both a female and male gender role. In the same way, the Swan also takes on both gender roles. The Swan both guides the Prince, a male gender role, and is lifted by the Prince, a female gender role. By having both gender roles exhibited in the male Prince and Swan, Bourne reveals gender to be performative, as posited by Halberstam, and causes a questioning of gender roles in the pas de deux, as argued by Drummond.
This play on gender roles supports the argument that Bourne’s Pas de deux is not depicting sexual desire, and more generally that Bourne’s Swan Lake is not a gay romance, by going back to Halberstam’s notion that performing multiple gender roles can cause uncertainty regarding sexual desire. Heteronormative gender roles, reflected in traditional pas de deux’s, have the female being delicate and in need of support while the male is dominant and supportive.
These gender roles are used in general to engender assumed heterosexuality. These bifurcated gender roles make us believe these two genders are meant to desire each other because the female desires support from the male and the male desires giving support to the female. In traditional pas de deux’s, these gender roles are acted out by a female and male dancer to showcase their sexual desire towards each other.
In Bourne’s Pas de deux, the presence of two male dancers takes away an assumption of sexual desire due to heteronormativity. Bourne uses the same genders of the Swan and the Prince to make his pas de deux not sexual, as many traditional pas de deux’s do.
Of course, that is not to say that all pas de deux’s performed by dancers of the same gender are automatically devoid of sexual desire or must not be interpreted as exhibiting sexual desire. Many may notice the multiple embraces and prolonged eye contact between the Prince and the Swan and use these to interpret the Pas de deux as romantic. I am arguing that Bourne takes advantage of the fact that the same gendered dancers are less likely to arouse assumption of sexual desire to make his pas de deux non-romantic. How he goes about doing this is discussed below.
When the dance moves are taken into account, it is compelling to interpret the Pas de deux not as sexual but as showing the Prince’s desire to be like the Swan. This can be seen in moments when the Prince appears to be copying the Swan’s movements.
For example, there is a sequence in which the Prince performs the same movements as the Swan while earnestly paying attention to the Swan, almost as if the Prince wants to make sure his moves accurately copy the Swan’s. This makes it appear as if the Prince wants to emulate the Swan.
As Drummond argues, “[b]y attempting to repeat the steps of the Swan immediately after he has danced them, Siegfried [the Prince] appears desperately to want to be the swan” (Drummond 241). In other words, the pas de deux shows the Prince desiring to be the Swan, or to learn how to be like the Swan, rather than desiring the Swan.
But why does the Prince aspire to be like the Swan? By analyzing the Pas de deux’s lifts, I argue that the Prince desires to emulate the freedom of the Swan.
Throughout the Pas de deux in Bourne’s Swan Lake, the Swan skittishly leaves the Prince’s arms if touched for too long. This may be seen as the Swan disliking the Prince. However, the Swan appears to hold no hostility towards the Prince, merely to the fact that his body and range of movement is constricted by another. This can be interpreted as the Swan disliking another body enclosing his. This can be generalized as the Swan rejecting the restrictions that others may impose upon him, such as the restrictions of societal roles.
The Swan’s actions towards the Prince further show his avoidance of restriction. When the Swan lifts or touches the Prince, he does so with his arms, never his hands. The Swan does not encircle his arms around the Prince. He always leave his arms open so as not to enclose and restrict the Prince. There is always an easy way for the Prince to leave the Swan’s arms if he chooses to do so. The Swan is trying to not restrict and entrap the Prince because the Swan himself does not like being restricted and trapped.
This emphasis on not being enclosed in someone else’s arms or body show how the Swan refuses to be subject to other’s whims or expectations. It is this refusal of societal constraints and the freedom from these constraints that the Prince wishes to have himself.
Remember that the original Swan Lake contains a prince who feels trapped by the duties his societal role as a royal demands of him, a theme that is carried over to the Prince in Bourne’s Swan Lake. It is for this reason that the Prince appears to want to be the Swan throughout the Pas de deux, as noted by Drummond. The Prince desires to have the freedom that the Swan so readily expresses. Through this pas de deux, Bourne changes the central focus of his Swan Lake from romance to the constraints of societal roles.
Since the original Swan Lake depicts a romance between Siegfried and Odette, it is reasonable for people to assume that Bourne’s Swan Lake also features a romantic relationship between the Prince and the Swan, despite the male gender of the Swan. However, by changing the gender of the Swan so that both the Prince and the Swan are male in addition to modifying the movements of the Pas de deux, Bourne is able to convey a non-romantic relationship between the Prince and the Swan. Instead of desiring each other, the Prince and the Swan in Bourne’s Swan Lake have a relationship of a restricted individual seeking the freedom that the other asserts.
Bourne’s Swan Lake is thus not a gay romance but a tale of the restrictions that societal roles demand of people. What Bourne’s Pas de deux, and the production as a whole, manages to do, then, is cause people to question gender as being immutable and reassess assumptions of heterosexuality, both worthwhile endeavors that we should all seek to partake in.
Works Cited
Drummond, Kent G. “The Queering of Swan Lake.” Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 45, no. 2–4, 2003, pp. 235–255., doi:10.1300/j082v45n02_11.
Halberstam, Jack. “Gender.” In Keywords for American Cultural Studies, second edition, edited by Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler, 116–118. New York: NYU Press, 2014.
Mackrell, Judith. “Bourne’s Supremacy: the Blockbuster Choreographer Puts on The Red Shoes.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 2 Nov. 2016, www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/nov/02/matthew-bourne-the-red-shoes-interview-sadlers-wells.
Sulcas, Roslyn. “All the Swans At This Lake Are Male.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 Oct. 2010, www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/arts/dance/10bourne.html.
