Four choreographers react to Swan Lake: they are happy to let the original sink in ★★★☆☆

All right, there are swans swimming by. In the air, on a bunch of balloons. In the fingers, folded from paper. And in the sharp angle of a snapped wrist with a flat hand, resembling the locomotion of a gooseneck with a biting beak. But of four new visions of the exactly 145-year-old Swan Lake (premiere: February 20, 1877) in Swan Lakes Gauthier Dance/Dance Company Theaterhaus Stuttgart is out of the question. Previously of quartets: ‘Can I have Marie Chouinard’s swan? And me from Marco Goecke?’ Artistic director Eric Gauthier asked four great choreographers to respond to the famous ballet classic in 20 minutes. The Holland Dance Festival is now bringing this four-part series to the Netherlands for a week. However, the choreographers seem to be delighted to let the famous source of inspiration sink to the bottom of a swan lake.

They all put their signature signature. Feminist Chouinard (66) used in Le chant du cygne: le lac pointe and tutu for a chanted protest against patriarchy. With their right hands bandaged with a spitz, a choir of eight women, wearing white peaked wigs and ditto contact lenses, pierce explicit accusations at the public. Like playful punk swans, they ride and climb eight pedestals on the floor. Shechter pumps in Swan Cake the driving beat of collective energy by a colorful group of nine dancers, dressed in colorful bandanas.

And Goecke late in Shara Nuru four men and two women itching and snarling quickly – the title refers to a Russian lake full of minerals. Soto opens the quartet with seven dancers in translucent black. They extend limbs to extremes to draw long lines and razor-sharp angles. This is how it turned out Swan Lakes develops into a light-hearted, compact introduction to four top choreographers.