Gotta love a man in feathers

[geoviki]

Both ravurian and isiscolo are laughing at me because I am inarticulately muttering: Swans! Swans! Check out the icon if you don't believe me.

I took a day from the salt mines to see Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake. Live! You cannot imagine a more slashy ballet. Well, okay, male ballet dancers do have that rep, but that's offstage, you know what I'm sayin'? This was all about The Prince! And the Swan! And the Prince and Swan dancing together! With lots of other male swans all swanning about. No subtext necessary. It was a slasher's paradise.

I was in the third row, and I could hear the special swan breathing and the special swan hissing, and see the special swan sweat, for God's sake!

So maybe it wasn't feathers, actually, more like llama wool-looking stuff. But it looked swan-like. And the choreography was very swan-like.

This is the ballet performed by the grown-up Billy Elliott in that film, if you remember.

In honor of my new swan fetish, I link you to copperbadge's Swan!fic: No Treaty

Comments

[luci0logy.livejournal.com]

Oh honey, welcome to the fan club. That ballet is amazing and you can get the DVD from Amazon. Here it's known as 'the gay Swan Lake. I was lucky enough to see Adam Cooper (in your icon) perform the lead swan in 1998 and the spark between him & the prince, when they dance in the park, was palpable to say the least - made me squirm in my seat. I saw him again last August at the Sadler's Wells Theatre in his production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses (he stripped on stage - guh!).

http://www.adam-cooper.com/gallerymenuset.htm

Remember La fashionista - Harry in his birthday suite? Well in the sequel he talked about this very ballet & the effect Adam Cooper had on him before describing his fantasy to Draco on the train home from the Royal Opera House.

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

Ooooh I would have loved to have seen it.

And don't you think the "Enchanted Lake" suite is ever so slightly creepy? There's an undertone of menace (the strings) and it's just... creepy.

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

I read a review of that last year in the Times. OH HOW I WANTED IT.

[mad-martha.livejournal.com]

I saw that ballet live years ago, with Adam Cooper in it, at the Plymouth Theatre Royal. Wow. I like ballet generally and have seen a couple of fantastic conventional performances of Swan Lake, but this one really makes the brain fizzle :-)

[elfscribe5.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, bare-chested gorgeously buff men in tights. What's not to like? Wish I could have seen this one. Sounds marvelous.

Swans ♥

[talanoa.livejournal.com]

Hi, total stranger here... :D

... I followed the swans! I saw your icon in a discussion somewhere, went OMG!squee!Swan Lake! Adam Cooper! (and in a recognisably "H/D" person, too!), and came here out of icon love.

I've seen it, too, years ago, in the UK, and I also sat close enough to almost smell their sweat as I saw it trickle. ;) It one of my absolute favourite ballet experiences ever, so much love for that version...

Anyway; thank you for reminding me, and bringing back loads of lovely memories and flashes of the show. ♥

As luciology, I'd really recommend to consider getting it on dvd - seeing the Swan and the Prince again and again (and that yummy dance at the ball!) is very addictive. :D


Best wishes,

Clara