Dance Review by Laura Shapiro

CLASSICS RECLASSIFIED

A new Othello? A male Swan Lake?

One of the most heart-stopping images in ballet is the calm, brave departure of Odette at the end of Act II in Swan Lake. All night she’s been dancing with her newfound love, the Prince, but now she must return to captivity, changing from a woman back into a swan. As the Prince watches helplessly, she rises onto her toes and glides impassively onstage, her arms flexing and trembling as they turn into wings before our eyes.

Quick switch to British choreographer Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake... No trembling here; in fact, there’s no Odette, and no undulating lines of swan maidens. This lakeside scene is full of men - massive, fierce male swans, with bare chests and legs wrapped in feathers...

...This season the most talked-about dance events on both coasts are classics reclassified: Bourne’s male Swan Lake and, in New York, American Ballet Theatre’s Othello. The ABT work represents a rare attempt to revise the canon by adding to it, for here is a three-act ballet in the classic style that’s newly built from scratch...

...Ballet lovers interested in ABT’s dancers, who look terrific these days, should catch them in one of the signature works they do so beautifully. Like Swan Lake.