Moscow Festival Ballet presents Swan Lake

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Last week Thursday, I had the pleasure of seeing Swan Lake performed by the Moscow Ballet in Eisenhower Auditorium. The story of Swan Lake is easy enough to remember and one of my favorites. A prince meets his true love who is stuck under a curse, he meanwhile has to marry someone, almost tragically loses his love to an evil sorcerer, and prevails at keeping his true love. I did not expect it to translate so well to ballet or that there would be no speaking during the performance.

The technical expertise and athleticism of these dancers was crazy. Their bodies were so muscular and they were all so flexible. There was one dancer that really stood out to me was the jester.  From the moment he did his first major trick, my eyes were glued to him anytime he came on the stage. The jester moved in ways I have never seen before like aerial twist turns. I am almost inspired to go to gym because his muscles were insane. The friend I went to the show made a joke that I thought was so funny about him. She said I need to stop missing leg day at the gym so that I can dance like that.  I was just overall impressed with his performance in the show. My sister dances ballet and she says that doing spins for like over 7 or 8 rotations in a row can get really tiring. The jester did like 20 or 30 in a row and it was the most graceful thing I have ever seen. He was kinda perfection personified.

The other dancers in the show were awesome as well.  The prince was a very good dancer. He had to be a very masculine serious kind of figure and he pulled that off well. Odette was actually a dance goddess sent down from the gods above because her footwork was spectacular. Everything was so elegant and she had such an innocent white swan vibe about her. Odile was also awesome! She moved with such grace but yet seductive to the prince. I felt it when I was watching them together; her dance moves were so perfect that there was no way that the prince would not want to be with her compared to the other princesses at the ball.  Overall, the company has a great group of dancers and should be very proud of the work they put on every night.
I also really liked the way the set design was done.  As an audience member, I felt like I could see where the scene could take place but I could also focus on the dancing because it was not too complicated or flashy. I liked the lighting in the final scene when the prince frees the swans of the curse. The scenery was dark blue for night and as the light came in with a yellow tinge, it had a real nice presence to it. That was my favorite scene of the whole ballet. (I'm searching for an image for y'all!) Overall, I would love to see another ballet sometime soon and learn more about that style of dance!