Such A Fascinating Interpretation - Tumblr Posts

swan lake

Since the MMAs 2020 performance still hasn’t left my mind, I thought I would share why. This is just my personal interpretation of the performance as a whole ♡

As a little girl, I grew up watching the Swan Lake ballet. I imagined myself as Odette, being spun around and lifted up by my prince, in a lakeside clearing on a moonlit night. To me, the pas de deux between the white swan and the prince is a timeless dance, one that exudes beauty, grace, romance, and love.

To those unfamiliar with Swan Lake, it is the story of a beautiful princess who is cursed to live as a swan by day, only becoming a human at night. This is Odette, the white swan. One evening, a handsome prince named Siegfried, who is being forced into an arranged marriage, aims his bow at Odette in her swan form, and she transforms in front of him.

Siegfried’s deepest yearning is for true love, and Odette’s curse can only be broken by true love. The prospects for both are bleak, yet their first pas de deux shows that they have found true love in each other.

But Swan Lake is a tragedy. The evil sorcerer who cursed Odette, Rothbart, gifts his daughter with the beauty of Odette’s human form. This is Odile, the black swan. Odile performs a pas de deux with Siegfried, who believes her to be Odette. Siegfriend swears his true love to Odile as a forelorn Odette watches from afar, as a white swan.

When Siegfried realizes what he has done, he rushes back to the lake. Although he is truly in love with Odette, he can no longer swear his true love to her. Odette’s curse can no longer be broken.

So the lovers choose death. In a lakeside clearing on a moonlit night, Siegfried and Odette drown themselves in the swan lake. Their final pas de deux is their ascendance into heaven, and the ballet closes.

Keep reading