More Than Just Ballet…
-”The art of ballet, like any other form of art, serves as a cultural encyclopedia and timeline; each is a guide to the social likes, woes, and acceptances of its time.”-
Matthew Bourne makes the viewers of his Swan Lake relive a classic play. Though cliché in sound, the experience is far from an ordinary remake. Bourne does not just modernize Swan Lake; through the reassigning of gender roles and integration of a new theme, Bourne transforms the ballet into a new experience that is to be enjoyed by an open, modern audience. Bourne’s work acts as more than just food for the eyes: it is a learning experience.
Bourne emphasizes through his work that all forms of art serve as forms of expression. With that, he also makes it known that it is not only the artist’s opinions, emotions, and thoughts that are being expressed. Those of the general population have a way of always making it into art as well. The art of ballet, like any other form of art, serves as a cultural encyclopedia and timeline; each is a guide to the social likes, woes, and acceptances of its time. Very explictly, Bourne attacks the social issues regarding homosexuality, in both our modern time and the time of the original Swan Lake. While Bourne critiques the treatment of homosexuals in older times through his Swan Lake, he also addresses the social acceptance of it in our time just through the presence of the critique. His art, like all other art, displays what society is willing to accept, or, often times, what society demands acceptance of. This revealing of ourselves through the work of artists speaks volumes to the importance of art in our culture. Its presence not only tracks, but influences, the growth of societies all over the world.
-Curtis