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Spreading her wings: Michael Keegan-Dolan’s adaptation of
“Swan Lake,” coming to the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Oct.
15, combines the original story with an Irish folktale and a tragic
event in recent Irish history. Marie Laure Briane
Feather weight
Irish adaptation of ‘Swan Lake’ lands at BAM
COURIER LIFE, OCT. 4-10, 2019 45
A By Rose Adams strange, serious new show is
taking wing.
White-feathered figures, evil
priests, and corrupt cops will leap onto
the stage when an avant-garde adaptation
of Tchaikovsky’s classic ballet “Swan
Lake” debuts at the Brooklyn Academy of
Music’s Harvey Theater on Oct. 15. The
production, from Irish dance company
Teac Damsa, fuses the ballet’s haunting
story with Irish folklore and recent events
in that country, making its mythical story
feel compelling to modern audiences,
said its creator.
“By mixing three stories or myths
together… we can see a connection
between what we perceive as ancient,
and mythological and what we perceive
as contemporary and real,” said Irish
choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan.
“Swan Lake/Loch na hEala,” which
runs Oct. 15–20, re-imagines the ballet’s
original love story between a prince and
a woman turned into a swan by an evil
sorcerer. It reinvents the prince as a
depressed 36-year-old, based on a man
shot to death by Irish police in 2000, and
the sorcerer as a sexually abusive priest
who transforms his victims into swans so
they cannot accuse him. The leading lady
is one of those silenced swans, and shares
a name with the lead character in “The
Children of Lir,” an ancient fairy tale
about four siblings who turn into birds.
The show draws on prevalent themes
in modern Ireland, including oppression,
state power, and corruption of the church,
said Keegan-Dolan, and even its narrative
style has Irish influences.
“The show is built around a narrative
structure, a structure that I would have
inherited from my ancestors, who were
also storytellers,” he said. “The Irish are a
people who have always valued stories, as
ways of passing on valuable information
from young to old.”
The show’s 10 dancers will combine
classic ballet moves with modern dance,
and the show discards Tchaikovsky’s
score for traditional Irish and Nordic
music, played on fiddles, cellos, and
guitars by the music trio Slow Moving
Clouds.
The show may draw on the history and
folklore of Ireland, but its characters will
resonate with people across borders and
eras, said Keegan-Dolan.
“Every society, ancient or modern,
has its evil sorcerers — some of them
politicians or religious leaders,” he
said. “As with any powerful myth,
the characters speak to us today as
strongly as the day of their origin.
We simply need to learn how to listen
again.”
“Swan Lake/Loch na hEala” at BAM
Harvey Theater 651 Fulton St. between
Rockwell and Ashland places in Fort
Greene, (718) 636–4100, www.bam.org.
Oct. 15–19 at 7:30 pm; Oct. 20 at 3 pm.
$30 –$95.
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