For The Birds

OK, I'm just about there. I like Swan Lake, I like Tchaikovsky, and I even like Les Trockaderos. I just wish I had seen Billy Elliot, though, instead of just listened to the soundtrack:

The swans who appeared at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney yesterday are from an imaginative and widely admired British production of Swan Lake, soon to tour here. Choreographer Matthew Bourne's retelling of the famous ballet substitutes athletic male dancers in feathery shorts for the usual ballerinas in tutus.

Bourne was inspired by the swans in London's Hyde Park and their masculine strength and aggression. "Matthew has found this way of turning the classics upside-down and making an intelligent work with it," said director Vicky Evans, who will lead rehearsals for the ballet's Australian tour in February.

...Bourne's Swan Lake was first staged in London in 1995 and has had a season on Broadway, where it won three Tony Awards. It was also featured in the film Billy Elliot, about a boy who dreams of becoming a ballet dancer. Evans said Swan Lake captured the grace and strength of the birds: "They are aggressive, beautiful and athletic, and the men can really portray that."