Swan Song
As artistic director Karen Kain prepares to retire, Chelsea McMullan’s resourceful documentary goes behind the scenes to witness the National Ballet of Canada’s preparation to stage 'Swan Lake’.
Image courtesy of Dogwoof Releasing.
The passion that the actress Neve Campbell has for ballet now surfaces cinematically for the second time. Back in 2003 she not only starred in Robert Altman's drama The Company set in the world of ballet dancers but also shared the credit for the story and was in addition a co-producer. This time around she is less central: the film is a documentary made by Chelsea McMullan but Campbell is credited as an executive producer. In naming her film Swan Song, McMullan has chosen a title that has been used many times before, but on this occasion it is particularly apt because it carries two meanings.
Most viewers will approach this work aware that it is a piece about ballet and will readily see the title as a hint that the actual ballet featured here is indeed one of the most popular of all, Swan Lake to music by Tchaikovsky. In this case, however, the production in question, one by the National Ballet of Canada, was being directed by Karen Kain as the last contribution she would make to the company with which she had been associated since the age of eighteen. First as a ballerina and then as the company’s artistic director Karen’s whole career had centred on it and it would be in Toronto at the Four Seasons Theatre that she would stage Swan Lake, the one novelty for her being that she had chosen to bow out by taking on the role of directing a production herself for the first time. She felt passionately about this ballet in which she had danced so often and about how she would like to see it interpreted for a modern audience, but she still felt nervous about deciding to do it. That nervousness increased when the production scheduled for June 2020 was postponed due to Covid with the consequence that it would only reach the stage in August 2022. She had held back her retirement in order to see it come to fruition but feared – unnecessarily – that the two-year delay would see her lacking the energy to carry out this endeavour successfully (she had been born back in 1951).
The aim behind Swan Song is essentially two-fold – to create a film that would show the vast effort and strain that go into the staging of a ballet and simultaneously to pay tribute to Karen Kain by showing her hard work here and by looking back however briefly on her career. Although it views the company as a group (there is much emphasis on Swan Lake being a ballet in which the contribution of the corps de ballet is unusually key), the film that has resulted nevertheless concentrates primarily on four figures. One of these is, of course, Kain herself and another is the choreographer, Robert Binet, who is anxious that his work should please her and the other two are ballerinas. The ballet will be presented with four casts but it's the Russian-Lithuanian Jurgita Dronina who will dance the dual roles of Odette and Odile on the opening night and she is the one who is featured here as a principal ballerina. Meanwhile, prominence is also given to a dancer from the corps, Shaelynn Estrada who comes from Texas. In all four instances they share their thoughts and concerns and we also get, albeit rather sketchily, some idea of these women’s personal lives and backgrounds.
It is by no means unusual for substantial footage to be shot for a documentary of which a large part goes unused. I gather that for Swan Song as much as 450 hours of material was filmed and it would appear that the footage has been applied not only to creating this film with its running length of 103 minutes but also to a much longer four-part series for television. It may be that seeing more would increase our rapport with the leading personalities here and one would certainly like more time to be spent on an upcoming dancer, Genevieve Penn Nabity who, also rehearsing the roles of the swan queens, takes the eye of Karen Kain as an artist to be encouraged. We might have had more too from another corps dancer, Tene Ward, who speaks from the viewpoint of one who could be considered an outsider since she is Sri Lankan, Cherokee and African-American.
It could well be a matter of swings and roundabouts when it comes to a preference for one version of this material over the other. The film as it stands is long enough for a work that is to be viewed in a single sitting and it tackles many issues that arise during the six weeks leading up to the opening. Thus the film features the progression of rehearsals from studio to stage, the way in which the choreographer seeks to push his dancers hard yet sympathetically, the desire on Kain’s part to consider diversity and to bring out elements such as the sorcerer’s control of the swans in a way that will speak afresh to contemporary audiences without betraying the original: all of these things emerge along with matters concerned with personal health and injuries, the sheer slog of the preparation and jealousy within the company when promotions arise for some and not for others. Not all of this is covered here in the depth that it may well have received in the TV series and, save for a kind of coda tribute to Kain, the film treats the opening night as its climax but can only do the performance limited justice as we glimpse brief extracts and witness the bustle backstage. But, even if some ballet fans are left wanting more than the film version gives them, most of them will find this an effective view of the complexity that comes into play when a new staging is undertaken by a major company.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Jurgita Dronina, Shaelynn Estrada, Karen Kain, Robert Binet, Tene Ward, Genevieve Penn Nabity, Arielle Miralles, Gabriela Tylesova, Caroline Berry, Sergui Endinian, Kelly Palmer, Ross Petty.
Dir Chelsea McMullan, Pro Sean O’Neill and Christina Carvalho, Ex Pro Neve Campbell, Screenplay Chelsea McMullan and Sean O’Neill, Ph Tess Girard and Shady Hanna, Pro Des Daria Savic, Ed Brendan Mills, Sabrina Budiman and John Gallagher, Music Katie Austra Stelmanis.
Visitor Media/Mercury Films/Quiet Ghost/Canadian Broadcasting Co/Dogwoof-Dogwoof Releasing.
103 mins. Canada. 2023. US Rel: 26 July 2024. UK Rel: 16 August 2024. Cert. 15.
