Second Part of the Ballet-Trilogy

The plain was grassy, wild and bare,
Wide, wild, and open to the air,
Which had built up everywhere
An under-roof of doleful gray.
With an inner voice the river ran,
Adown it floated a dying swan,
And loudly did lament.
(from: Alfred Lord Tennyson The Dying Swan, 1830)

Doris Uhlich’s solo Rising Swan takes Michel Fokine’s choreography The Dying Swan as a point of departure. The revolutionary expressive ballet was first premiered in 1907 by Anna Pavlova which made her a world-famous star. The up and down of the swan, the sheer force of its wings and its resistance to sinking, which Pavlova expressed in her solo, take a new form in Rising Swan. Doris Uhlich brings the choreography into the year 2010, combining it with personal memories of breakups and failures.

Anna Pavlova is for me a popfigur at the beginning of the 20th Century. Her „Dying Swan“ lasted only three minutes, it was shown in front of thousands of people in music halls. The swan stands for destruction, but also transition into new worlds, visions. The combination of pop and classical ballet brings me to the question: Which visions and zest for life are in popular songs that accompany me since my youth? Feel the city breakin´, everybody´s shakin,´ we are stayin´ alive! Maybe, maybe not. Doris Uhlich