Not the Gay Swan Lake · Humani Moments

Contents:

• PK FEATHERS THE BALLET CLOSET: THREE GAY REMAK OF SWAN LAKE
• NOT THE GAY SWAN LAKE
• DANCE; 'SWAN LAKE': IS IT THEATER OR DANCE, GAY OR STRAIGHT?
• A MORN GAY’S GUI
• HOW A GROUP OF GAY MALE BALLET DANCERS IS RETHKG MASCULY

PK FEATHERS THE BALLET CLOSET: THREE GAY REMAK OF SWAN LAKE

Bourne created the work at a time when a law agast promotg homosexualy still existed England.

It’s gone now, but you n see how the swans stroyg one of their own — and his male, human lover — speaks to the homophobic vlence that still exists almost Thursday, the lightg sign of Ple Constable ma Lez Brotherston’s faiar sets and stum look better than ever — though Dunn McLean’s bleary swan-projectns need to be rensired. Siegied, however, is gay, and Masilo's homophobic South Ai unable to be wh Odile, the man he lov. Wh the terms of this society, neher "heroe" nor "villa" n have the man they love.Any gay readg of Swan Lake evably v parison wh Matthew Bourne's productn, yet Masilo's is like no other I've seen.

You are here: Home / dance / Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake: mutatns, vls and homosexualySwan Lake, Marisky Theatre, 1895.

NOT THE GAY SWAN LAKE

So was wh happs that he disvered, aged 14, that his olr brother was also gay (to the horror of Most's tw brother, Anatoly) and he wrote his unfished tobgraphy, (which has never been published):. His scribblgs have appeared var publitns om Woman's Weekly to Gay Tim, and he wrote the ‘Danza Italia' lumn for Dancg Tim magaze. It was not an openly homophobic environment, but s nservatism and heterocentrism, rooted an orientatn to the past, prented extra plexi to navigate for a young gay man g to terms wh his sexualy.

My experience wh this environment felt ntrast to the seismic soc-polil shifts I was wnsg through my engagement wh gay male subcultural art, polics and social spac. Cght between the two ntexts, I felt at once stuck the past, while also propelled forward by a wave of progrsive chapter trac my journey through the tensns, navigatg a relatnship to masculi and sir through a queer readg of ballet culture proposed by three key choreographic works that rpond to the polemics of gay sire ballet.

I argue that the works were created rponse to ballet’s excln of gay men; the way each work addrs gayns, masculy, and shame reflect some of the soc-polil and cultural tensns of this particular moment Gay Swan LakThe aforementned works are three “gay remak” of the classil ballet Swan Lake. I have labelled them lightly as “gay remak” based on two creria: one, bee the choreographer of each of the works intifi himself as gay; and two, the central romantic uple—the Prce and the Swan—is performed by two men.

DANCE; 'SWAN LAKE': IS IT THEATER OR DANCE, GAY OR STRAIGHT?

I argue the versns of the classil ballet were created at a time of shiftg gay polics, both wh and outsi the world of ballet, and they perform the polemics of this moment, each different ways. I have stctured my analysis of the works, not only the orr I enuntered them, but also the way they reflect my own journey of navigatg the plexi of the gay male body ballet.

While this remake proposed a way to challenge the visibily of gay men the ballet non, worked wh and perpetuated the systemic procs that produce ballet’s homophobias. ed “the universal” to disguise s gay shame, rooted the panic of the threat of the feme to the gay male inty that rerced many of the tensns I was navigatg between masculy and ntrast, I enuntered Javier Ftos’s Hypochondriac.

A MORN GAY’S GUI

The works offered rehg exploratns of gay sire and timacy that did not rely on hostily to otherns and difference. Both of the works risted fallg to regnizable tegori of gayns that would mean participatg a reployed dynamic of excln.

In Ftos’s duet, he loted gayns a personal space, undog the narrative and nonil imperativ of the source ballet to pose a playful, excsive and timate ntemplatn of gay sire. De Ftos, as a gay immigrant, and Hoghe, as an atypil body, exposed and ed their tersectnal otherns as the very materials of the performance. In their reworkg of Swan Lake, the nvenient, ambiguo, and clanste gay body was placed center stage, along wh s attendant sir, pleasur, timaci, and shame, renstctg a queer world that ss ristively parallel to the exclnary, heteronormative, classil ballet Cultur and Queer PolicsThis study is suated between 1995 and 2005, and at the junctn of two distct but teractive cultural practic: classil ballet and ntemporary gay cultur.

Around this time, I wnsed gay men and women Europe and North Ameri gag new rights, eedoms, and legal protectns—such as marriage equaly, antidiscrimatn protectn, and hate crime laws—as well as creased reprentatn mastream cultural productn, more wily. Gay male cultur n be hostile environments for nongay male bodi, such as women, genr-expansive people, or racialized dividuals. Chong-Sun Han (2007, 2008) has noted that this kd of hostily is ptured the phrase “no fats, no fems, no Asians, ” which is an oft-ed phrase on the gay male onle datg apps that beme ubiquo durg this urse, the exclnary impuls of gay male cultur are not always as explic or liberate as this, but rather a by-product of treatg “gay” as a bound and plete inty for the sake of polil expediency to addrs homophobia and gay shame.

HOW A GROUP OF GAY MALE BALLET DANCERS IS RETHKG MASCULY

” A cursory look over some of the gay mastream cultural productn durg this time reveals a remarkably limed reprentatn of gay experience that is mostly whe and male. has been addrsed, mostly by and for gay whe men, ignorg or omtg other possible, tersectnal sourc of as I am cril of the inty polics that grip much of ntemporary gay cultur, I do not want to dismiss “gay” as a polil ad end.

As Butler (1993) suggts, intifitn terms like “gay” have been ccial gatherg pots for llective social, polil, and cultural practic.

The field of queer studi, which emerged promently out of gay and lbian studi the 1980s, offers pertent strategi for addrsg this, particularly through persistent qutng of monolhic unrstandgs of inty and reprentatn. Whereas male-centric gay culture often prriz an vtment particular inty tegori as a necsary move for the advancement of certa rights and privileg, queer culture rists inty formatns through ambiguy, slippers, and refal. I am drawg on this fn my analysis, and like Cvetkovich (2003), who both queer and lbian tanm, I am g queer and gay “ orr to rist any prumptn that they are mutually exclive” (p.