Is London ready for the Georgian (style of Ballet), and anything else?

We are never short of Swan Lake. This year in London, we witnessed the Royal Ballet’s production with exceptional design by John Macfarlane, the English National Ballet’s “roundabout” Swan Lake at the Royal Albert Hall with an ensemble of over 60, and an acrobatic Swan Lake fusion at Sadler’s Wells. So, what could we expect from State Ballet of Georgia’s London debut?

Maybe a bit reluctantly yet curiously, we’d love to sneak a peek into the exotic taste of Soviet legacy of ballet tradition. This is most prominent in ACT I, where the ensemble dances in a gentle and airy style, utterly different from what we typically see here in the UK. If you are especially used to the more powerful and vital presentation here, you may find the Georgian style too soft and light. You may even tell from their different shapes of ballet hands: their fingertips are slightly more curved, their middle fingers slightly lowered, and the overall curve more fluid.

Such elegant and graceful dancing style is set off by the English National Orchestra. Conducted by Papuna Gvaberidze, this orchestra adds a sense of masculine solemnity to Tchaikovsky’s score, forming an interesting contrast that again underscores the show’s thorough delicacy. Although there were occasional extra turns and droppings from the pointe, as well as missed synchrony between dancers the orchestra musicians, the ensemble’s performance indeed demonstrates the gracefulness. It is a bit of a pity, though, that we do not have the luck to see the Georgian men’s pointe dance, which has already won a worldwide reputation. 

Thought it might be a shame not seeing a Georgian tradition, we didn’t miss Nino Samdashvili, the principal soloist for Odette/Odile on the opening night, who definitely outshined with her exquisite expression of Odette – another realm of the Soviet tradition, expressiveness. She feels so delicate when she flutters like a real swan with her gentle but mysteriously melancholic aura, highlighted by the moonlight hung on the back wall. Vyacheslav Okunev designs this simple and effective sets that faithfully serves the story background, as well as the show’s traditional and strikingly beautiful costumes.

Samdashvili adopts a completely divergent approach to portray Odile, athletic and vigorous, radiating a sense of overtly bright self-confidence. This is a Black Swan you feel she should dance under the embrace of sunlight, instead of manipulated by the dark, villainous sorcerer Von Rothbart (Marcelo Soares). While character portrayal can be quite personal, our breath was still taken away by her mastery of ballet techniques, and we couldn’t help but applauded for her performance slightly at the cost of the narrative flow. 

Oleh Lihai, the male principal, also gives a fair performance as Prince Siegfried. Strangely, I can barely sense the chemistry between Samdashivili and Lihai. As Odette, she seems too delicate and too untouched for a secular world, indulging in her own mysterious sorrow rather than loving the prince; as Odile, she also seems too strong and vibrant, making him trivial and insignificant. 

This production prepares a good ending for the swan couple. Personally, I prefer the more traditional tragic ending but again it’s just a matter of taste. It it more troublesome when this happy reunion also ends quite hasty and abrupt, without any lingering atmosphere and final impression. 

The Georgian State Ballet’s Swan Lake might be far from perfect, but it strikes valuable questions stirring inside of us: what do we really want to see? Georgian authenticity? Russian/Soviet influence and lineage? An exotic taste different from the UK? These questions have no simple answers, but surely they examine how ready we are for foreign ballet companies.