The Black Swan effect
Black Swan is all over the place nowadays, and people are going ballet-crazy. Natalie Portmans recently acclaimed Oscar for her portrayal of the mentally disturbed ballerina Nina is the the most recent spill of gas on that flame. All the major theaters in the world get questions of when they will schedule the Swan Lake, and those lucky ones who already did has seen a great increase in ticket sales. The Royal Opera House in London has had members of their audience calling, asking about when Natalie Portman will appear in their productions. Although it shows a certain misunderstanding on the callers behalf, it also proves that the Black Swan has given ballet a boost it has long been needing!
Will the Black Swan help ballet theaters fill their seats again?
Many in the dance-world reacted negatively towards the film, though, especially towards the way dancers are portrayed. Fellow dancer-blogger Rebecca King asked if the Black Swan provides the right attention for ballet on her blog not long ago. Also I wrote about how I reacted on the movies many clichés in a heat of the moment-review after seeing the movie, and several famous dancers commented in media about the bad picture it paints of a ballet dancer.
Be that as it may, I think it’s important to highlight that the ballet world has a lot to be grateful for when it comes to the Black Swan and the interest it keeps generating towards the ballet. I’m not saying that all PR is good PR, but if it brings more people to the audience it is doing ballet a great favor, something we have had trouble achieving on our own, lately.. Other movies, like Billy Elliot, may have done more for ballets image in the world outside, but we must go back to the golden age of ballet and the movie the Turning Point to see a match in the increase of interest. The Turning point premiered in ’77 – it’s about time we had another crowd-pleaser.
How long will we have this boost? Will the new-found ballet enthusiasts lose the interest as soon as the Black Swan-fever cools off – or are we looking at a long-needed new generation of ballet lovers in the making? And will the Black Swan, with it’s Oscar and all, inspire other film-makers to make more dance-related, high quality movies (I know, there’s been a bunch of dance-flicks lately, like the “Step up”-series, but let’s be honest – they’re not exactly Shakespeare..)?
Is the Black Swan representing a start of a new age of ballet? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see…
Turning point remains one of the most popular dance-related movies of all times
