Swan Lake, 4 Acts

After Le Sacre du Printemps, the German choreographer and performer Raimund Hoghe produced his own version of another icon in the history of ballet, Swan Lake. The unattainable fairytale dream of dancing the part of the swan in this 'white ballet', to the famous music of Peter Tchaikovsky, becomes reality for Hoghe with the help of such brilliant performers as Ornella Ballestra (one of Maurice Béjart's favourite ballerinas), Brynjar Bandlien (the Netherlands Dance Theatre) and Yahia-Aissa Nabil (one of Boris Charmatz' dancers). On stage the classical ballet dancers' bodies, which are highly trained and by ballet standards entirely acceptable, are contrasted with that of Lorenzo De Brabandere, who is not a trained dancer, and the deformed body of Raimund Hoghe himself. The grimness of the tragic love story narrated in Swan Lake merges with the joy of realising an old dream, resulting in a ritual filled with happiness and lightness.