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Guangdong Acrobatic Troupe of China

‘Swan Lake’

August 2008
London, Covent Garden

by Bruce Marriott



© John Ross

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Holy Crap, Batman! (this is a different type of show so I thought I'd start in a rather different way)

It's the morning after and I still feel rather mugged in a Kapow! and Bam! kind of way. Did I really go to a Swan Lake where Siegfried rides a camel, the Spanish are portrayed as a bunch of trick cyclists and the swans are on roller-skates? Oh yes - pants to high art, this is where the action is.

Being serious, what this production isn't is Swan Lake. This is a circus/acrobatic company doing tricks around a theme, in this case loosely based on Swan Lake, and the plot definitely takes second place. It's all done very tongue in check, compressed into two long acts, the music all rearranged and with particularly loud and lurid designs. It has all the design subtlety of Gary Glitter coupled with the emotional sensitivity of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2.

But I forgive all that for the joy of being a kid and seeing the wonder of bodies doing thrilling things in hoops, with balls, on balls, up poles, on stilts, on high wire, flying, contorting themselves and plain, simple, magic well done. The stars of course, as seen in all the pictures and videos, are Wu Zhengdan (Swan-princess) and Wei Baohua (Prince) who really do cast a spell of shock and awe over us all at their brilliant togetherness and the shared trust between them. They alone can occasionally sucker you emotionally for a while, in true Swan Lake fashion, only for it to be replaced by the Bam! of another bit of untasteful but amazing circus.

 


Three men on stilts in Swan Lake
© John Ross


It's all so off the wall you owe it to yourself to go and be stupefied too - Splat!

The Guangdong Swan Lake remains on at the Royal Opera House until 10 August and then up in Nottingham from the 13 - 15 August.


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