Swan Lake
...rned it is important to understand how ballets int his time period were traditionally piced together. In reasearching this I learned that first the author would select a story or a legend of his liking and from there tranform it into a ballet with usually five or six acts. Next music would be incorporated and following would be choreography and design. The sole requisite for success was that everything was centered upon the one principle character, the prima ballerina. (Anderson, Jack) I also learned that during this time period supernatural creatures were introduced such as sylphs, wilis, shades, water nymphs, and later swans. They appealed to the contemporary taste for idealist, fantasized womanhood and gave an opperunity for abstract choreography. Next in creating a ballet the composer was instructed to write the music which would corespnd with the story or legend. It was usually the choreographer who set how many dancers were needed in each act, types of music, and their length, tempo and beat. (Wiley, John) To me the music in Swan Lake was just amazing. I found the pieces more enjoyable then the Nutcracker pieces, I felt that it just flowed better. In swan Lake their were many dramatic pieces that actually made my heart beat faster. I loved how the music coordinated so perfectly to the motions of the dancers moves the timing was down to a t. (Wiley, John) As far as the dances went I found them to be exciting and wonderful to watch. A few of my memorable parts of the ballet were the men dancers, I watched in awe as they gracefully pranced around doing leaps and jumps. I also liked the solo dances that the ballerinas did. And my favorate were the swan dancers, they danced so perfectly to the mucis and at other times they danced in sync with the music. The next area that I researched had to do with the scenery and costumes of swan lake. The scenery and costume designer were also important in each ballet. During the producation of Swan Lake the scenery needed to have a scnese richness and spaciousness. In almost every ballet there was a lake side scene, and the ballerinas always wore a ballet skirt and ppink malliot and rose colored ballet shoes. The dancers hairstyles also followed the prevailing sashion of rthe day, which was often decorated with a diamond tiara. The public enjoyed the dancers traditional look wih elegance and beauty! As far as the Swan Lake costumes I cant say enough about how georgous they were and how well they worked into the plot. My favorite costumes have to be the swans, the woman really looked like beautiful, graceful swans swimming about the stage. They were so wide at the skirt part of the costume I was surprised that they were not limited in any way or restricted from moving! I also loved the ballerinas puffy tule skirts and bright vibrant tops, they were great to watch because they were so attractive. My next favorite costume would be the queens detailed and sparkiling attire, she looked great! And lastly the headpieces, they added so much to the ballet with beauty and decorative pieces from the time period. As I continued my search for the history of swan lake I came up with some very interesting constume facts from the original ballet. There were approximately 66 costumes used comprising of 188 pieces. Odell’s head piece has 154 hand set rhinestones. About 800 yeards of thread were used for tacking tuto layers together, and 12,000 yards of white thread were used to sew the swans together. There are real feathers used on the swans headpieces and on Rothbart’s ball costume. There were 15 non-functional buttons on each womans hunt costume. They were only put there for looks, the costumes fastened in the back with 29-32 hooks and eyes. And lastly the mens jackets for the hunt were made of pure silk velvet. Although more expensive the colorsare much richer then cotton. The scenery in Swan Lake really added to the story. I loved the beautiful castle in the background of the fi...