Swan Lake Reloaded is a dance show by Fredrik Rydman. It’s a combination of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky‘s Swan Lake with modern street dance. [I saw it a second time: here’s my first review.]

Plot:
Based on the classic Swan Lake, the show gives the old tale a new spin: A young prince who has grown tired with his partying lifestyle falls in love with a whore who is being controlled by her pimp through drugs.

The second time around this show was just as brilliant as the first time around though interestingly enough in a completely different way for me. It’s fascinating how these things go sometimes.

The first time round the thing that really got to me the most was the music. This time, though, the music took a back seat (though I still very much like this song in particular) and I was completely caught up in the stage and costume design instead. The props, especially with the transparent curtain that was used perfectly as a projection space and the lighting in particular were great.

I realize the irony that both times it wasn’t the dancing that held my attention the most. But this time I have to say that particularly Rothbart dancing was fantastic (I think he was danced by Daniel Koivunen but I’m not sure I was informed he was danced by Josh Kinsella). He’s practically liquid, in an extremely dark and threatening way. I didn’t remember him to be that scary but he definitely was. It was just a pity that he wasn’t on stage that often.

[This time round the ending was also perfectly clear to me – I don’t know what my problem was when I saw it the first time. Must have been a bad day.]

There are still criticisms to be made. The treatment of the women didn’t get any better: they are still mostly furniture and sexualized pieces to be moved around. And I’m still not sold on the whole “the prince has to save the girl from drugs and prostitution” plot line. The choreographies are sometimes a little boring.

But I still very much enjoyed the show and I think I would see it again should they come back to Vienna again.

Summarizing: fun.