Compare And Contrast Swan Lake And The Rite Of Spring

Swan Lake and The Rite of Spring are ballet performances with Russian backgrounds. Swan Lake, a well known classical ballet, was choreographed by Marius Petipa in the late 1800s. The Rite of Spring, however, was performed in the early 1900s with a contemporary twist on classical ballet choreographed by Vaslav Nijinksy. Both pieces presented numbers of similarities such as the dancers, symmetry on stage, the act of pantomiming and music. The dances contained the principals and the corps de ballet. The principals or main dancers in Swan Lake are Prince Siegfried and Odette and in The Rite of Spring had the old woman and the “Choosen One”. Although The Rite of Spring contemporary piece contrasts from classical ballet, multiple dancers in odd numbered
groups on stage which created a visual effect of symmetry comparable to Swan Lake. Pantomiming is prominent in classical ballet, oddly enough signs of pantomiming in allowed the dancers in The Rite of Spring convey frustration, deep thought, or anxiousness, but not as many as classical ballet. The music both rose when the emotions were angered, scared, or frustration. Nonetheless, the discrepancies between The Rite of Spring and Swan Lake are apparent to the eye. The discrepancies range from dance movements, costumes, music, and space. Dancers in The Rite of Spring did not have erect spines and their movements where more rigid, less leaps, and more jumps. Costumes are not tights, tutus with pointe shoes, rather than the costuming was elaborate with head dresses and flat shoes. Makeup for dancers in Swan Lake are more natural and angelic like whereas The Rite of Spring gave the dancers more of a ritualistic look-a-like. The music was also more upbeat with a faster tempo than the music in Swan Lake. It allowed the dancers to move with the beats instead of being more flow-like and upright. The floor patterns are in a variety of geometric shapes and different sides of the stage in the contemporary dance. I realized that the transitions from each scene in The Rite of Spring was fluid and was not choppy.