A chain-smoking ballet dancer is a bit offbeat, but so is life and that’s the exact premise of SWAN?, a dark parody of Swan Lake.
This one-woman show is no traditional ballet, despite Canadian actor/dancer Lauren Brady being a classically-trained ballerina.
Lauren is flipping off fairytales about true love and perfection, giving Swan Lake “the bird” if you like.
It’s a dark raunchy romcom in ballet slippers that does pirouettes around the patriarchy and perceived self-worth.
Quite fittingly, when I caught up with Lauren it was International Women’s Day. She was in her hometown Alberta where it was -30 degrees Fahrenheit.
She’s just wrapped up a tour of Calgary and Vancouver and is bringing her genre-defying show (ballet, clown, social critique and song) to Queanbeyan – it’s worth crossing the Pacific Ocean for.
“The biggest takeaway for the audience is to help people realise that they don’t need romantic love in order to love themselves,” Lauren said.
“In the time that I was raised I was surrounded by a lot of books and films about princesses and princes and what is a woman’s role in society. Is it to be loved, is it to make someone happy, is it to make other people happy, or is it to make yourself happy and how that can kind of like warp your perception.”
It’s serious subject matter but it comes with comic relief.
Lauren brings us “Canadian clowning”, not with clown shoes and a red nose, but with a serious message. That’s Canadian clowning.
“My goal is to present Odette [Swan Lake’s white swan] in a highly comedic manner that allows the audience to laugh, reflect, and walk away knowing they don’t need to be loved by a romantic partner to feel complete,” Lauren said.
“I take it to the extreme by using the story of Swan Lake because it’s such an old story and it’s one that I grew up with because I was a ballerina. It’s a story about a woman being trapped in this swan body, which is the image of perfection and beauty, and how that does hurt.”
Lauren was only three years old when she started ballet so she used to live her entire life in a dance studio. After she graduated from high school, she enrolled in an acting class and fell in love with it. Then at uni she specialised in Canadian clowning.
“It changed my life,” she said.
“With Canadian clowning, it doesn’t really matter if people laugh at you all the time. It’s more important the message that you share with the audience.”
Lauren chain-smokes throughout the show – in character – and through her “neo bouffon” (Canadian clowning} she gets away with making harsh critiques on society.
“I want this show to be really, really funny and then after people laugh, they walk away with ‘Oh, maybe I shouldn’t have laughed at that.’ The clown tries to get away with making really targeted comments on society.”
An extreme example of Canadian clowning is South Park.
Swan Lake may be 175 years old, but the “true love” and “perfection” themes are sadly still alive and well in some Disney movies.
SWAN? is the antithesis of Disney.
SWAN? is at The Q in Queanbeyan on 25 March at 7pm. Tickets theq.net.au/whats-on/swan/
