Frans Van Riel (1879-1950) — http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an11030051-3 · Public domain
The Dying Swan is a solo ballet made in 1905 by Michel (Mikhail) Fokine as a showpiece for the ballerina Anna Pavlova, set to the cello solo Le Cygne from Saint-Saëns's Le Carnaval des animaux. Running only about four minutes, it depicts a swan's final moments and became so closely tied to Pavlova that she is said to have danced it roughly 4,000 times over her career.
What it contains
- Classical Ballet · The entire four-minute solo — A solo built on continuous traveling steps and a signature rippling port de bras ('Dying Swan arms') representing a swan's wings and decline, performed by a ballerina in the classical Imperial Russian tradition. Source: "is a solo dance choreographed by Mikhail Fokine to Camille Saint-Saëns's Le Cygne from Le Carnaval des animaux as a pièce d'occasion for the ballerina Anna Pavlova"
What is danced
The work is a single female solo built around continuous traveling steps on pointe combined with rippling, undulating arm and upper-body movement standing in for a swan's wings and its faltering flight. The locomotion is a near-continuous chain of small traveling steps - the pas de bourrée suivi - carrying the dancer diagonally and in circles while the arms do the expressive work above. Two published accounts outside this record's Wikipedia source name that step basis directly. An EBSCO Research Starter (Alecia C. Townsend, 2021) says the choreography "consisted of a sequence of traditional pas de bourrées, or patterned steps, and sustained balletic positions" and describes Pavlova "Crossing the stage sur les pointes (on the tips of her toes)", and Dance Teacher (Rachel Caldwell, 5 October 2016) calls the solo "composed primarily of bourrées and soft undulations of the arms." Neither gives a notated sequence, so the order and count of the steps is still undocumented here, but the bourrée on pointe is sourced rather than assumed.
One specific vocabulary element has outlived the piece itself: "Dying Swan arms," a recognizable port de bras used by later ballerinas even outside this work. Beyond the arms and the swan-like traveling pattern, this record's Wikipedia source gives no notated step sequence, no named sections and no description of lifts or partnering (there is no partner - it is a solo), and it is silent on pointe, so a fuller technical breakdown cannot be built from that source alone.
As a piece made for and shaped around Pavlova's own performing qualities, it demands sustained lyrical control, sustained pianissimo quality of movement rather than bravura steps, and the ability to sustain a single emotional arc (an unbroken decline toward stillness) across four minutes with minimal choreographic incident.
Context
The piece was made in 1905 in St. Petersburg by Fokine, who would shortly become a central reforming choreographic voice of the Ballets Russes years; here he is working within, and against, the conventions of the late Imperial Russian ballet, producing an intimate, mood-driven solo rather than the grand multi-act narrative ballets typical of the period. It was a deliberate pièce d'occasion - a one-off vehicle piece for a specific star - rather than a mounted repertory ballet, which is itself notable: it entered the standard repertoire through a performer's individual identification with it rather than through a company premiere in the usual sense.
Staging history
The piece's afterlife runs mainly through influence and adaptation rather than through formal restagings by named companies. The choreography has shaped how later ballerinas dance the very different role of Odette in Swan Lake: Ashley Bouder (New York City Ballet) and Nina Ananiashvili (American Ballet Theatre, Bolshoi Ballet) have both folded "Dying Swan arms" into Odette's Act II exit. Two 21st-century adaptations were prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic: Carlos Acosta, as artistic director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, reworked Fokine's choreography (having the dancer raise her head at the close) for a solo by Céline Gittens performed with musicians all filming from separate homes; and Misty Copeland of American Ballet Theatre organized a multi-dancer fundraising version involving 31 other dancers.
How to watch it
Watch the feet first, then the arms. The solo travels on a near-continuous bourrée on pointe, and that travel is the mechanism the piece is famous for: it is what makes the swan appear to drift without visible impulse, and it is what frees the arms to carry the expressive line above. The EBSCO Research Starter on the solo (Alecia C. Townsend, 2021) has Pavlova "Crossing the stage sur les pointes (on the tips of her toes)" and says "the choreography consisted of a sequence of traditional pas de bourrées, or patterned steps, and sustained balletic positions", adding that "If the movements of the feet were traditional, however, the movements of the arms were decidedly untraditional." The arms are what the piece says. The feet are how it says it. Watch for the moment the travel stops and the weight arrives, because the slow collapse toward the floor at the close reads as a death only after the bourrée has kept the body weightless for four minutes. And because the piece was built around a single performer's identity, comparing different ballerinas' phrasing of the same short musical cue, rather than looking for choreographic variety, is the traditional way of judging a performance.
Credits
- composer: Camille Saint-Saëns
More from Michel Fokine
Other staged works in the register connected to this one by author or lineage.
