Cullberg Ballet brings whimsy, sophistication to ‘Swan Lake’

On the stage of Royce Hall, the last notes of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” have sounded. A triumphant Prince Siegfried has led the pure, spiritual, white-tutued swan queen Odette into the wings, her impossibly long wedding veil trailing behind as a bridal train -- and the sorcerer Von Rothbart carrying the end of it.

Happy ending, right? Not exactly, not yet, for suddenly, in silence, Siegfried backs onto the stage as if recoiling from a terrible mistake. Just as unexpectedly, the carnal Odile -- a.k.a. the black swan -- materializes from under Marie-Louise Ekman’s abstract lake backdrop and beckons him with a come-hither gesture. As the curtain falls, hither he comes, not smiling but no longer deluding himself about who he is and what he needs.

And that’s the wild, wise, whimsical 1987 “Swan Lake” created by Swedish choreographer Mats Ek, as danced at UCLA on Friday by Stockholm’s exciting Cullberg Ballet in its local debut. The contours of the mythic tale remain familiar in Ek’s retelling, but there’s more story, more contemporary implications within the story -- and more steps. Not always classical steps, of course, for Ek is famed for splicing stretched ballet moves (especially jumps) to intricate, convulsive torso shudders from the world of modern dance.

Ek also likes to embed realistic gesture in complex, full-body actions: for example, the sycophantic courtiers sawing away at imaginary violins as they dance, or the swans waddling like bottom-heavy geese before they soar into flight. Thus, the dancing is likely to couple an emblematic or even childlike basic image with a wealth of movement detail.

Quite apart from Ek’s narrative innovations, this choreographic style suggests an intuitive, technically sophisticated and supremely fresh post-Balanchine approach to Tchaikovsky dancing. Bare-legged and barefoot under white tutus -- and bald as well -- the men and women of the Cullberg swan corps would never be mistaken for conventional balletic waterfowl. But the way they catch the surge and lift of the music persuades you that Ek’s version is no joke.

As in traditional stagings, Ek’s Siegfried is troubled by an overbearing mother (Carolin Geiger), here literally a scarlet woman linked in one startling transformation to the swan-oppressor Von Rothbart (Luiz Fernando Martins). In addition, Ek uses the Act 3 national dances (normally just a splashy diversion) to accompany episodes in Siegfried’s journey of self-discovery as he searches for his lost Odette. The Russian and Spanish segments teach him how not to treat women; however, an Israeli duet (to Jewish folk music) represents inexplicable Ek whimsy.

You could argue that since Siegfried doesn’t confuse Odile with Odette in Ek’s version, there’s no reason for them to be portrayed by the same dancer -- and, perhaps, like the tutus, this double casting merely represents a reference to the classical traditions being reconsidered here. But as performed with exemplary security by Yamit Kalef, they’re birds of a feather anyway, and what you watch is how beautifully Kalef carves space.

As Ek’s rebellious antihero, Christopher Akrill delivers all the quirky bowing, twitching and foot pounding as if to the manner born, but then takes to the air like a Bolshoi power jumper. And it doesn’t hurt that he looks like a teenage hip-hop dancer who wandered into the wrong studio.

Unfortunately, the Friday audience received only an alphabetical list of dancers so never learned who performed what role (though UCLA reps promised that a casting sheet would be provided Saturday).

Also uncredited: the authoritative recording conducted by Gennadi Rozhdestvensky that underpinned the performance. Though Ek made substantial cuts, he left the music in its original order, so audiences accustomed to the standard, resequenced score adopted by other companies found familiar tunes in unfamiliar places.

Re-imagining a classic can be a way back (to Tchaikovsky’s original intentions) as well as a way forward (toward a movement idiom incorporating nearly all the disciplines of Western theater dance). By no means the most radical of Ek’s ballet remakes, his “Swan Lake” has the immediacy of a new work, the reflected glory of an antique heirloom, plus the passion and prowess that a world-class company can bestow.