Swan Lake vs. Revelations

A detailed Summary of Swan Lake vs. Revelations


Alvin Ailey's Revelations and Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake are two different styles of dance from very different points in history. Revelations is a contemporary dance and Swan Lake is a classical dance. Each dance has certain points that have made it critically acclaimed. They both incorporate different styles of dance but they do share a few characteristics.

The stage props and the lighting seemed to be different in each performance. Swan Lake had a backdrop of a lake. This was key for this dance. When the girls would turn back and forth from swans they would show a group of swans swim across the lake. This was very important for the audience to understand this very important transformation. The lighting in Swan Lake was a little bit brighter because it had more scenes where the entire stage needed to be illuminated. When the soloists were dancing they did not have a particular spotlight on them. Revelations had a very plain set. This seemed to put more of a focus on the dancers instead of the atmosphere on stage. The backdrop was just a dark cloth with no pattern or picture. The lighting covered the entire stage when many dancers were performing at the same time. When soloists performed, a spotlight was focused on


The relationship between the music and the dance was very different in the two performances. Swan Lake seemed to have a strictly structured format. The exact tempo and beat of the music governed what the dancers would do. Revelations seemed to have a very loose style to it. The dancers own personality was brought out through their dancing. The music helped tell the events that were taking place but did not govern the dancers.

I preferred Revelations to Swan Lake. Some of the more simple reasons are because of the better music, it was shorter and it did not seem to lag, and the dance moves were more appealing to me. I think that Alvin Ailey did a great job reworking the performance. I would definitely recommend this performance to my peers.

The way the dancers related to each other and the audience was very different in each dance. Revelations gave a sense of connecting with their audience. They made eye contact with the cameras and seemed to give a few gestures towards the audience. Swan Lake was completely opposite. They were just performing to perform. It seemed like the audience was not a part of the performance. The dancers related to each other almost the same in both performan

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Approximate Word count = 816
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

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