Muirne Bloomer and Emma O’Kane march and stamp across the space with mocking routines of Swan Lake in this production that takes a sour look into how a career in ballet can be torturous. They offer comical scenes that provide a gritty and deeper look into the unforgiving world of ballet. The ballerina troop of two advance into the remnants of their typical dance environment: a cracked mirror, a fallen back drop and the familiar barre. A regimental preparation begins for their Swan Lake performance. They play and tease with Swan Lake’s choreography, using clowning and taboos of the trade to present an ungraceful approach to their swan counterparts. Bloomer and O’Kane show great skill and capability in their dancing, immediately parodying their expertise through mime, streams of revealing consciousness and over-the-top dance exercises. The latter accelerates in speed and turns a beautiful image of a ballerina rotten. The surviving duo progressively move further away from the stereotypical image of the ballerina and let their hair down in a nightclub scene. The pair impressively manage to down a pint whilst performing lively, hectic and fast-paced club moves. Chaotic and confusing, this exposes another truth of their profession through a further attempt at comic relief.Unfortunately, the mockery doesn’t go far enough to produce a raucous reaction. When the girls play with clowning in their warm-ups and smoke a cigarette on stage at a sluggish pace, they test the patience of the audience too much. It is drawn out and the joke doesn’t reach its potential. There is too much serious ballet choreography that instead needs more layers of jokes, rather than the dance being the joke.
