TWB Open Rehearsal of Swan Lake

Monday evening I attended what was billed as an "open rehearsal" for The Washington Ballet's new production of Swan Lake. Here's the description of the origins of this production provided by TWB:

Guest choreographer Kirk Peterson is working with The Washington Ballet to stage his recreation of the original Swan Lake based on the 1895 version next month. "For more than a hundred years, choreographers and dancers all over the world have been changing and altering certain bits of the ballet and so I've been on a three decade quest—a sort of archeological dig—to try and find the original missing parts of this beautiful masterpiece that have been lost," says Peterson.

I was hoping to get a behind the scenes look at how professional dancers learn their parts, but that was a silly thought. That's not the sort of thing that would appeal to the average ballet subscriber, most of whom arrived at the rehearsal studio dressed far better than I in my "business casual" attire of dockers and polo shirt. What we got instead was a run-through of acts 3 and 4 from a most unique, close-up perspective.

As a subscriber I have tickets to this production, which is already sold out. Current schedule has Misty Copeland dancing the dual role of Odette/Odile the night I'll be there, which should be a treat.