‘B“Everything is fucking punk rock,” declares corps de ballet member Shaelynn Estrada toward the end of this riveting documentary. That might be a stretch definition for some viewers, but it makes sense. I guess Estrada wants to celebrate the hard work the art demands of performers like her, or perhaps her ability to evoke pure emotion. Whatever she’s saying, there’s no denying that Estrada is pretty punk rock herself, an incredibly likable character whose transformation from home-schooled army kid (who paid for her ballet lessons as a child by cleaning the studio) to member of the National Ballet of Canada’s corps is one of many very compelling stories in this solid documentary.
As director Chelsea McMullan and the film’s crew observe rehearsals and preparations for the premiere of a new production of Swan Lake in 2022, a variety of different characters are introduced. First and foremost the production’s director, Karen Kain, a former prima ballerina who became the company’s artistic director and will retire after that show’s premiere (hence the title). Diplomatic and relentlessly elegant, Kain seems as classic and genuine ballet as Estrada is punk, even as she recalls the night Rudolf Nureyev took her to a party, where she met Andy Warhol amid heaping bowls of cocaine. (She has a portrait of herself by Warhol to prove it.) Meanwhile, the company’s current superstar, Jurgita Dronina, representing another facet of the ballet’s identity, is battling a nerve injury almost in secret. In the lead role of Odette/Odile in the show, Dronina is every inch the stoic star who suffers for her art.
After a series of awkward rehearsals and setbacks, it seems uncertain whether the troupe will have everything together by the premiere. The show does indeed deviate from tradition in some ways, such as the troupe not wearing white or pink tights that make them all look uniformly Caucasian—a break from tradition that black Australian dancer Tene Ward particularly welcomes. Coming on the heels of the Covid-19 lockdowns that shuttered theaters and performance spaces everywhere, it offers an interesting snapshot of an art form that, like so many others, is grappling with changing expectations of representation. McMullan handles these deeper themes delicately, editing the dance sequences together seamlessly, tweaking the music in places to give the film an added modernity. In the end, the ballet practiced here does indeed look a little like punk rock.
