Compare And Contrast Swan Lake And The Rite Of Spring

Swan Lake and The Rite of Spring are ballet performances with Russian backgrounds. Swan Lake, a well known classical ballet, was choreographed by Marius Petipa in the late 1800s. The Rite of Spring, however, was performed in the early 1900s with a contemporary twist on classical ballet choreographed by Vaslav Nijinksy. Both pieces presented numbers of similarities such as the dancers, symmetry on stage, the act of pantomiming and music. The dances contained the principals and the corps de ballet. The principals or main dancers in Swan Lake are Prince Siegfried and Odette and in The Rite of Spring had the old woman and the “Choosen One”. Although The Rite of Spring contemporary piece contrasts from classical ballet, multiple dancers in odd numbered