Michael Helland des Ballez: The Dying Swan
Katy Pyle in collaboration with Michael Helland

Catch at The Invisible Dog, November 1, 2014 (Brooklyn)
American Realness at Abrons Arts Center, January 10-11, 2015 (New York)

The Dying Swan Ballez variation, choreographed by Katy Pyle with dance performance by Michael Helland, adapted from the 1905 ballet by Mikhail Fokine set to Camille Saint-Saëns’s cello solo Le Cygne as a pièce d’occasion for Anna Pavlova

Ballez celebrates the virtuosity of complexly gendered people by choosing the grandiose container of ballet for its presentation. The company celebrates a lineage of dykes and post-modern performance by telling queer/dyke histories inside the framework of classical ballet narratives.

Photo by Ian Douglas courtesy of American Realness

Photo by Ian Douglas courtesy of American Realness

Photo by Ian Douglas courtesy of American Realness

Photo by Sam Greenleaf Miller