“It’s a kind of addiction,” says Karen Kain, “to be in an art form like this. Sometimes you wonder why you’re doing it. You have to get past so much physical pain, sometimes emotional pain. But those of us who do it and love it know why.” And director Chelsea McMullan’s documentary Swan Song shows us what an addiction to ballet means, with all the sweat, scars and pill-popping (OK, just ibuprofen – the dancers keep a score chart in the dressing room of how many they’ve taken), as well as the beauty, artistry and exaltation.
Swan Song tells the story of Kain’s final production of Swan Lake in 2022, after 16 years as artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada. Kain is Canada’s most famous ballerina: she was a favourite of Rudolf Nureyev and danced all over the world; Andy Warhol made a screen print of her. McMullan follows her and the company on their mission to make a new ballet, and we see the daily quest for perfection of driven people pushing themselves to be their absolute best, often exhausted, frustrated or tearful. It is real and raw – and without descending into Black Swan-style melodrama, it shows the strains and discord, and the relentless daily battering the dancers’ bodies take.
