Leda and the Swan

"Kim Brandstrup’s masterly Leda and The Swan, which mingles Yeats’s poetry (read by Fiona Shaw) has the texture and heft of proper film-making. Zenaida Yanowsky and Tommy Franzen are transfixing."

" The best of the videos and best piece of the night was Kim Brandstrup’s Leda and the Swan using the much-loved Zenaida Yanowsky and Tommy Franzen. Sadly there are no pictures or video of the performance I can use on this page, but see here. Brandstrup studied film-making before becoming a choreographer and his understanding of the movement of dancers and camera is peerless and draws you in all the deeper. He also knows how to make his point – in this case two views on the meeting of Leda and the Swan – one violently sexual and the other tender and loving. It’s both emotional sides of a relationship teased out to the max and breathtakingly animated. What life this film has beyond Deloitte Ignite I don’t know, but it deserves much more exposure. And what better advert for Deloitte Ignite and the idea of focusing on the new with a contemporary and ever changing lens. "

"Of the three short dance films, all dealing with Leda and the Swan, Kim Brandstrup’s was the standout, picking up on the complexities of divine-mortal union by intercutting two poems by WB Yeats, "Leda and the Swan" and "The Mother of God". Tommy Franzen and Royal Ballet dramatic heavyweight Zenaida Yanowsky dance with each other on top of a stone block that could be a bed, a tomb or an altar, and there are two distinct sections, with each getting a chance to project desire, aggression, and submission. The “flying” with which both sections end is a masterstroke – sexy, unsettling, and unforgettable."

" Most arresting among them is Kim Brandstrup’s offering, where Zenaida Yanowsky is at first grabbed, grappled and whirled into submission by Tommy Franzen’s Swan, then, in a Part Two, comes across a sleeping Franzen and coaxes his somnolent form into her embraces, playing slightly disturbingly with instincts of desire and maternal love before a startling closing image of her lying prone and holding Franzen aloft on her shins. The camerawork is close, the combination of Yanowsky’s long form and Franzen’s compact dynamism is explosive."