INSIGHT: MIKI MIZUTANI

Principal Miki Mizutani tells us about dancing the dual role of Odette/Odile

The role of Odette/Odile is one of the most technically and emotionally demanding roles in classical ballet. What do you enjoy most about it?

I enjoy dancing the role most when I feel connected to my partner. I forget that I’m acting Odette/Odile because I’m so into it and living the moment.

It is hard technically but I get more confident by practicing every day so I don’t need to think a lot when I perform on stage. It requires lots of body language, and it is challenging to depict and ensure the audience believe you are a swan. It is exhausting physically and emotionally at the end of the ballet but that is what makes it so rewarding.

The role also requires strong acting skills to switch between Odette, the vulnerable white swan, and Odile, the seductive, deceptive black swan. How do you approach this?

Odette is pure and delicate, strong but also sensitive. After being frightened by the Prince, she learns to trust him and fall in love only to be heartbroken by the final act.

Odile is very confident and the opposite to Odette. She is deceitful and to change between these two completely different characters is a challenge, particularly when all the time trying to be a swan.

My interpretation is that Odette is a swan and Odile a human imitating a swan to trick Prince Siegfried, so this makes it even more difficult. I think emotionally, it helps to use life experience. Each of us has a different side, even if we don’t show it – weak, strong, pure, dark, these emotions are in us all and I just try to explore these different sides of me.

Have you got a favourite part of the ballet/score?

The whole ballet is incredibly beautiful and tuneful, and Sir Peter Wright’s production is a perfect match to the score. My favourite parts would have to be the opening scene of Act IV, when the swans emerge from the smoke, and the final moments of Odette and Siegfried’s lives as they jump into the lake, dying for love and freedom.