4 Rising Dancers Reflect on the Cracked Mirror ‘Black Swan' Held to Ballet

New York Times

17 hours ago

When 'Black Swan' was released in 2010, many film critics thrilled to its tortured-artist twist on body horror, its depiction of ballet as a force that can make people martyrs and monsters.
Ballet dancers tended to be less enthusiastic about the Darren Aronofsky film. In its brittle, tormented ballerina — Nina Sayers, who descends into madness as she prepares to dance 'Swan Lake' — they saw a jumble of bad ballet clichés.
They disliked that the movie's deliberate confusion of reality and fantasy seemed to extend offscreen: Though Natalie Portman trained intensively for the role of Nina, her dance double, the former American Ballet Theater principal Sarah Lane, accused the filmmakers of misrepresenting how much dancing Portman did. And dancers couldn't forgive 'Black Swan' for portraying their devotion to ballet — a passion born of joy — as a kind of pathology.
This month, 'Black Swan' returns to theaters for its 15th anniversary. Film critics still admire it; earlier this year, it made The New York Times's list of the Top 100 films of the 21st century.
Ballet dancers' feelings? Still complicated.
The American Ballet Theater principals Catherine Hurlin, 29, and Chloe Misseldine, 23, and the New York City Ballet principals Miriam Miller, 28, and Mira Nadon, 24, were young students when 'Black Swan' came out. They grew up in its shadow.
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