The Beastliest Pas Ever!

Right now my dance teacher/partner is teaching me the white swan pas de deux from Swan Lake. If you ever have a chance to watch that ballet, whether it's live or DVD, I suggest you do it. It is amazing and is one of the hardest ballets to perform. Why? Because there are so many emotions you go through and it is very demanding, technique wise. Odette, the white swan of the first act is actually a princess that an evil sorcerer has captured and turned into a swan. The reason this ballet is so hard, is because the girl who plays Odette has to play Odile, the black swan of the third act, as well. Odile is the sorcerer's daughter that he transformed to look like Odette to trick the prince. I'm not going to explain the whole story, you'll have to watch it and find out, if you haven't already. Odette is very vulnerable and afraid most of the time, while Odile is cruel and seductive with the prince. So you have to be able to change characters and become two different people, or swans, in the same night. I'm learning Odette's first pas de deux with the prince and it is so slow and you have to be so in control, it's grueling. And it's about 8min long and it has everything in it, from slow turns to fast, explosive jumps back to slow again. Jose and I are about dead after doing it just once. It is one of my dreams to play this part, as you can see in my bucket list, because of its extremes in character as well as technique. *fingers and toes crossed* Hopefully someday.