In 2015, on the occasion of the 120th anniversary of the birth of Swan Lake, Shanghai Ballet invited Derek Deane, the former Artistic Director of the English National Ballet, to serve as the Choreographer and premiere the grand version of Swan Lake, creating an unprecedented “Swan Ocean” composed of 48 swans in the Chinese ballet world. This scale is not only the first time in China, but also the first Swan Lake with a luxurious group of swans to be performed in a theater worldwide. On the stage with deepening depth, the swans move and change into simple or complex graceful formations, and every freeze frame is a shocking picture.

 

 

In 2024, Shanghai Ballet debuted with Swan Lake on CCTV Spring Festival Gala, and the charm of Shanghai ballet has long been famous around the world with this “Swan Ocean”. After the grand version of Swan Lake was born, it went to Beijing, Guangzhou, Xiamen, Chengdu, and Hangzhou. It not only set off a craze in the country, but also performed in Europe four times. The world tour covered the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, and Australia. In 2020, it performed 4 consecutive shows at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in the United States. Since debut, there were a total of 260 performances at home and abroad. The romantic and beautiful performances won the warm pursuit of audiences all over the world.

 

 

 

Producer: ZHANG Songhua
Production Director: JI Pingping
Artistic Director: XIN Lili
Composer: P. I. Tchaikovsky
Choreographer: Derek Deane (After Marius Petipa)
Set & Costume Designer: Peter Farmer
Lighting Designer: Howard Harrison
Performed by: Shanghai Ballet

 

 

Derek Deane joined the Royal Ballet in 1972 and soon became a principal dancer in 1980. He later created many ballets for the Royal Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet. He left the Royal Ballet in 1989 to explore a broader world of dance art creation.

In the spring of 1993, Derek Deane was appointed Artistic Director of the English National Ballet and the English National Ballet School. In 1997, after his work Swan Lake premiered at the Royal Albert Hall, it received two nominations for the Laurence Olivier Awards, the highest award in British drama, in February 1998. In 1999, Swan Lake was staged again and toured five times in theaters in Hong Kong, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane. The tour set a record of 250,000 audiences in total. In the fall of 2000, he created a new version of Swan Lake, and the work toured in the UK and Japan in the following six months.

In 2000 and 2004, Shanghai Ballet successively introduced two productions choreographed by Derek Deane, Swan Lake and Romeo and Juliet. In following years, Derek Deane tailor-made several productions for Shanghai Ballet, including The Nutcracker (Shanghai Grand Theatre Version, 2010), Swan Lake (Grand Version, 2015), Hamlet (2016), The Sleeping Beauty (2018), The Lady of the Camellias (Shanghai Ballet Version, 2019), and Le Fantôme de l'Opéra (2023). He was appointed as Artistic Director of Shanghai Ballet from 2018 to 2023. From 2024, he is appointed as Artistic Consultant.