Swan Lake: A Meeting of Worlds

Seeing Swan Lake in Lebanon was a reminder that classical European art finds a home in Arab spaces. It’s a dialogue: Russian music, French ballet tradition, and Arabic hospitality all meeting on one stage.

Swan Lake was born in Russia, choreographed to Tchaikovsky’s music. Its terminology—pas de deux, arabesque, fouetté—comes from French, the language of classical ballet. And in Lebanon, the performance unfolded in Arabic surroundings, where the audience’s applause and hospitality gave the ballet a new cultural home.

French remains the universal language of ballet technique. Yet, when explained in Arabic—“رقصة البجعات الصغيرات” for the “Dance of the Little Swans”—the movement gains a poetic resonance. In English, the same phrase feels descriptive, while in French it carries elegance. Each language frames the dance differently, enriching its meaning.