ABSTRACT
Mats Ek is a prominent, and controversial, figure in twentieth century European choreography. In less than twenty years he has developed and established a personal choreographic style; yet his actual contribution to contemporary dance is contested, particularly when works such as the remade Giselle (1982) and Swan Lake (1987)— unanimously considered his most representative creations-are taken into account. Ek is the first European contemporary dance choreographer to have successfully revisited the masterworks of ballet history, by modifying the means of expression-namely the dance idiom-and updating the subject-matter. His adaptations are often saluted as more accessible artforms than their antecedents in terms of style, vocabulary, and content. On the other hand, some regard such translations of the nineteenth-century classics of ballet into contemporary dance as either desecration or lack of inventiveness.
