ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes four ballet and modern dance adaptations of selections from Shakespeare’s Sonnets, focusing primarily on how they represent the sexuality latent in the poems. In contrast with previous chapters, the Shakespearean source material does not provide a linear narrative or named characters; consequently, the choreographers balance storytelling with abstraction in their dance adaptations. Kenneth MacMillan, Rodney Griffin, and Jessica Lang dramatize the love triangle that readers and scholars have discovered within Shakespeare’s sonnets: between the male poet, the fair “young man,” and the “dark lady.” All three of these adaptations therefore contain elements of homoeroticism. Lynne Taylor-Corbett, by contrast, eschews this narrative in favor of an exclusively heterosexual perspective on love. All four incorporate spoken or written text from the Sonnets into their works; yet they also transcend textuality through an emphasis on pure dance.
