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The last time I watched American Ballet Theatre perform Swan Lake at the Metropolitan Opera House was in the summer of 2014. Last week, twelve years later, I returned there again.
In those years, many things had changed.
Paper tickets became QR codes, purchases moved online, social media became part of everyday life, and artificial intelligence now writes essays, creates images, and composes music.
Yet inside the theater, remarkably little had changed.
The company still distributed printed programs listing the dancers performing that evening. The same Tchaikovsky score filled the hall. The same story unfolded on stage. The audience still waited for the famous fouettés in the Black Swan pas de deux, and applause arrived at familiar moments.
For more than a century, Swan Lake has been performed around the world. Audiences already know the story and the music, yet they continue to return. Perhaps the value of live performance lies partly in its uncertainty. Every dancer brings different experiences, strengths, and interpretations to the same role.
Artificial intelligence may someday learn every step in Swan Lake and perform them flawlessly. But ballet is not only movement. Odette is love, hope, fear, and sacrifice.
Only when AI can experience these emotions for itself can it truly become a swan...
Until then, it may only dance like one.
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