On the evening of September 12, INFO Guangdong invited 12 expats from the United States, the United Kingdom, Egypt, and others to attend Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake at the Guangzhou Opera House. The performance was a highlight of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Cultural and Arts Festival 2025.
The event is part of an expat club series organized by INFO Guangdong, a provincial all-in-one English information service platform. Previously, it had launched an online ticket giveaway and collaborated with Haizhu's Canton Tower International Neighborhood and Baiyun's Design Capital of Guangzhou (DCGZ) International Neighborhood to recruit participants. In total, 12 expats and their companions had the chance to enjoy the dance drama.
The contemporary reinterpretation of the classic ballet left a deep impression on many international audiences. "Now the swans are played by men, which is not typical, but it's more modern and more human," commented Hend Koby from Egypt. She noted that the male performers broke the stereotype of swans as delicate, instead portraying them with strength and even a sense of danger.
Hend Koby and her daughter after the show.
Clifford Sheldon Klein from Canada, who has lived in Guangzhou for ten years, usually prefers films to theater. Though he had passed by the Guangzhou Opera House many times, he had never actually attended a performance until this ticket giveaway offered him a new experience. He expressed hope that INFO Guangdong will host more cultural events in the future, particularly Chinese film screenings.
Emily Vincent attended the event at the invitation of friends from Haizhu's international community. She highlighted that, due to language barriers, it is sometimes difficult for foreigners to access cultural events in Guangzhou, making INFO Guangdong a valuable platform for staying informed.
Beyond ticket giveaways, INFO Guangdong also invited attendees to share their theater experiences on social media. Ryan Thornhill, a drama teacher from the U.S. who had only been in Guangzhou for a few weeks, praised the show as "visually stunning" and an "imaginative, modern reinvention of Tchaikovsky's ballet."
"It really helps me personally being here in a different country knowing that I get to come and see things like this," he said.
Thornhill's post about Swan Lake on social media.
One of the participants shares their Swan Lake moment on social media.
Reporter | Chen Siyuan
Video Script | Chen Siyuan, Dai Bosi, Liang Fuhua (Intern), Wu Fengxia (Intern)
Video | Qin Shaolong
Poster | Qin Shaolong
Photo | Qin Shaolong
Editor | Hu Nan, James Campion, Shen He
