I know it's an old thread, but I think the current solution (using hardcoded string identifier for given view controller) is very prone to errors.
I've created a build time script (which you can access here), which will create a compiler safe way for accessing and instantiating view controllers from all storyboard within the given project.
For example, view controller named vc1 in Main.storyboard will be instantiated like so:
let vc: UIViewController = R.storyboard.Main.vc1^ // where the '^' character initialize the controller