Akram Khan's Giselle
To Sadler's Wells last week to see the above. It was a short revival after a well received run last year. I booked it months ago on the grounds that it might be interesting. It was astonishing.
Take Giselle, the romantic ballet par excellence. Lovely music, cod-medieval setting, beautiful peasant girl seduced and betrayed by an aristocrat, suicide, 2nd act with ghosts of betrayed maidens. Tutus.
Now destroy it. Set it in front of the concrete wall of a deserted garment factory where the dispossessed workers eke out a marginal existence performing for their ex-landlords. Swap the pointe shoes and the tutus for dingy body hugging clothes. Swap the music for ominous industrial noises, occasionally enlivened by the distorted echo of a tune from the original ballet. Swap the classical ballet steps for angular movements reminiscent of the factory machinery. Giselle herself is disturbingly reanimated inside the deserted factory, in a scene more like a zombie movie than a romantic ballet. The ghosts of the dead women, in blocked pointe shoes and striking the stage with bamboo rods, are genuinely scary.
Not what I was expecting. Highly recommended.
Take Giselle, the romantic ballet par excellence. Lovely music, cod-medieval setting, beautiful peasant girl seduced and betrayed by an aristocrat, suicide, 2nd act with ghosts of betrayed maidens. Tutus.
Now destroy it. Set it in front of the concrete wall of a deserted garment factory where the dispossessed workers eke out a marginal existence performing for their ex-landlords. Swap the pointe shoes and the tutus for dingy body hugging clothes. Swap the music for ominous industrial noises, occasionally enlivened by the distorted echo of a tune from the original ballet. Swap the classical ballet steps for angular movements reminiscent of the factory machinery. Giselle herself is disturbingly reanimated inside the deserted factory, in a scene more like a zombie movie than a romantic ballet. The ghosts of the dead women, in blocked pointe shoes and striking the stage with bamboo rods, are genuinely scary.
Not what I was expecting. Highly recommended.