Director and Choreographer: Akram Khan
Conductor and Music Director: Maria Seletskaja
Originally conceived by celebrated British-Bangladeshi choreographer Akram Khan in 2016, and following worldwide productions, this visceral and visually stunning reimagining of Giselle returns to London in a gripping production with the English National Ballet.
Giselle is a classical 19th-century story of love and loss, but here the Romanticism is disrupted and reframed in a contemporary context with immediate and urgent resonances to today’s world. The original story remains with its two acts, and the setting updated to a community of migrant garment workers controlled by wealthy factory Landlords who live in luxury and freedom behind a daunting wall.
This ballet is billed as a work of memory and testimony, and vivid imagery and sounds reflect the human horrors of the past and present in Britain’s seas and beyond. There is no colour in this world, with Mark Henerson’s ominous lighting emitting cold white light, silhouettes and shadows. Vincenzo Lamagna’s design responds in kind with his astonishing and deeply unsettling fusion of resonating sonic booms, the open sea, and relentless sounds of industry. Tim Yip’s imposing grey concrete wall dominates the set, imprinted with hand marks from those desperate to escape. Throughout the performance, themes of refuge and ritual are echoed in Khan’s balletic refrain, where dancers resemble migrating gazelles.
The ballet opens after the closure of the factory, where migrants, including Erina Takahashi’s petite and mesmerising Giselle, are reduced to Outcasts. Stranded outside the wall, their only remaining function is to dance for the Landlord’s entertainment. This performance by the Company dancers highlights Khan’s electrifying fusion of classical and contemporary choreography, and in both Lamagna’s composition and the dancer’s movements, is the rhythmic influence of Kahn’s Kathak dance tradition.
It is in this desolate world that we meet Ken Saruhashi’s captivating Hilarion, an Outcast and a manipulative ‘fixer’ who is deft at crossing the walled border. He takes advantage of both the rich and the desperate for his own success. Saruhashi’s opening solo astounds as his body seamlessly melds into various forms, capturing the spirit of his trickster character. Hilarion is in love with Giselle, but when the privileged Albrecht, who is a Landlord, appears from behind the wall searching for his forbidden Giselle, the two rightful lovers unite. The resulting pas-de-deux is beautiful and sweet, yet naïve, and the foreboding reminder of what’s to come is made all the starker when the music cuts and they dance in silence.
Albrecht’s fiancé and the Court Couples appear like something from Alice in Wonderland, regal and terrifying in Yip’s elaborate gowns, so laden with silks and jewels they can only shuffle or stand still. And, of course, why should they do more when it is the Outcasts who will do all the work? In a deeply moving dance, Giselle pleads for her life as she is surrounded by her fellow workers, and with magnificent imagery is swallowed by a sea of Outcasts.
The fate of Giselle is revealed in Act Two, where we find her trapped in a ghostly existence among the Wilis. These are the women who were driven to death by labour and poorly run factories. Unlike the first act, where dancers are in ballet slippers or bare feet, this is a world on pointe: a towering company of dancers with sharp lines and long hair, accented by the bamboo canes they carry as a reminder of their skilled past. It makes for a startling contrast, especially when their canes become part of the musical score, with the dancers, musicians and conductor Maria Seletskaja all in perfect step. When both the sly Hilarion and desperate Albrecht find their way behind the wall, the climax awaits with the Wilis’s canes also serving as a dancing web of revenge.
Runs until 28 September 2024
The Reviews Hub Score
A breathtaking reimagining
