Giselle – A world premiere reveals Ivan Cavallari’s contemporary vision of a 19th century ballet through the prism of ‘total art’.
The Willis featuring Yui Segawara. Photo, courtesy of the NAC.
The NAC dance programme emphasized the fact that this version of Giselle, the first for the Grands Ballets Canadiens in 20 years, respects the original choreography by Petipa based on the original narrative by French writer Théophile Gauthier who was himself an exceptional dance critic.
The opening night performance in Ottawa emphasized the narrative by foregrounding the stylish encounter of delicate and impeccably trained balletic bodies open to unexpected influences of light, and sound, of spatial transformations, of technical innovations as well as the sensuality of soft material, , swishing skirts transformed into feathery weightless objects that seemed to remove themselves from apparent romanticism bringing them closer to an exacerbated form of nightmarish symbolism. Giselle fits perfectly into this model! …