Tag: Nac danse 2019

Giselle – A world premiere reveals Ivan Cavallari’s contemporary vision of a 19th century ballet through the prism of ‘total art’.

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!  

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