Giselle Live Screening Manchester Odeon
Introduction
I watched the live broadcast of the Giselle ballet at the
Odeon cinema in Manchester from the Royal Opera House in London. The show was
performed by the Royal Ballet and this was a great opportunity for research with
the Unit X project, as I have seen the Giselle ballet before.
Rather than trailers we had a speaker live from the Royal
Opera House who spoke about the performance and showed us some ‘behind the
scenes’ footage of the dancers practicing and talking about their characters. I
found this useful because there is not dialogue within the ballet however there
is some great acting through the body language, but the description given by
the dancers adds that depth to the characters.
Screening
The ballet is split into two acts, one where Giselle is
alive and the world has a very positive atmosphere, then act two takes a very
dark turn where it takes place in the ‘underworld’ with the ghosts of dead
woman who dance men to death. Despite not being at the Royal Opera House to watch
the ballet there, I still found it enjoyable.
There were moments within the ballet that really stood out
to me, be it the dancers or the narrative. The first moment was during the
first act when Giselle discovers than she is betrayed as her lover is married
to another woman she begins to descend into madness to the point of her even
stabbing herself in the stomach. In my opinion this moment within the ballet
should have an entire act itself as this is the turn in act one which transitions
into act two. However this moment is so striking and so sudden that it no
longer feels like it should be part of act one or two. This moment was very
interesting and would like to look into this further, an opportunity to explore
this as part of Unit X.
One moment within the second act, the dancers would stand on
the ends of their toes and then move them quickly to glide from one side of the
stage to the other. I found that this was a fantastic effect to create the
illusion of the dancers almost gliding across the stage, which made them appear
supernatural. This is supported with the contrast of the movements of the
dancers in the first act where they do walk expressively and it appears very
natural, then during act two when these dancers would walk on their ends, they
appear to glide like the ghost characters.
Act two also had an effect on me which was interesting.
There were parts within act two where there would be around twenty dancers all
dancing in sync which was amazing, however the colours of the contrasting dark
colours of the background to the striking white of the dancers caused me to
fade away into my own thoughts at times. As they danced they would just become
blurs and shapes which made me think about the story of Giselle and about Unit
X, which felt more like a trance as I was startled by the applause of the
audience and the dance was over without me realising. This bizarre effect did
not occur during act one, which leads me to believe the theme of the underworld
during act two also had a similar effect on me as I fell into a trance as the
dancers slowly turned into shapes and I was lost in my own thoughts. This would
not have been achieved in had one of the dancers been out of sync or fell over,
but due to their professionalism and there stunning dancing it had that effect on
me.
Continuing discussing these thoughts I had, I began to think
about the theme of dislocation. As discussed before with the end of act one
where Giselle is betrayed, this was a very striking moment within the ballet. I
started to relate this moment to one of the themes for the Unit X brief; Dislocation.
This is because I stared to have a wave of thoughts about the emotions of
Giselle and how she must have felt at that moment of betrayal, I started to
think about how dislocated she must have felt from her loved ones and her reality.
I started to think about I how I would express this and how this could meet the
Unit X brief.
Conclusion
Overall I found the Giselle very impressive and striking
with the contrast of the two acts. The narrative of Giselle is a simple yet
noble one as Giselle grows as a character and forgives the one who betrayed
her. It was a different experience watching a live ballet within a cinema rather
than a theatre, I would have preferred the theatre watching the dancers on
stage. I will continue my research into Giselle and specifically the theme of dislocation.
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