Giselle…

François Gremaud
Samantha van Wissen

29.11 > 03.12.2022

Dance – Theatre

After a first part devoted to Phèdre, François Gremaud continues his trilogy on the great tragic female figures of the living arts by adapting Giselle*, a masterpiece of classical ballet and an essential piece of the romantic repertoire.

A comedy-ballet that develops as a danced conference, Giselle… here is adorned with three suspension points. This punctuation appeared in the French language with romanticism to represent the inexpressible character of a thing. It tells us that Giselle is both there and not there. A programmatic way of affirming that beyond the ballet, there are all the spells of form and fiction. It’s all about circulation, between memory and imagination, between the voice and the dance step, between the inside and the outside.

In a stripped-down aesthetic, Samantha van Wissen comments, paraphrases, documents and dances Giselle. The iconic interpreter of Rosas Danst Rosas by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker plays magnificently in all registers, through a composite and constantly inventive form, supported by the music of composer and pianist Luca Antignani, inspired by the music of Adolphe Adam, and performed by four musicians – flute, harp, saxophone, violin.

Both educational and evocative, Giselle… reveals all the emotion contained in the ballet as well as the magic of one of the most beautiful heroines in the history of dance.

Première belge

* On learning that Albrecht, whom she loves, is the noble fiancé of a princess, Giselle, a naive peasant girl, dies. The Queen of the Wilis – spirits of dead maidens – decides that Albrecht must follow Giselle to the grave. He is condemned to dance until he dies from exhaustion. But the spirit of Giselle, by dancing with him, manages to save him.

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