Akram Khan Giselle

giselle

‘You see a forest and you have to find your way through the forest and not take the pathway that has been given to you and that has been pounded down by the many choreographers and composers that have walked through that pathway. You have to find your own pathway, but still within the same forest.’

Akram Khan 2016

In 2016 Akram Khan created a reinterpretation of Giselle for the English National Ballet. It was Tamara Rojo, then artistic director of the ENB, who asked Khan to re-envision and reinvigorate the classical 19th century ballet. It was danced again recently by the ENB at Sadler’s Wells. Khan’s vision of Giselle is haunting and compelling, tragic and original. He is a courageous and brilliant choreographer. He melds classical Indian Kathak, classical and contemporary dance to create movement that is beautiful and exhilarating. He imbues the character of Giselle with an extraordinary strength, giving her both hope and anger, all of which lift her out of her tragic romantic ballet heroine past and make of her a warrior. Similarly, he gives the ghostly Wilis a power that is dangerous and threatening. Holding long batons in their hands, their mouths, they dance and capture, they maim and kill as their feet throb on the stage with the beat of incessant bourrées. The score, which was adapted by Khan’s long term collaborator Vincenzo Lamagna, is essential to his vision of the ballet. It is mournful, sliding, hypnotic, splicing orchestra with electronic alarms of a Brave New World and eery silences, shouts and ominous humming.

I have not stopped thinking about Khan’s Giselle since I saw it two weeks ago. Isn’t that what we are searching for in great creativity, for a world to inhabit, a world in which to be lost and found?

giselle

give me a baton and I will defend

my honour

myself

my destiny

give me a baton and I will teach

you what it is

to love and die

forgive and not forget

give me a baton and I will beat the earth

in sorrow

in fury

until you listen

alicia drake