did you know ballet is illegal in Turkmenistan? I do, because I watched it on Quite Interesting. Thankfully ballet is not illegal in New Zealand.
I saw Giselle on Friday night. It was opening night, and I actually saw some mistakes! It's kind of awesome when you see ballet dancers make mistakes, because it reminds you that they aren't these weird perfect people, just people who dance a lot.
That's beside the point, of course. Giselle is a weirdly sad ghost story of a ballet. It's meant to be the height of romance, I didn't think it was *that* romantic. Not as romantic as Romeo and Juliet, but it also wasn't as depressing as Madame Butterfly so that's something.
Act one.
The story goes like this: there's this girl, Giselle and she's the most beautiful girl in her village in the forest. There's this guy Hilarious (or similar) who is in love with her, but he's totally Duckie from Pretty in Pink, and she doesn't like him back that way. But then, on the day of the Harvest festival there's this new guy in town who's totally into Giselle and manages to win her affection back. The problem with this new guy is that he's secretly like, a prince and he's already engaged to a High Society lady. I really liked the prince because he wore a tights which were a very similar colour to his skin, so when he was facing the back of the stage it was like he was wearing just boots and a top.
He had the most amazing thigh muscles like, ever too. But back to the story....
So, he proposes to Giselle and they dance a lot, because she doesn't know about the prince thing and her mother warns her not to dance too much because Giselle is a bit fragile and of course, over in the dark forest there are the wilis. The wilis kill people by making them dance til they die.
Hilarious exposes the Prince as the prince and when Giselle finds out that he is already engaged she goes crazy and then drops dead. As you do. /act one.
act two:
The queen of the wilis dances around a lot. The wilis are all ghosts of engaged girls who died before they were married and they wear pretty white tutus with a bit of green around the edge, like they're mouldering. I approve greatly of this costume decision because it was both pretty and creepy. The wilis find Hilarious in the graveyard mourning Giselle and make him dance until he dies.
I quite liked watching the dancer of Hilarious have to act all tired after his leaps and then eventually fall down. It was like watching a live snuff movie. Ballet snuff. There should be more of it!
The wilis then raise Giselle out of her grave and they all dance a welcome and she dances for the queen and then the prince is in the graveyard and the queen of the wilis is going to make him dance until he dies, but Giselle keeps butting in and dancing slowly with him, so that he doesn't die, but just gets really exhausted so that when dawn comes (wilis disappear at dawn) he is still alive and she forgives him, and then goes back into her grave. /end ballet.
So, weird story, but a good excuse for lots and lots of pretty dancing. This is a good thing. The set design was really nice and the ghost effects at the start of act two just introducing the wilis was really pretty spooky. This is a very old, traditional ballet so there is a lot of mime used to tell the story. I can demonstrate the mime for you in person, but it doesn't really work in text form. Suffice to say I can now mime "You will dance until you die" and I enjoy doing so.
I just finished reading a children's book called Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver. It's set in Prehistoric hunter/gatherer times and is centred around Torak, a 12ish year old outcast whose father has just been killed by a demon bear. The book is very fast paced as Torak runs from the bear and encounters a lot of obstacles along the way.
The setting is very lush and well realised, the ancient religious aspects treated as fact rather than myth and all the dangers of living in such a time made very real and immediate.
Torak makes friends with a wolf cub, who he can understand....which is lucky because the wolf has to lead him to the Mountain of the World Spirit so he can get the World Spirit to take back the Demon Bear before it destroys the forest and everyone and everything in it.
As I said it's classified as a kid's book, but this is an immersive story that is so gripping I couldn't stop reading it. I've given it to Lee now, and he seems to be enjoying it well enough.
PoF: stripey arms Jenni's Angel
CO: stupid belleh, why do you hurt right after eating?