….but tonight has been an exception. My wife and I went to see the Dada Masilo dance company’s version of Giselle at the Bradford Alhambra theatre. I found it a remarkable experience. Its effect on me compared to my encounter many years ago, for the first time, with Ghost Dances, in that I felt that I was being offered novel possibilities of what dance could do and mean.
I am not familiar with the classical version of Giselle, but I gather that it centres upon the eventual forgiveness of the lover who wronged her by the central character. In this new version we are faced with the dreadful prospect that there can be no forgiveness for wrong, which I found truly disturbing.
This South African company, currently touring the UK, brings a number of novel features to their presentation, widening the range of dance vocabulary and intensifying it by the addition of vocalisation. The funeral scene was truly moving, and actually left me in tears …. I think for the first time in my experience of viewing dance.
It is going to take some time for me to assimilate the experience, because it shared with the best art the possibility of beginning a process of discovery as a consequence of reflection. You don’t “get it” all in one go. Is the story in this version, for example, a metaphorical reflection on the possibilities of “truth and reconciliation”?