Draft Works: Reimagining Giselle April 2016

[capybara]

Well tonight - at last - we had Yasmine Naghdi dancing a Giselle. Lovely!

[bridiem]

Yes, an exciting foretaste (I hope!). The other dancers were terrific too (Olivia Cowley, Paul Kay and Matthew Ball). Interesting seeing new ideas and movements to music and for characters that are so extremely familiar. And Joshua Beamish (Canadian choreographer I hadn't heard of before) had some valid ideas about the plot/characters. But I personally would prefer not to take the spiritual out of Giselle.

[Sim]

I attended the first "Giselle Reimagined" in the Clore this evening. Some interesting ideas from choreographer Joshua Beamish, who transposed the story into a more current cultural setting. An interesting mix of classical and contemporary steps, with some nods to the original choreography. As it was part of the Draft Works series, he just did four scenes.

 

The dancers were Yasmine Naghdi as Giselle, Olivia Cowley as Myrtha, Matthew Ball as Hilarion and Paul Kay as Albrecht. All four were lovely to watch, and such a treat to see them in such an intimate setting.

 

Watching Yasmine made me even more frustrated that she wasn't cast as Giselle this time. She is clearly ready to dance the role, technically, dramatically and emotionally. She is ready in general to go upwards, and I do hope Mr O'Hare agrees with me.

 

Olivia Cowley keeps getting better and better; such lovely, graceful use of her long limbs and upper body. I would love to see her as Myrtha.

 

Matthew and Paul were also impressive. You'd think that Matthew, the company's Albrecht in waiting, would have been cast in that role, but in the context of the choreography it didn't matter!

 

This short performance was enjoyable, and it was nice to see other RB dancers in the audience giving their support.

[Duck]

I saw this tonight, really enjoyed it, and would love to see this developed by Joshua Beamish into a full-length version of the story. In particular in the first scene, I realised half-way through that I was sitting there smiling wildly, my head gently moving to the music.   The blossoming relationship between Giselle and Albrecht was beautifully choreographed and danced and, with their acting, looked so incredibly real. I was also impressed by how the relationship between Myrtha and Hilarion was shown, right through to the end when he is indeed danced to death by her.

 

I looked at the cast sheet for tonight's performance of Giselle and realised that Yasmine Naghdi is also cast in the pas de six tonight - hats off for doing both.

[zxDaveM]

I looked at the cast sheet for tonight's performance of Giselle and realised that Yasmine Naghdi is also cast in the pas de six tonight - hats off for doing both.

 

At least she had the night off from dancing as a Wili, bless 'er!   :-)