Yes, he Khan

Giselle endures in the collective imagination as a charming, sorrowful, supernatural love story. Premièred in Paris in 1841, this keystone romantic ballet concerns a peasant girl whose trust in a disguised nobleman destroys her fragile mind and heart. Little wonder, given the ballet’s mixture of sunniness, deception, spooky woe and redemption, that it retains a timeless grip or that the title role has become the ballerina equivalent of Hamlet.

English National Ballet will be at the London Coliseum in January performing Mary Skeaping’s Giselle, a chilling and historically accurate version originally mounted by the company in 1971. But first comes Akram Khan’s brand new take, another savvy commission by ENB’s artistic director Tamara Rojo.

Khan is celebrated for his mastery of classical Indian dance and often strikingly theatrical contemporary choreography. Although he worked successfully with ENB on part of the company’s award winning first world war programme, Giselle is his first crack at a full length ballet standard. The result is impressive: meaty and moody, not completely satisfying but a vivid, viscerally exciting showcase for a company ready to seize a fresh challenge. The production’s dramatic content renders it both ripe for the Halloween season and, more unexpectedly, a reflection on immigration issues.

Khan and his dramaturg, Ruth Little, have sharply refocused the ballet’s narrative without fully addressing all the questions arising from the changes they’ve rung. Their Giselle is no longer a naive village damsel but rather a spirited member of a migrant community (identified in the synopsis as ‘Outcasts’). These factory workers occupy one side of a huge grey wall; indeed, when the curtain rises they’re pushing en masse against this monumental divide. Behind it is Giselle’s lover — and, as we soon gather, future co parent. Albrecht is still a member of an oppressive ruling class (described here as ‘Landlords’) whose handful of other representatives swan about in fancy dress haute couture.