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Dear Readers, I’ve been following Akram Khan for ages – I  love the way that he combines classical Kathak dance with ballet and other dance traditions. Back in 2006 he worked with musician Nitin Sawney, sculptor Anthony Gormley and Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui in Zero Degrees, which I fell in love with when I saw it at Sadler’s Wells. But Khan’s Giselle, which I saw on Friday, was one of the best dance performances I’ve ever been privileged to witness.

Giselle is a story of betrayed love: in the original, a country girl (Giselle) falls in love with a nobleman (Albrecht) who is disguised as a commoner, but who is already betrothed to an aristocratic woman. When this is revealed, Giselle falls into madness and dies. However, after death she joins the vengeful Wilis, who are the ghosts of women betrayed by men – the Wilis enact their revenge by making the betrayers dance until they die. However, Giselle saves Albrecht, in spite of him being a sad waste of human genetic material.

So far, so normal (for ballet/opera at least), though I did wonder if that phrase ‘he gives me the willies’ actually refers to the Wilis. What is so stunning about this performance is that Khan  has changed the country folk to ‘outcasts’, who work in some kind of unspecified factory, and the aristocrats to ‘landlords’. The Wilis are the ghosts of women killed in the factory. The score is relentless in some parts, driving onwards until you think it can’t get any more discordant, and then dropping away to utter silence. At which point, some poor soul normally has a coughing fit, but there we go. The Wilis are terrifying, and Khan  made the decision that they would be the only characters who go en pointe, which means that their appearance has a ghostly, supernatural quality.

I had no idea that the ballet had been around for such a long time – it first appeared in 2016, has won shedloads of awards, and some of the people in my row at the London Coliseum had been to see it in different locations half a dozen times. I shall certainly be seeking it out whenever it appears – it is involving, thought-provoking, moving and viscerally exciting. What a joy!

Here are a few excerpts…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQQVhk5pNPE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3-v4M1zdHA

I’m off to see a more traditional version of the ballet at the Royal Opera House in a few months. It will be really interesting to compare and contrast.