Contemporary Giselle - 4 Themes

Putting the 4 main themes of the Contemporary Giselle into context;


The four main themes of the Contemporary Giselle are as follows. They have a lot of meaning to the production and show the reasons why Mats Ek decided to choreograph his version of Giselle the way he did.

1. Control -  This theme is shown and represented by the social hierarchy between men and women in 1982. This is shown in the movement by the villagers; the men are swinging the women around on their stick and the women then always bow down to their man. The men are the ones holding the sticks over the women which shows they have more power.
2. Love - Love is showing in Giselle by her character  being very flirtatious towards Lloys. They constantly hug and play with each other. At one point they pretend that they have a baby (using a cushion), they stroke each other, they each have their shy moments and then carry on flirting. She runs at him and both hold their arms wide open and hug.
3. Mental Health - Mental health was a disaster. It had gone from being great and one of the best systems where the patients got treated to the best of the doctors ability to then get treated like animals just being churned out one by one. This is because the companies were concentrating on competition of each other to try and be the best rather than concentrating on the health of the patients and looking after each patients specific needs. This is represented in Giselle by the in the mental institution; the patients including Giselle are not getting better. The inmates and Giselle are just wondering round not getting better as they each become more and more mental. Their movement also suggests that they are not getting better as they are still rolling around on the floor and bowing down at the queen inmate.
4. Treatment of women - Women got treated very different in the 1982 to what they do now'a days which is why Mats Ek decided to use this in his choreography. You can see in the production of Giselle the treatment of women in the section when they women villagers come on set rolling eggs. This shows that the women's job is to be at home looking after their children and the house - cooking and cleaning. The men then come over the women as they are sat on their eggs and they doing an arching arm movement carrying their sticks over their right shoulder. This suggests that they are arching over the women and men are the most important.