Giselle: A Summary

This work marks the second instalment in a project to reconstruct classical ballet, highlighting a collaboration between internationally renowned director and playwright Toshiki Okada and Hana Sakai, former principal dancer with the National Ballet of Japan. One of the most prominent figures in Japan’s classical ballet scene, Sakai takes on the monumental Romantic ballet Giselle—a role she has performed countless times—this time as a solo performer.

On stage, Sakai appears as a YouTuber calmly recounting the story of Giselle. Through subtle humour, she reveals both the intimacy and distance she has developed toward the role over the course of her illustrious career. One moment she delivers a flawless pirouette; the next, she parodies an ad for English conversation classes on YouTube. As reality and fiction, stage and screen begin to blur, the audience is drawn into a world that becomes increasingly complex and captivating.

Okada’s meta-theatrical script boldly dismantles and reassembles the classical framework while fully showcasing Sakai’s presence. The result is a work that questions the possibilities of ballet with both lightness and depth.

“Ballet as a dance form emerged, was systematised, became established, developed, was subjected to creative destruction, and, as a result, evolved. The ballet Giselle was created, became a classic, and continues to be performed all over. The ballet dancer Hana Sakai has performed Giselle countless times in her career, such that the role and the choreography have deeply infiltrated her body and soul. The work you are seeing today, Giselle: A Summary, is largely formed from these facts. In other words, Giselle: A Summary, a work of ballet-based contemporary dance, is a great celebration of the existence of ballet as a dance form and Giselle as a ballet.” ─ Toshiki Okada