{"id":68342,"date":"2026-02-12T13:52:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T13:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/?p=68342"},"modified":"2026-04-16T07:21:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T07:21:40","slug":"giselle-a-persona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/giselle-a-persona\/","title":{"rendered":"Giselle: A Persona"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alice Heyward<\/p>\n

Giselle: A Summary <\/em><\/strong>by theatre director Toshiki Okada, performed by Hana Sakai, was presented at Thalia Gau\u00dfstra\u00dfe as part of Lessingtage 2026. The show was produced by Aichi Prefectural Art Theater\u00a0and is part of the Constellation project, sponsored\u00a0by the Japan Creator Support Fund.\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

creator.ntj.jac.go.jp\/en\/cultural-facilities\/aichi-aac<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

We file into Thalia Gau\u00dfstra\u00dfe and sit facing an arrangement of domestic objects and low-fi production equipment. An inflatable sofa, plastic cabinetry, and a makeshift doorframe with white tassels create a border: a room. An essential oil diffuser pumps a light mist, functioning within the theatre as a bedroom-style smoke machine. The centrepiece of the space is a bright LED ring light aimed squarely toward stage right.<\/p>\n

Hana Sakai, a Japanese former prima ballerina, enters the stage set-up wearing yoga tights and a white singlet and, charismatically, addresses the circular light, reframing the stage as a site of self-broadcast. From the seating bank, we have a perpendicular view onto the livestream shoot: voyeurs into another system of transmission. Sakai begins to tell the apparatus, in a TV-show-host style, complete with a warm grin, about her history as Giselle. The texture of her Japanese language flows from the monitors, and a screen flashes English subtitles. Speech is the work\u2019s primary material, with ballet gestures peppering Sakai\u2019s storytelling: a small arabesque here, a bourr\u00e9e there. In this way, the \u201cdeconstruction\u201d of ballet undertaken by director Toshiki Okada and Sakai occurs through the storytelling of Giselle<\/em>, rather than through the reworking of ballet\u2019s movement vocabulary. Classical ballet technique isn\u2019t abstracted, but repositioned to become a spice in the story\u2014a flair that elaborates a spoken narrative.<\/p>\n

A \u201csummary\u201d is usually a concise version of something longer, highlighting essential information while excluding minor details and personal opinion. This \u201csummary\u201d of Giselle<\/em>, narrated by Sakai, doesn\u2019t offer an objective overview of the ballet; instead, it uses the story as a springboard for the soloist to share memories, anecdotes, and fantasies from the role she has performed many times. The \u201csummary\u201d we witness is of Sakai as Giselle. It traces the layered relationship between them across her career and within the microcosm of a single evening\u2019s performance. The relationship between dancer and character is spotlit, illuminating how the performer becomes the construction of another figure, entwining \u2018person\u2019, \u2018persona\u2019, and \u2018character\u2019. Sakai portrays herself as a classical ballet dancer who returns to the same role again and again. Are we meeting Sakai, Giselle, or a new character that this show constructs? Does Sakai embody Giselle; does Giselle embody Sakai; or do they become each other\u2014along with the many other dancers who perform Giselle across history and geography?<\/p>\n

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Hana SAKAI \u00d7 Toshiki OKADA “Giselle: A Summary” by Aichi Prefectural Art Theater \u00a9\ufe0e HATORI Naoshi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sakai serves as an influencer, sharing her story with the online masses and building her presence through engaging content. This dispositif poses a twist, fragmenting our role as audience. We are in shared time and space with Sakai, watching her live performance together, anonymously, in a theatre. Her delivery is not livestreamed to dispersed viewers sitting alone with their devices, as the performance simulates. This juxtaposes contemporary culture with the arcana of the \u2018original\u2019 Giselle<\/em>. Although no explicit position is taken on the proliferation of influencers, the artificial performativity in Sakai\u2019s live demonstrations speaks volumes about the two-dimensionality of screen culture and its effect on our lives. Online performances are addressed to a machine\u2014a fundamentally different receiver than a live, seated audience. Formulated to be shared and replicated, and without the direct energetic feedback of live presence, their purpose is to convince and sell (as) content rather than to produce a subjectively meaningful, embodied encounter. Sakai\u2019s seamless slips into reenacted advertisements\u2014abruptly cutting her story\u2014highlight the performance of a self for online consumption, whether by describing how she left Giselle\u2019s necklace in her dressing room during an interval and the ensuing drama, or by selling a product. What was said changed, not so much how. Sakai\u2019s incredible skill as a performer lies in how she produces and rides the tension between representing the registration of a livestream performance and really performing live for us. We are a full house whose energetic attention and audible laughter come to her from her left periphery, not the symbolic camera in front of her.<\/p>\n