As I was coming up the stairs following dance history today, I overheard a conversation between two students about the depressing nature of today's material. i don't know if it came out of disgust from last week's My Prince Will Come theme or if it was simply because I like the ballet, but I chose Giselle as the first classical peice we'd study this week. i don't know how many of you are familiar with the story of Giselle, but it's sadly dramatic and ironically realistic (as far as character development). There's this girl Giselle, she's pretty and frail and betrothed to this lame hunter guy who cares about her but whom she doesn't love. Then there's this prince who's handsome and strong and betrothed to this princess lady, but he is tired of the royal life and iikes to sneak out in disguise among the peasants and experience "real life". Predictably on one such trip, Giselle meets her prince and they fall i love ( if disney did this story, it would end here and they would live happily ever after, never mind poor booring hunter guy and princess lady; "true love" trumps all). Well, it comes out that he's the prince, actually, Giselle finds the princess and the prince together and it causes her to go insane which puts some strain on her already weak heart, and she literally dances herself to death.
Here's the part I like, they're both rediculously selfish... Giselle has this great man (boring, sure, but great) who goes hunting for she and her mom, wants to love her and take care of her and she seemed to like him just fine until another better looking offer came up (so typical). Then there's the prince, he pretended he wanted to be with her, even said he loved her and wanted to marry her when he knew all the time that he was promised to this princess chick and even if he wasn't, he couldn't marry a commoner (again, typical, say the line to get what you want). Sigh.
The story gets even a little more depressing. There are the willies ( i won't go into that here, if you really want to know, google it) and Giselle lets them kill her poor hunter dude. He loved her and made a cross for her grave and is probably still taking care of her mother, and she just lets him die! But the selfish prince she saves. What a stupid girl will do for a pretty face! Lesson learned? Love will kill you ladies, guys, pick a sweet girl and she'll save your ass even when you don't deserve it (oh, and have a pretty face).
Love is a magnet, everyone's at it, everyone's had it
love is a madness, love is a sadness, we are the addicts
what are we if we're not in love
what are we if we're not in love
these are the cages, a kiss is contageous, it will betray us all
a kiss will betray us all.
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