THE DATE

J.-D. Nasio, prominent psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, self-styled Lacan disciple and author of a dozen books, his 1998 Five Lessons on the Psychoanalytic Theory of Jacques Lacan (State University of New York Press) somehow including an intellectually challenging passage on Paolo Bortoluzzi's foot.

THE DANCE

Giselle performed by the Paris Opéra with Benjamin Pech as Albrecht and Elisabeth Maurin as Giselle.

What do you like about it ?

It can create a very special‘enveloping’sensation. To me, when a dancer is totally into his movement and utterly fills the space - like Benjamin Pech who was fantastic in the second act - he creates an invisible sphere around him and the spectator gets caught up inside with him. But I don't see as much dance as I'd like to.

Have you seen Giselle before and what were you enduring memory(ies) of it ?

I may have in the past. I knew of it but I had to re-read the storyline. Really, it's been a pleasure to watch the whole ballet and to be there here in this amazing theatre. But I know that when I close my eyes before going to sleep the haunting memory will be that of the wilis all in white against the dark background. To me, it's a very moving image. The main character here is not Giselle, not the prince and certainly not Hilarion. The main character is woman, women, specifically women as young virgins who died before being loved by a man. Then they come out at night and become mad with dance, as if all the virginity they were forced to keep intact suddenly explodes into that sinister dance after death. It is a kind of primitive sublimation that leads them to murder. It is as if the fact of remaining chaste had made it impossible for the madness that is inherent to all women to be released any other way. In life, it can find expression through maternity, love, any form of social activity. But the wilis have not been able to open themselves up to the world. Their madness is like one pent-up tension that was waiting to burst. And remember that, at the time [the ballet is set in], women married young and marriage was a fundamental aspect of their lives. So there was no greater tragedy than dying unwed. It was like dying before having been born. And this is what the world, God and men have denied the wilis. Therefore the eternal resentment and the rage. They can't forgive.

Giselle does forgive though.

That's true. Maybe because there was never an official engagement. Lacan coined the expression“not all”to describe women. Women are“not all”this or that. Women all have a secret place inside kept inaccessible to men and sometimes to themselves. It is their touch of madness and femininity could be describes as the way of dealing with that madness.

But there's madness in men too.

Of course, but it's different.

Professor Nasio then proceeds to explain the essential difference between men and women's psychologies in terms of their distinct genitalia leading to such daunting conclusions as‘every woman remains essentially a virgin’and‘it could be said that men are all penis". Women are“not all”penis -“not all”genitality.The wilis, however, are all madness. That’s why I would say this ballet is not Giselle or the wilis but wilis and maybe Giselle.

What would you say about the Prince Albrecht ?

Again, I'd say men here, the Prince or Hilarion are only here as foils to enhance women. To me, this ballet is romantic not because there is death, not because there is love, but because there is a woman. The theme is decidedly womanhood in the purest, strictest sense of the world. All women are mad.

I'm sure the female readers will be delighted to hear that...

Please! All women are mad. Except they usually know how to deal with it, give it, show it, hide it. It is a wonderful madness. I'm totally in awe of it. Giselle could also be the story of women's passion for dance that supersedes their passion for men. To a certain extent, this ballet is also about dance itself with an ironic nod to the dancer. The prince falls to the floor exhausted as part of the story. But in real life, in rehearsal that's what he would do too, wouldn't it?

Like it was no longer a character part. He just has to show and amplify his exhaustion instead of hiding it as dancers normally do.

Exactly. You know, it's just occurred to me that the theme of the wilis coming out of their grave to express their total freedom by dancing is exactly the same idea developed in that Michael Jackson's video. What's it called again? I love that video.

You mean Thriller. Maybe he actually cribbed it from Giselle.

Who knows! (laughs)

DANCE EUROPE
Issue n°68
November 2003