La Sylphide

by Freya Boyd Wellington Girls school

Dancing into our Hearts

The ballet production La Sylphide was excellent. The first thing that took the audience’s eye was the amazing set. The detailed, life like set looks as though it would have taken weeks to prepare. It assisted the dancing perfectly and played it’s part in establishing context of what was happening and making the production more visually effective.

Next came the dancing and music. The dancers, full of energy leaped and flew through the air. Limbs perfectly straight and always with a smile on their faces they danced their way into our hearts. Such amazing talent, it’s a wonder how the body can be trained to do such things. They danced perfectly in time to the music, it definitely looked as though the music had been created to fit the dancing. When the music was fast and up-lifting, the dancers were too, their movements fast and big with a lot of jumping. When the music was slow they did slow, steady movements. Amazing as again, with the ability to hold such difficult positions and making it look easy too! The music and dancing definitely worked beautifully together.

The costumes were typical, they reflected what/ who each character was as well as portraying social status. For example, the workers and servants wore big long dresses for the females and plain pants for the males. Dull colours also, which were in contrast to the bright, beautiful costumes of the main characters, they also wore bonnets and head dress whereas the upper-class characters did not. The fairies were lovely but pain, they then cleverly put glitter and a more glowing white on the main fairy so she stood out and the audience could distinguish her from the others. She was amazing the way she spent the majority of the performance on her toes to give the impression she was floating. It was very impressive.

Finally, as the plot proceeded a happy ending was expected where the fairy and her admirer, the young boy would get together and live happily ever after. However, this was not how it turned out. Instead the boy was tricked by an old magical crone who he was previously mean to. The boy was convinced to make the main fairy mortal but in his mission to do this he killed her instead. This was completely an unexpected twist. The young boy then dies of a broken heart, leaving the old crone to have the last laugh. It is an insightful message of what goes around, comes around.

All in all, it was very enjoyable by all viewers. It was a cleverly directed production and is recommended for all. It has something for everyone; beautiful music, dancing, elaborate set, humour and a brilliant twist, not your average happy ending ballet. A 10/10 production. By Freya Boyd