Hana Sakai x Toshiki Okada: Giselle: A Summary

Lees in het Nederlands

Giselle: A Summary features Hana Sakai, former principal dancer of The National Ballet of Japan, performing the romantic classic while taking on the persona of a YouTuber. She narrates the story of Giselle, mixing flawless ballet, subtle humour, and playful commentary, inviting the audience into a world that becomes increasingly complex and captivating as reality and fiction, stage and screen, begin to blur.

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.