Giselle Mime

[paul]

I learned Giselle from Joice Graham who danced with the Ballet Rambert I thing during and after the war.

All these lovely mime I have lerned from her I never see performed.

For example: Giselle "says" to the girls: don´t go on picking grapes, dance with me. During the Walze: the choir and Giselle are holding a imaginary basket of grapes bith both arms.

Ther peasant pas de deux: at one stage the boy whispers the girls soemthing in the ear. And one thing I can remember so cleary because Mrs. Graham insisted that you walk the pattern of a heart at one stage during the peasant pas de deux.

I asked a russian friend who danced the ballet in russia and produced it in the west. He is blissfully anaware of all these mime.

Has anyone else learned this sort of mime?

[Jane Simpson]

Paul, how lucky you are to have studied with Joyce Graham! I've only seen photographs of her as Myrtha but she looks so dramatic - and Rambert's Giselle was very highly regarded in the 1940s. I've never noticed the mime passages you mention - it would be great to know if they are ever used these days.

[paul]

Paul, how lucky you are to have studied with Joyce Graham! I've only seen photographs of her as Myrtha but she looks so dramatic - and Rambert's Giselle was very highly regarded in the 1940s. I've never noticed the mime passages you mention - it would be great to know if they are ever used these days.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, she must have been a very dramatic dancers. Unfortunately she upset me very much. During class she was always looking at herself in the mirror, danced a few steps and than looked out of the window. But of course, she was a star.And could give you what others could not. She had this ingredible presence. Oh, I wish that I would have woken up much earlier. Because she suddenly gave it all up and died very quickly.

[Jane Simpson]

All these lovely mime I have lerned from her I never see performed.

For example: Giselle "says" to the girls: don´t go on picking  grapes, dance with me.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Paul, you might be interested in this quote from Judith Mackrell's review of ENB's revival of the production of Giselle by Mary Skeaping, which tries to go back closer to the original version:

"The mime sections too have an old fashioned elaborateness - with extra story-telling detail (Giselle quaintly gestures to her friends that they should stop stripping the grapes from the vines and dance with her) "

It sounds as if it may be the same thing as you learned! I haven't seen this production yet but will watch out for this moment when I do.