Giselle, a pillar of the ballet repertoire, has been a visually stunning, romantic tragedy portrayed in theaters since its premiere in Paris, France in 1841. Since then, Giselle and its iconic choreography has been strategically utilized as soft power for western hegemony across the world. Ballet as a visual distillation of feminine gender performance under capitalist patriarchy has long been a powerful tool in the conditioning of society into standardizing the female performance under the male gaze. In times of rising fascism (and Pride Month) we must interrogate the proliferation of ballet’s impact on the cultural zeitgeist. 

Giselle; A Deconstruction of the Willis is a retrospective of the socio-gendered conditions of Giselle, her prince, her supernatural contract with the forest and the performance gaze. All of these components form an off putting yet important look into the expectations of girlhood and subsequently womanhood under patriarchy and specifically the capitalist competition of romance.