Personal Narrative: Giselle's Variation

I was convinced that I was ready to close a chapter of my life and begin anew. Come end of summer, I would place my worn-out pointe shoes into boxes to be hidden in the corner of my closet, pieces of forgotten memorabilia. My years of sweat and dedication were to be laid aside. After the last four weeks of intensive summer training, I had decided it was time to say a quick and painless goodbye to a lifelong pursuit of ballet—that is, until Giselle’s variation from Act 2 happened.
I had been consistently avoiding anything and anyone that might jeopardize my decision. My usual passion and enthusiastic spark were gone, replaced by a deep longing to understand why, exactly, I had ever fallen in love with this painstaking art, committing my life to its perfection. The variation would take what was left of me, a discouraged and weary ballerina, and slowly reveal the silver lining to the complicated mess of my emotions.

I had always known about Giselle, one of the most famous romantic ballets of all time.

But my first exposure to Giselle’s variation came toward the end of summer classes. That day, my body and soul felt as frayed as the ribbons on my pointe shoes, and I was trying desperately to motivate myself. Ballet had taught me from an early age that pain is only in the mind and it is fleeting—to smile even when I was tired, to push through the pain in order to achieve great beauty. This ideology was working well for me, until the ballet mistress reprimanded me: didn’t I know that dance was more than a series of steps? It was the actualization of my heart into a role, requiring a complete understanding of Giselle, a girl torn between love and the chance for

revenge.
I had witnessed my fair share of unrequited love in other roles in romantic ballets, yet Giselle’s emotions in this variation felt nothing like that of Odette or Nikiya. This time, her sorrow and joy, her heartbreak and passion resonated with me, illuminating my own hesitation and determination, my desperation and hope—Giselle reflected every paradoxical emotion I felt about the imminent end of my love affair with ballet. And that made all the difference. So for those brief minutes, as I danced, as I became Giselle, in every extension and every breath, I grappled with these emotions. Even though the sudden confrontation with the reality of my emotions frightened me, dancing Giselle’s variation reminded me that the truest beauty existed in the process of having loved, in the “why” of my pursuit of perfection: why I had dedicated thirteen years of my life to this, this crazy, fantastical dream, and why I knew I would treasure it for the rest of my life.
Amidst my confusion, I discovered that the reassurance, the hope that I hadn’t wasted my entire childhood in a ballet studio, was something I had badly needed. Yes the choreography and the emotions of Giselle’s variation were unparalleled, but the magic lay in its ability to nudge me from frustration to appreciation, from sorrow to celebration.
Perhaps the role of Giselle is the most coveted because this doubt, this introspection, these conflicting emotions are universal. But, what I know for sure is this: dancing Giselle’s variation from Act 2, a physical manifestation of my emotions and experiences that summer, was paramount to my understanding of the person that ballet has made me. And even as I hung up my pointe shoes, I realized that I could never fully close this chapter, the ballet chapter, of my life. Ballet is ingrained into my identity—the lessons, a fundamental part of who I am—and it will always be written into the story of my life.