༺ Innate Talent and Hard Work ༻
The first scene being filmed was the corps de ballet of Act 1.
Village maidens formed a semi-circle, dancing merrily on their toes.
They executed a pas de bourrée (a step where the dancer moves sideways on their toes), followed by an arabesque (a pose standing on one leg while raising the other at a right angle).
True to the renowned Aurora Ballet Company, the height and shape of their legs were precisely matched, without an inch of error.
Those among the filming crew who were seeing a ballet performance for the first time exclaimed in admiration.
Then, Giselle appeared wearing ‘flat shoes’.
Haah—
She gathered her hands at her chest, then stretched them widely to the back.
She engaged in a greeting motion, making eye contact with each and every surrounding dancer. Then, she did an energetic pas de chat (a jump where the dancer leaps sideways, bringing both knees up), holding the tutu that stretched down to her knees at both ends with her hands.
How cute—
Act 1’s Giselle was a young lady in love.
Her pure and lively image was so heartwarming that it naturally brought out smiles.
Then Albrecht appeared, and they danced a three-beat waltz.
Dum— Dum— Dum—
Whether when she entrusted her body to Albrecht’s hands and arched at the waist,
Or when they sat together, miming plucking petals together,
Giselle’s dance was pure, gazing at her lover with affection.
‘Didn’t she… retire 2 years ago?’
‘She just can’t go en pointe, but the angles of her motions are all alive, and the angles of her arabesques, and the height of her jetes…!’
The Aurora members who were sharing the stage gasped after seeing her refined performance.
Seryeon was not wearing toe shoes, which were padded at the tips to assist with doing an en pointe.
What she was wearing were flat shoes, the kind worn during practice.
In positions that required going en pointe, she substituted by pressing her toes against the floor for support.
‘Is that even classical ballet?’
Some people, like Park Dohee, might have thought so.
However, even they couldn’t deny that the dance was not that of a dancer who had taken a 2-year break.
“Cut— Okay!”
“Thank you for your hard work.”
After the first shooting was over, the ballerinas crowded around Seryeon.
They praised her with words like ‘Amazing’, ‘Have you been practicing continuously?’, ‘It’s too good, what a pity,’ etc.
As Seryeon responded with a smile to those words, she was also preserving her emotions and making sure her immersion as Giselle didn’t fade.
It was not merely a performance, but acting.
She learned from someone that even after a cut, maintaining tension and being able to connect to the next cut was what made one an ‘actor’.
“Scene 115, shooting cut 3!”
This was a ‘shoot’, so they weren’t performing the entire act.
What they were filming now were the highlights of the performance.
In the next scene, Giselle had to go mad.
*
“Ready—Action!”
The music flowed. It was the final song of Act 1.
Giselle learned that Albrecht, to whom she had sworn eternal love, was actually a nobleman in disguise and was engaged to another lady of nobility.
In a village festival attended by her fiancée.
Seeing Albrecht with his fiancée, Giselle, who originally had a weak heart, went mad.
At the last part of Act 1, Giselle lets her hair down and dances.
Contrary to the elegant and beautiful ballet one might expect, she threateningly swung the sword, spinning around, an expression of madness on her face.
Ahahahahaha—
Her expression was eerie.
With a face that seemed about to burst into wild laughter, she performed a mime, plucking and discarding each petal of a flower.
It was mocking, as if scoffing at the past moments when they had plucked petals together, determining the fate of their love.
Her eyes were completely unfocused.
Her smooth, flowing motions halted abruptly, then continued again in a rhythmless manner, like a mad woman who was unpredictable.
This was an act of Giselle, crazed by Albrecht,
An act of Hwaran, mad about the Phantom,
And Seryeon’s performance about her craziness for ballet and her own acting.
She took a step back, glaring at Albrecht with resentment in her eyes.
Then, she fiercely grabbed and pulled at her disheveled hair.
Sprinting with her arms wide open and gazing into the void, Giselle collapsed to the floor after the last lift in Albrecht’s arms (where the male dancer lifts the female dancer).
Death.
It was the end for Giselle, who died madly in love.
“…Cut.”
The cut sign from Ki Do-han dropped after a slight pause.
They had watched her act for over two months, but this was the first time they’d seen such an immersive performance.
Slowly rising from the floor, she brushed back her disheveled hair with her fingers.
And then, a burst of applause and cheers erupted.
“What happened—”
“You’ve improved! I almost forgot the next move and cried…!”
Her colleagues were shouting and held back tears in their eyes.
Technically, she might not be as skilled as she was in her prime, but in the aspect of touching the hearts of the audience with her ‘acting,’ she had deepened and became capable of moving people’s emotions.
It might be because she had experienced the pain of loss.
Her ‘acting teacher’ and ‘partner’, watching the congratulations from afar, was also left breathless by her performance.
‘She’s really… incredible.’
Although Seryeon was not yet skilled in realistic acting, her ‘ballet acting’ was a different story.
When ’emotional depth’ and ‘acting ability’ were added to the ‘ballet’ she originally excelled in, a stunning stage emerged. It was to the extent that it felt like watching a highly immersive movie about the character Giselle.
Yoomyeong, watching his partner, felt a poignant stir in his heart.
That must be what they call ‘talent.’
A beautiful person, whose innate talent was complemented by hard work.
Even with having much, what she desired was just one thing, and even though she lost it, she faced it again with astonishing courage.
Yoomyeong knew for some time now that she had started a ‘different kind of practice.’
On days when he arrived early to the practice room, she would already be there, repeating her tedious and painful rehabilitation exercises.
Pretending not to notice, Yoomyeong would leave and then re-enter at the appointed time. She would inconspicuously wipe away her sweat and practice acting.
“Scene 118, the opening scene of Act 2 coming up. Everyone, please change your costumes.”
But the surprise was not over yet.
The highlight of Giselle, Act 2, remained.
Swish—
The costume for Act 2 was a romantic tutu.
It wasn’t the classic tutu that spreads out straight like commonly imagined butterfly wings, but a romantic tutu that flutters like an overturned tulip. Wearing that costume, the ballerina moved in a straight line, floating and wandering, expressing a ghost.
Under the deep blue lighting symbolizing the night,
Amid the sparsely scattered trees, the white figures moved as if sliding smoothly.
They were the vengeful spirits of young ladies who died without fulfilling their love, the ‘Wilis.’
Albrecht entered amidst the dance of the Wilis. He, who had caused Giselle’s death, entered the nocturnal mountain forest to place a penitent flower on her grave.
The Wilis cursed him, a curse that made him dance through the night until he died of exhaustion.
And in front of Albrecht, who was cursed and dancing, Giselle appeared.
With a white veil on her head, emitting a bluish light…
Swish—
Not a staccato tapping sound, but a sound of brushing against the floor was heard. Seryeon couldn’t perform the flowing step of the Wilis that seemed to push off the floor with pointe shoes, but…
Her fingertips drooped like willow branches.
It was a unique expression method of Giselle in Act 2, distinct from other classical ballets. In port de bras, the fingertips didn’t point towards the sky but always fell downwards. And even at the end of a movement, she didn’t take a still (pause) position but smoothly transitioned, like the flow of water.
The gentle falling motions expressed Giselle’s sorrow.
Haah—
It was her soul.
She seemed to float, wobbling in the air’s current.
A cold wind blew somewhere.
Yoomyeong wrapped his arms around his shoulders, feeling her acting drawing her vitality inward, and inward.
‘To that extent…’
Unlike Yoomyeong, Director Ki did not demand much from Seryeon for the second act of Giselle’s performance.
Even though Hwaran was a prima donna (a female dancer who plays the main role in a ballet), she was still human. It wasn’t essential to perform as desolately as the Phantom.
However, she remarkably pulled it off.
While it might not be as impressive as Yoomyeong’s, she substantially drained the liveliness from Giselle in the second act.
As a result, she was more wistful and mournful than any other Wili around her when the camera shone on her.
Then, Giselle discovered Albrecht.
Despite being the man who betrayed her, he was the one she loved, even in death.
To save him, Giselle danced with Albrecht.
She encouraged him as he grew tired.
Finally, as dawn broke, Giselle, who appeared more like a spirit than a human, faded into the grave.
Albrecht, writhing in regret, scattered flowers on Giselle’s grave to end Giselle’s finale…
“Cut—t! Seryeon, you were fantastic!”
Director Ki praised her in a loud voice.
Applause—
Yoomyeong, too, expressed his respect and admiration for his partner with the loudest applause he could offer.
*
“Wow… if she had continued with ballet, she would have been something, don’t you think?”
“It’s really a waste. Class really is everlasting, The Artistic Director sighed when she retired, saying one of his joys was gone.”
“That’s right. She was good at acting, and now that she has entered the film industry, isn’t she going to make it big as an actress?”
After Seryeon’s performance, there was one more cut they filmed with the ballet stand-ins for composite shots.
After shooting the tight shots that walked through the corps de ballet and capturing the scenes behind the stage before the performance, all scenes of the Aurora Ballet Company had ended.
The ballerinas, riding the charter bus back, chattered away.
Meanwhile, Dohee struggled with the resurfacing sense of defeat.
There were many ballerinas who were better than she was.
However, they weren’t directly compared if they weren’t the same age as her or if they weren’t her peers.
She could also comfort herself with the thought that she was at least better at something than Seryeon, so she could bear it.
But Yoon Seryeon was ‘that’ opponent who, unlike others, directly stimulated her sense of inferiority.
It was fortunate that ‘it was’… she had thought.
How would she live after leaving ballet?
Dohee often imagined her current status, like a person devouring gossip.
But she couldn’t have imagined that Seryeon would be doing so well.
She had the title of an actress, was doted on by directors and staff, and even added depth to her ballet performance.
Dohee wished she could dismiss it as just mediocre, but her keen eyes wouldn’t let her.
“Dohee, is something bothering you?”
“Can’t you see that I’m thinking? Don’t talk to me—”
After snapping at the always docile Youngha, Dohee felt somewhat better.
However…
“Park Dohee, why do you always talk to Youngha like that? I’ve been watching you for a while now. Isn’t your attitude quite disgusting?”
The speaker was a senior soloist, who was known as a witch who’d notoriously grill anyone she set her sights on.
Dohee was in trouble.
*
“Sung-jin hyung—“
“Ah? Is this your team?”
“Yes. I was going to greet you after the shoot was done.”
“You should’ve come before it started, brat.”
“I suppose… haha.”
During the last shoot at Hyejeondang, the lighting technician who came to help happened to be Sung-jin. Yoomyeong greeted him warmly and Sung-jin made a joke.
“Ugh… you’re already using up lots of electricity in Hyejeondang?”
“Ah? Seems like it. But it’s neither Sujeondang nor a performance, so it’s invalid!”
“Hehe. But why are you filming in this direction?”
“Um… because it’s about a ghost living in the theater?”
They needed insert shots of the Phantom lurking half-concealed in the corners of the audience, the ceiling, and various balcony spots.
With Sung-jin’s help, the filming ended smoothly.
“Okay, let’s shoot one more and wrap up.”
The last scene in Hyejeondang was the ‘accident’ scene.
The accident.
Hwaran, whose eyes were blinded by jealousy and anxiety after seeing another ballerina receive lessons from Phantom, found a spot backstage where someone could trip and sent her on an errand.
“Moon Yeonjeong, can you get my hairband?”
“Huh? Where is that…?”
“Check around the light winch behind the stage. I think I left it there earlier.”
“Yes, senior.”
The ‘Prima’ ballerina’s voice, confirming the gap between herself and her subordinate, was thoroughly condescending.
Obeying her order, Yeonjeong scurried toward the backstage.
In front of the winch was a rotten wooden board.
A single sheet of white paper was enough to hide its danger.
As Yeonjeong stepped on the paper to pick up the hairband from the shelf in front of the winch…
Crack—
The moment her foot touched the paper, the rotten wooden board broke.
“Aaaahhh—!”
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