Free Web NovelThe first scene being filmed was the corps de ballet of Act 1.
Village maidens formed a semicircle, 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 in which the dancer stands on one leg while raising the other at a right angle).
True to the reputation of the renowned Aurora Ballet Company, the height and line of their legs matched perfectly, without an inch of discrepancy.
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 wide behind her.
She moved through a greeting gesture, making eye contact with each surrounding dancer. Then she performed an energetic pas de chat (a jump where the dancer leaps sideways while bringing both knees up), holding the ends of the tutu that fell to her knees in both hands.
How cute—
Act 1’s Giselle was a young woman in love.
Her pure and lively image was so heartwarming that smiles naturally spread across people’s faces.
Then Albrecht appeared, and they danced a three-beat waltz.
Dum— Dum— Dum—
Whether she entrusted her body to Albrecht’s hands and arched back at the waist,
Or sat beside him, miming the act of plucking flower petals together,
Giselle’s dance was pure, her gaze filled with affection for her lover.
‘Didn’t she... retire 2 years ago?’
‘She just can’t go en pointe, but the angles of her movements are all alive, and the lines of her arabesques, and the height of her jetés...!’
The Aurora members sharing the stage with her gasped after witnessing her refined performance.
Seryeon was not wearing toe shoes padded at the tips to support dancing en pointe.
What she wore instead were flat practice shoes.
In positions that required going en pointe, she substituted by pressing her toes firmly against the floor for support.
‘Can that even be called classical ballet?’
Some people, like Park Dohee, might have thought so.
However, even they could not deny that this was not the dance of someone who had taken a two-year break.
“Cut— Okay!”
“Thank you for your hard work.”
After the first shoot ended, the ballerinas crowded around Seryeon.
They praised her with comments like ‘Amazing,’ ‘Have you been practicing all this time?’ and ‘It’s such a waste.’
As Seryeon smiled in response, she also carefully preserved her emotions, making sure her immersion as Giselle did not fade.
This was not merely a performance, but acting.
She had learned from someone that even after a cut, maintaining tension and being able to connect seamlessly into the next scene was what made someone an ‘actor.’
“Scene 115, shooting cut 3!”
This was a shoot, so they were not performing the entire act.
What they were filming now were the highlights of the performance.
In the next scene, Giselle had to go mad.
The music began to flow. It was the final piece 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 noblewoman.
At a village festival attended by his fiancée.
Seeing Albrecht with his fiancée, Giselle, who had always been weak-hearted, lost her mind.
In the final part of Act 1, Giselle lets down her hair and dances.
Contrary to the elegant and beautiful ballet one might expect, she swung the sword threateningly as she spun, madness written across her face.
Ahahahahaha—
Her expression was eerie.
With a face that looked on the verge of bursting into wild laughter, she mimed plucking and scattering flower petals one by one.
It was mocking, as though ridiculing the moments in the past when they had plucked petals together to determine the fate of their love.
Her eyes were completely unfocused.
Her smooth, flowing movements stopped abruptly, then resumed again in a rhythmless manner, like that of an unpredictable madwoman.
This was the act of Giselle, driven mad by Albrecht,
An act of Hwaran, driven mad over the Phantom,
And Seryeon’s performance of her own madness for ballet and acting.
She took a step back, glaring at Albrecht with resentment in her eyes.
Then she fiercely grabbed and tore at her disheveled hair.
Sprinting forward with her arms spread wide and her eyes fixed on the void, Giselle collapsed to the floor after the final lift in Albrecht’s arms (where the male dancer lifts the female dancer).
Death.
It was the end of Giselle, who died madly in love.
“...Cut.”
Ki Do-han’s signal to cut came after a slight pause.
They had watched her act for over two months, but this was the first time they had seen such an immersive performance.
Slowly rising from the floor, she brushed back her disheveled hair with her fingers.
Then a burst of applause and cheers erupted.
“What happened—”
“You’ve improved! I almost forgot the next move and nearly cried...!”
Her colleagues shouted while holding back tears.
Technically, she might not have been as skilled as she was in her prime, but when it came to touching the audience’s hearts through her ‘acting,’ she had grown deeper and become capable of moving people emotionally.
Perhaps it was because she had experienced the pain of loss.
Her ‘acting teacher’ and ‘partner,’ watching the flood of congratulations from afar, was left breathless by her performance as well.
‘She’s really... incredible.’
Although Seryeon was not yet skilled at realistic acting, her ‘ballet acting’ was a different matter entirely.
When ‘emotional depth’ and ‘acting ability’ were added to the ‘ballet’ she had originally excelled at, the result was a stunning stage. It felt as though they were watching a deeply immersive film centered around the character Giselle.
Watching his partner, Yoomyeong felt a poignant ache stir in his chest.
That must be what people called ‘talent.’ freēwēbnovel.com
A beautiful person whose innate talent had been supported by relentless hard work.
Even though she had possessed so much, there had only ever been one thing she truly wanted, and even after losing it, she faced it again with astonishing courage.
Yoomyeong had known for some time now that she had begun a ‘different kind of practice.’
On days when he arrived early at the practice room, she would already be there, repeating tedious and painful rehabilitation exercises.
Pretending not to notice, Yoomyeong would leave and re-enter at the appointed time. By then, she would have discreetly wiped away her sweat and begun practicing 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, still remained.
Swish—
The costume for Act 2 was a romantic tutu.
Rather than the classic tutu commonly imagined as spreading out like butterfly wings, the romantic tutu fluttered like an overturned tulip. Wearing that costume, the [N O V E L I G H T] ballerina moved in straight lines, drifting and wandering like a ghost.
Under the deep blue lighting symbolizing the night,
Amid the sparsely scattered trees, the white figures moved as though gliding across the ground.
They were the vengeful spirits of young women who had died without fulfilling their love, the ‘Wilis.’
Albrecht entered amid the dance of the Wilis. He, the man responsible for Giselle’s death, entered the forest at night to place flowers of repentance upon her grave.
The Wilis cursed him with a spell that would force him to dance until dawn, until he died of exhaustion.
And before the cursed Albrecht, still dancing, Giselle appeared.
With a white veil draped over her head, glowing with a bluish light...
Swish—
Rather than the sharp staccato tapping of pointe shoes, the sound that emerged was that of fabric brushing softly against the floor. Seryeon could not perform the flowing Wili steps that seemed to glide off the floor with pointe shoes, but...
Her fingertips drooped like willow branches.
It was a distinctive expressive method unique to Giselle in Act 2, different from other classical ballets. In port de bras, the fingertips did not point toward the sky but always drooped downward. And even at the end of a movement, she never paused completely, instead transitioning smoothly like flowing water.
Those soft, falling movements expressed Giselle’s sorrow.
Haah—
It was her soul.
She seemed to drift, swaying faintly within the current of the air.
Somewhere, a cold wind blew.
Yoomyeong wrapped his arms around himself as he felt her acting draw all vitality inward, deeper and deeper.
‘To that extent...’
Unlike Yoomyeong, Director Ki had not demanded much from Seryeon for the second act of Giselle.
Even though Hwaran was a prima donna (a female dancer who plays the leading role in a ballet), she was still human. It was not necessary for her to perform with the same desolation as the Phantom.
And yet, she pulled it off remarkably well.
Though it might not have been as overwhelming as Yoomyeong’s, she had significantly drained the liveliness from Giselle in the second act.
As a result, whenever the camera lingered on her, she appeared more wistful and mournful than any other Wili around her.
Then, Giselle discovered Albrecht.
Even though he was the man who had betrayed her, he was still the man she loved, even in death.
To save him, Giselle danced with Albrecht.
She encouraged him as exhaustion overtook him.
Finally, as dawn broke, Giselle, who looked more like a spirit than a human being, faded back into the grave.
Albrecht, writhing in regret, scattered flowers over Giselle’s grave, bringing Giselle’s finale to an end...
“Cut—t! Seryeon, you were fantastic!”
Director Ki praised her loudly.
Applause—
Yoomyeong, too, expressed his respect and admiration for his partner with the loudest applause he could give.
“It’s such a waste. Class really does last forever. The Artistic Director sighed when she retired, saying one of his joys was gone.” frёewebηovel.cѳm
“That’s right. She was already good at acting, and now that she’s entered the film industry, isn’t she going to become a huge actress?”
After Seryeon’s performance, they filmed one more cut using ballet stand-ins for the composite shots.
After shooting the tight shots moving through the corps de ballet and filming the scenes backstage before the performance, all scenes involving the Aurora Ballet Company came to an end.
The ballerinas chatted endlessly as they rode the charter bus back.
Meanwhile, Dohee struggled with the resurfacing feeling of defeat.
There were many ballerinas better than she was.
However, if they were not her peers or were not around the same age, they were never directly compared to her.
She had also been able to comfort herself with the thought that she was at least better than Seryeon at something.
But Yoon Seryeon was ‘that’ kind of opponent, the kind who directly provoked her inferiority complex unlike anyone else.
She had thought it was fortunate that ‘it was over.’
How would she live after leaving ballet?
Dohee had often imagined Seryeon’s current life the way people greedily consumed gossip.
But she had never imagined that Seryeon would be doing this well.
She had the title of actress, was adored by directors and staff, and had even added greater depth to her ballet performances.
Dohee wanted to dismiss it all as mediocre, but her trained eyes would not allow it.
“Dohee, is something bothering you?”
“Can’t you tell I’m thinking? Stop talking to me—”
After snapping at the ever-docile Youngha, Dohee felt slightly better.
However...
“Park Dohee, why do you always talk to Youngha like that? I’ve been watching you for a while now. Don’t you think your attitude is pretty disgusting?”
The speaker was a senior soloist known as a witch who mercilessly grilled anyone she set her sights on.
Dohee was in trouble.
“Ah? Is this your team?”
“Yes. I was going to greet you after the shoot ended.”
“You should’ve come before it started, brat.”
“I suppose... haha.”
During the final shoot at Hyejeondang, the lighting technician who came to help happened to be Sungjin. Yoomyeong greeted him warmly, and Sungjin responded with a joke.
“Ugh... you’re already using this much electricity at Hyejeondang?”
“Ah? Looks like it. But since it’s neither Sujeondang nor a performance, it doesn’t count!”
“Hehe. But why are you filming from this direction?”
“Um... because it’s about a ghost living in the theater?”
They needed insert shots of the Phantom lurking half-hidden in the corners of the audience seats, the ceiling, and various balcony areas.
With Sungjin’s help, the filming wrapped up smoothly.
“Okay, let’s shoot one more and wrap for the day.”
The final scene at Hyejeondang was the ‘accident’ scene.
The accident.
Hwaran, whose eyes had been blinded by jealousy and anxiety after seeing another ballerina receive lessons from the Phantom, found a spot backstage where someone could easily trip and sent her on an errand.
“Moon Yeonjeong, can you get my hairband?”
“Huh? Where is it...?”
“Check around the lighting winch backstage. I think I left it there earlier.”
“Yes, senior.”
The voice of the ‘prima’ ballerina, emphasizing the distance between herself and her subordinate, was thoroughly condescending.
Obeying the order, Yeonjeong hurried backstage.
In front of the winch was a rotten wooden board.
A single sheet of white paper was enough to conceal the danger beneath it.
As Yeonjeong stepped onto the paper to retrieve the hairband from the shelf in front of the winch...
Crack—
The moment her foot touched the paper, the rotten board gave way.
“Aaaahhh—!”
