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Arts feature

How claims of cultural appropriation scuppered an acclaimed new ballet

7 September 2024

9:00 AM

7 September 2024

9:00 AM

On 14 March 2020 I was at Leeds Grand Theatre for the première of Northern Ballet’s Geisha. The curtains swung open on fishermen flinging out their nets, geisha, samurai, 19th-century Japanese village folk, followed by the sudden appearance of American sailors. It was in essence a Japanese Giselle: the tale of a geisha, spurned by her American lover, who dies of grief, and whose restless spirit returns from the grave.

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