Judith Mackrell, dance critic of the The Independent, introduces a new season of major dance works. To begin, the Cullberg Ballet present a striking reworking of a classic.

Instead of a Rhineland village, a landscape of hills in the shape of women's breasts; instead of dead spirits in a woodland glade, the inmates of a lunatic asylum...

Swedish choreographer Mats Ek has taken the familiar Adolphe Adam music of the famous 19th-century ballet, Giselle, and given the story a harshly modern relevance. In this version, Giselle is confined to an asylum, when she discovers the stranger courting her is engaged to a woman from his own class.

This programme won two awards in last year's first International Video Dance Grand Prix for best choreography and best performance of the title role by Ana Laguna.