SUHANA GORDHAN: Advertising for Joburg Ballet that is en pointe
The process of #BiteSizeBallet is as agile and swift as a pas de chat
If you think going to the ballet is all tutus and taffeta, nutcrackers and dying swans; if you feel you will die from an overstretched yawn, then #BiteSizeBallet is waiting for you.
#BiteSizeBallet is a refreshing new piece of work from advertising agency, TBWA, to promote Joburg Ballet. It’s good old advertising because in its basic form, #BiteSizeBallet is product demonstration, but it also leaps over the barriers of traditional advertising as work that is content, entertainment, art, film and social commentary all at once.
#BiteSizeBallet recently launched its first episode in what plans to be a "series of little ballets inspired by today’s big stories", as the Instagram account explains. The first episode was set atop a building in Joburg’s inner city and gives a recap of popular series Game of Thrones through choreography. The launch coincided with the much-anticipated start of the show’s seventh season.In the ballet film, we see flashes of the infamous Red Wedding, glimpses of key characters from House Stark, Targaryen and Lannister, characters killed off just as we begin to love them, and the treacherous battle for the Iron Throne — giving us all gigantic reminders of why we are so obsessed with GOT. This is the kind of advertising that leaves me a little breathless — not because I’ve attempted a million jetés across a stage but because it’s not the pleading kind of work usually created for the starving art world. It doesn’t dress itself up like charity or manipulate me into donating by making me ...
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