Unexpected Creatures: Procreative Liberty and the Frankenstein Ballet

• Published in: The Hastings Center report 2018-11, Vol.48 (6), p.18-20
• Main Author: GARLAND-THOMSON, ROSEMARIE
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Ballet
• ISSN: 0093-0334; 1552-146X
• DOI: 10.1002/hast.932

One of the most recent and original adaptations of Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) is the ballet version choreographed by Liam Scarlett and performed by the Royal Ballet in 2016 and the San Francisco Ballet in 2017 and 2018. What emerges from this translation is an economical, emotionally wrenching, and visually elegant drama of family tragedy from which we can draw a cautionary tale about contemporary bioethical dilemmas in family making that new and forthcoming biomedical technologies present. This performance of bodies interacting suggests the need for an ethics of acceptance and recognition as people navigate complex familial relationships involving procreative liberty, questions of moral personhood, and parental obligation. In the Frankenstein ballet, the narrative genre of dance—what I'll call “story in the flesh”—invites viewers to identify with the characters and enter into the complexity of interpersonal relations. The ballet becomes a compelling testimony about possible unintended outcomes set in motion by well‐intended fallible humans like themselves.