The title of Thierry Malandain's ballet copies exactly the one of a ballet created by the Russian choreographer Mikhail Folkine in 1907, and which was renamed two years later The Sylphs. Fokine found his inspiration in an even older ballet, the Sylph of Philippe Taglioni, where, in 1832 and for the first time in dance's history, the heroin danced wearing a long tutu and on the tip of her ballet shoes in order to appear even lighter.

For Thierry Malandain, these pieces from the past are still topical. And young romantic people from the 19th century, who drag their melancholy and sadness under the moonlight, waiting for love, look like those of our modern world.

He thus kept the same argument than the one Fotkine used: a poet, hit by unhappiness and looking for an ideal, falls for the charms of a syph, one of those gracious and fairy-like young girls who float in the air, based on Celtic and Germanic legends. He also kept the same music sheet, a series of musical pieces written by Frederic Chopin in the 19th century.

Nevertheless, ironically, he changed a few details: for example, he dressed boys and girls the same way, first in black suits, then in white tutus with small wings in the back. He puts them on the same level, whereas at the time where the Sylphs was created, male dancers were less numerous and less regarded than women. He also adds a second male soloist to the story, who portrays the hero’s dance master. Finally, he switches from straight arabesque legs to classical dance's diagonals, with unusual contemporary movements, like bottoms or legs up in the air! And yet, as in Folkine's ballet, the hero wearing a prince's suit ends up dancing a big waltz with his sylph flitting on her pointes.

But the moonlight fades away like a deflating balloon and the Sylph disappears too, leaving the poet alone and desperate. Today, just like yesterday, happiness remains an unreachable dream...