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David H, thanks for starting this thread. I’m interested in it because it takes up a question I get every year. Though I can understand that sitting through anything for the nth time can make the whole thing pall a bit, I’d like to make a “pro” “Nutcracker” case starting with Basheva’s observation about “Giselle”:<P>“"Ah, Giselle", is not so much a lament for Giselle, as a lament for those of us who berate it. The pseudo sophisticate who decries the music, the story, the theme....and yet, turns up time and again to witness its power. Lamented or praised one cannot deny its power, it has lasted beyond its original time and place.”<P>First, let’s not kid ourselves. Nobody goes to see “Nutcracker” because of the story. Though the ballet is not bare of narrative interest—which I will touch on in a sec—the raison d’etre of “Nutcracker” is really in its formal features—in other words, “Nutcracker” is a fine platform for dance. For a small company or ballet academy, “Nutcracker” is an excellent showcase for its students enabling them to look good while getting some valuable performing experience. For a big company, the word you want is “star vehicle.” This is no mistake because among the many qualities that ballets excels, the lightness and charm, the surface of sheer beauty is clearest in the dance of the Snowflakes, the Waltz of the Flowers, and the bravura of the Sugarplum Fairy’s pas de deux. Another quality that balletic technique is particularly good at is pure glamour—this is the Sugarplum Fairy’s forte. When she gets out there with her bright tutu, gems sparkling on her tunic and tiara and moves with almost superhuman command and precision, the audience can’t not watch her—I’m talking Tina Leblanc, YY Tan, Lorena Feijoo, Wendy Whelan, and other spectacular ballerinas I have seen.<P>Kurt Weill, I think, said about Shakespeare what it also true about “Nutcracker,” which is that its iconic stature makes it an ideal hostage to ideology. Robert Joffrey, for example, conceived of an “American Nutcracker” expressed in allusions to the vintage Americana of Currier and Ives. Baryshnikov choreographed his “Nutcracker” with a more psychological angle. I’ll quote Balanchine quoting Alan M. Kriegsman: “while a child’s Christmas dream is the basis for this version of the ballet, here “the child is older—a girl on the verge of adolescence—and the dream branches out to become, not just wish-fulfillment of a candy kingdom, but an envisagement of mature love, incarnate in the Nutcracker Prince."” The Pacific Northwest Ballet’s version also uses the psychological angle showing a sort of struggle for sexual dominance between the Nutcracker Prince and the Pasha (the character roughly corresponding to Drosselmey). I haven’t seen this version (yet), but I like the video—Patricia Barker as the Clara ready for love looks stunning.<P>No doubt there are dance history and theory graduate students writing theses on these very subjects in vastly more detail and depth, but nothing prevents me taking a stab at formalist analysis, too. In fact, I’d suggest that it is the ballet’s formal features that account for its popularity: there is something there for everybody. “Nutcracker’s” choreography touches upon so much that is essential to the way audiences respond to and enjoy dance. For example, Act I, scene I (the Stahlbaum’s party) gives an important message about dance’s social dimension. People dancing together represents order and social stability. The children dance—oftentimes Marie and her friends with their dolls, but mischievous boys intrude; but, they are chased away by the adults and dance and order is reinstated. Then, the adults dance together in a self important, but enjoyable manner, indicating that for adults, too, dance restates the ideal of social stability and harmony. Their steps are not ballet, but are taken from the social dance idiom—that of the courante, the galliard, etc; and, this is appropriate because this choreography is about dance ordering society. <P>The second “message” of this Act I, scene I is about how dance has the potential to remake things, to give life anew. This comes from the dance of Drosselmeyer’s “toys”—usually a Columbine and a Pierrot/soldier doll. Yet, just as dance changes dolls of paint and wood into magical creatures, similarly does balletic technique change young boys and girls into performers worth watching. Moreover, this transformation, balletic alchemy, is not done in steps from social dance, but with technique with an eyes towards the purity of the dans d’Ecole. Again, “Nutcracker” shows us why ballet is important. <P>Since I got interested in dance a few years back, I have seen many productions both big and small and every season I look forward to more. Naturally, a big company bursting to the seams with talented and ambitious dancers, like San Francisco Ballet and New York City Ballet, is going to put on a spectacular production that leaves one breathless. But, even small semi-professional productions are a pleasure to watch. Yes, there’s very little that compares to seeing a well rehearsed, highly professional corps dancing the Snowflakes or Flowers—their technique is very pure and light, their lines and forms are beautiful like fine paintings. But even if lacking quite the uniformity of technique and line compared to a big company, the girls from an upper division of a local school still look pretty good. Perhaps there might be only two Marzipans compared to New York City Ballet’s five (I think) and perhaps they don’t move with the gazelle-like speed and doe-like lightness of New York City Ballet’s dancers, but they do dance with the lightness and charm that is intrinsic to the steps and that repeats in no small way ballet’s magic.<P>I certainly hope that "Nutcracker" revenues aren't going to be down so much. The times became unpredictable in September, but it is precisely those times you need the kind of reassurance that comes the ritual and repetition of art.
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