nutcracker ballet

by Emily Kate Long

dancer doing arabesque — Emily Kate Long, Photo by Avory Pierce

January brings the end of a four-week layoff and the start of new rehearsals and a new school semester. In other words, chaos to boredom and back again! It was a busy fall, and will be a busy spring, so I really welcomed the opportunity to take a few steps back from the studio to re-focus, reflect, and plan over my time off. Refreshed and inspired, I feel excited to tackle any challenges ahead.

Holiday travel and a Nutcracker guesting meant a considerable amount of time in the car. My ever-reliable Toyota (his name is Franklin Thomas Camry) and I covered nearly two thousand miles in two weeks. Admittedly, driving is one of my least favorite activities, but it gave me the chance to sit back and listen, really listen, to a lot of great classical music, as well as some really interesting podcasts I hadn’t previously been able to find time for. One of my favorites is called the “Piano Puzzler,” produced by American Public Media (Get it here: http://performancetoday.publicradio.org/podcast/piano_puzzler/). In it, a well-known tune is disguised within a piece of classical music (for example, the “Toreador Song” from Carmen hidden inside one of Eric Satie’s Gymnopedies), and a caller has to guess both the tune and composer. It’s a cool way for me to learn, bit by bit, what some hallmarks of various composers’ styles are, and a little music history, too. Some compositions end up funny, some poignant, and some end up as both once composer and tune have been identified.

I’ve also been reading a book of choreographic analysis, Frederick Ashton’s Ballets: Style, Performance, and Choreography (http://www.amazon.com/Frederick-Ashtons-Ballets-Performance-Choreography/dp/1852731591). As the “Piano Puzzler” is a lighthearted exploration of musical composition, this book is a serious look at dance composition and an investigation of what can be considered stylistic hallmarks. Ashton frequently quoted well-known works (including, sometimes, his own) for serious and humorous effect. Both podcast and book suggest to me that a big part of the creative process involves the use of irony and unexpected comparisons.

In the spirit of comparison, I got to watch and study several new dance DVDs (look for reviews of them soon here on 4dancers). Generally when, I have time to watch each video only once, gather just a little background information, and a week or more passes before I watch the next one. Time off meant I could let my brain gobble up each of these gems as many times as I wanted, research them, and think about them in relationship and contrast to one another. What fun!

I took the theme of comparison and analysis into the studio with me, too. Making my own schedule has meant I can spend as much time as I need planning classes for the second semester and, most importantly, actually being able to do them before I give them. That’s given me a chance to examine the layers of complexity (in some ways, layers of irony) I can eventually add as my students advance, the many ways this new material relates to what the class already knows, and the various ways to communicate those relationships.

I’ll close this post with New Year’s wishes to you, readers. May 2013 bring you new discoveries and inspiration!

Assistant Editor Emily Kate Long began her dance education in South Bend, Indiana, with Kimmary Williams and Jacob Rice, and graduated in 2007 from Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School’s Schenley Program. She has spent summers studying at Ballet Chicago, Pittsburgh Youth Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School, Miami City Ballet, and Saratoga Summer Dance Intensive/Vail Valley Dance Intensive, where she served as Program Assistant. Ms Long attended Milwaukee Ballet School’s Summer Intensive on scholarship before being invited to join Milwaukee Ballet II in 2007.

Ms Long has been a member of Ballet Quad Cities since 2009. She has danced featured roles in Deanna Carter’s Ash to Glass and Dracula, participated in the company’s 2010 tour to New York City, and most recently performed principal roles in Courtney Lyon’s Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, and Cinderella. She is also on the faculty of Ballet Quad Cities School of Dance, where she teaches ballet, pointe, and repertoire classes.

by Risa Gary Kaplowitz

A few days ago, I asked my students at the first ballet class ever held at The College of New Jersey if any of them had ever seen a ballet before. A few of the females raised their hands. “Which one?” I asked. Three of them said almost in unison, “The Nutcracker.” Then one rolled her eyes and added, “of course.”

I had expected that answer. What other performing arts field has a website devoted entirely to one theatrical story such as the one titled, “Nutcracker Ballet”? The site’s 2011 listing for New Jersey shows at least forty-two productions of Nutcracker. And that doesn’t include productions in the Philadelphia area or in New York City, which are close enough for us Jersyians to easily attend.

The start of the Nut season (as it’s affectionately or not so affectionately called by the dancers who must perform it morning, noon, and night for days on end) is officially upon us. My inbox is filled with “Get Your Nutcracker Seats Now!” pleas, audition announcements, and unsolicited queries from unemployed professional ballet dancers looking to perform in a Nutcracker.

The deluge prompts me to ask a question. With American ballet company directors and boards lamenting the low status of ballet in the minds of the general public, I wonder what would happen if our ballet companies offered more options during the holiday season—the one time of year when both balletomanes and new patrons spend money to see shows. How on earth did we get ourselves trapped in a can of Nuts?

Nutcracker was first performed in Russia in 1892. Based on E. T. A. Hoffmann’s, The Nutcracker and The Mouse King, its premier was not a success. But by the second half of the twentieth century, The Nutcracker had spread from two successful American productions: Willam Christensen’s 1944 production for San Francisco Ballet and George Balanchine’s for New York City Ballet in 1954. Considered the bread and butter of nearly every ballet company, Clara’s journey to the Land of the Sweets brings in the funds to keep ballet companies and their more obscure offerings afloat.

But like real bread and butter, the ballet—of which there are hundreds of versions— is easy to digest but usually offers little substance. Indeed, most audience members leave a Nut performance satiated with enough sugary dancing to last a whole year before needing to see another ballet performance, which is usually The Nutcracker again.

Yet, there have been some interesting versions of late, which may entice their viewers to return to the theater for more ballet sooner rather than later. Septime Weber’s version for The Washington Ballet casts George Washington as the Nutcracker. Those lucky enough to have made it through snow storms to the Brooklyn Academy of Music may have seen Alexei Ratmansky’s magical version for American Ballet Theatre or Mark Morris’ telling of a different part of the original story, The Hard Nut:

[Read more…]

Finding Balance: Dance–Comparison And Analysis

Yes, Virginia, There Is A Holiday Ballet Besides The Nutcracker

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