#the nutracker

[palatablepain]

Merry Christmas and happy holidays, my tumblr friends! I have the flu and am in bed: it's so good to have YOU. (Adrienne Segur, illustration for The Nutcracker)

[miss-mollys-ballet-blog]

Tchaikovsky had a nasty habit of composing music that is so impactful and stunning and huge that it’s almost impossible to match the choreography to the same level. The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty pas de deux are the prime examples of this; I mean the swell of the music after the fish dives in Sleeping Beauty? Has anyone ever seen choreography that matches the music??! I certainly have not.

[cutecassette]

[soft-for-xie-lian]

JUST. LOOK! AAAAAA

[thirtysixsavefiles]

It’s come to my attention that perhaps the beloved ballet The Nutcracker was not meant to be a traumatic childhood rite of passage; until recently I had assumed you always left the ballet enchanted but also slightly terrified. That’s just how it was.

But it turns out that Maurice Sendak designed the set that I saw for several years running at a formative age, so it turns out that if you didn’t attend the Pacific Northwest Ballet between 1983 and 2014, this was not a normal part of your experience:

(Photo from The Stranger)

Those teeth split apart, by the way, and came crashing down at intermission. Like a nutcracker. Get it? Also like the nightmares of small children.

Honestly the Sendak/Stowell production is the only stage production of The Nutcracker I’ve ever seen, so I have no idea what parts of the set/choreography are traditional and what are part of a sideways imagination. For example:

(Photo from Michael Hagen)

This is from one one of the scene painters and it’s hard to tell in a still frame, but the Rat King comes out from the side of the stage as the Christmas Tree grows and grows in the background until it eclipses the whole stage. (See the dancers at the bottom for scale.) Oh, and did you notice Herr Drosselmeyer at the top? He’s watching the whole scene, the wings of his greatcoat bracketing the stage. Terrifying.

Sendak also did a book of illustrations because why not bring the nightmares home with you:

(Photo from Dancing Perfectly Free)

For contrast, apparently this is how the Oregon Ballet Theater styled their Ballachine production Rat King in 2009:

(Photo from The Oregonian)

Get on Sendak’s level, Oregon.

In conclusion, apparently The Nutcracker is meant to be sweet and fun, but honestly I’m glad to have seen the Sendak/Stowell production, nightmares and all.

(Photo from Booksridge.blogspot.com)

Thanks Maurice. Here’s hoping for a reunion tour.

[cupidford]

Johnlock Love Letters

(AKA - JL3 Declarations of Love from fan fiction) #1046

The Nutcracker by Odamaki

[miss-mollys-ballet-blog]

Favorite Dancer: Vadream Vadim Muntagirov

Click the gif for the ballet

[dontforgeturworthless-blog]

she was so delicate and graceful. i wanted to be her when i took ballet.