The Tale of the Nutcracker

Just a touch of imagination can bring a story (and a prince) to life. 

[thecoldpenguin]

The Nutcracker: Conclusion

The goal of my adventure through the Nutcracker was to learn more about the story, its background, and why it became important to American culture. Through this project, I hoped to gain and share a deeper understanding of the story I grew up with, so that we can have greater insight the next time we see a nutcracker or hear the chimes of the Sugar Plum Fairy music. I wondered if there was something deeper in the fanciful fantasy of the Nutcracker story-- why would it become an icon of Christmas time around the world? The meaning behind, and evolution of, the Nutcracker brought together our class discussions of author and adaptation, of the unique features that accompany shifts between media, of the importance of both audience and author in establishing purpose, and of setting and space. The Nutcracker is a fairytale, meant by its original author Hoffman to be a macabre anti-fairytale that commented on tradition, but that nonetheless emphasizes the mystical and fantastic in all of its numerous adaptations.

I focused on Hoffman's original book "Nutcracker and Mouse King" and on the Nutcracker ballet, and their contrasts in storytelling methods. I briefly forayed into Dumas's book adaptation and the new Disney movie, "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms". However, Dumas' plot was very similar to Hoffman's, and the Disney movie was wildly different from the original and ballet plots. Being interested mainly in the ballet, and having enjoyed reading Hoffman's original tale, I contained my project to discussing the subtle differences and more large scale changes between these two forms, and the background and origin of the ballet story I knew.

In these respects I answered many of the questions I had when I started. Because I was interested in the change, evolution, and adaptation of the Nutcracker story, I focused on the story's history and origin, and on comparisons between written and dance media. My project answered how the medium of ballet adapted the Nutcracker story uniquely to enable ease of storytelling. I explored how the Nutcracker developed into a Christmas tradition— through a fortuitous combination of Tchaikovsky's timeless music, extravagant and popular Balanchine choreography and production, an abundance of children's dance roles, and an enthralling sense of exoticism, wonder, and magic. It was interesting to trace various adaptations of the story through history and across place, and consider the unique contemporary adaptations of the ballet in different contexts such as Hawaiian, South African, and Durham-ian.

Continuing this project, I would have liked to discuss in more depth these recent adaptations of the Nutcracker ballet, and how they engage with the audience and wider community discourse. For example, the Walltown Durham's unique Nutcracker is helping to promote diversity and discussions of equity and inclusion, which is something most traditional productions do not aim to target. While I mentioned throughout my project the Nutcracker's exploration of different realities, I would cover in greater detail the stories' plays with point of view, and how this translates to the ballet stage. I was surprised by the layered story-within-the-story in Hoffman's tale, another example of layered realities. Called the "Tale of the Hard Nut," this embedded tale served as an indirect background story for the Nutcracker. Because this satirical, absurd anti-fairytale was entirely left out of the ballet, I did not focus on it, but it would have been interesting to pick apart.

[thecoldpenguin]

Space in the Nutcracker

The setting, place, and space of the Nutcracker make up an important dimension of the story's construction. Hoffman set the scene in his tale with descriptive phrases. Setting the scene in ballet involves getting just the right music and choreography. For example in the snow scene, the lighting is muted and bluish, artificial snow flurries from above, Tchaikovsky's music swirls, and human snowflakes float across the stage. 

The use of space is therefore important in ballet storytelling. Ballets must travel through imaginary space, with only one stage to travel across. Marie and her Nutcracker prince board a physical chariot to in most ballet productions, which is conveys travel through space more easily than the book's plot that takes Marie through a magic wardrobe (yes, like in Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe) to the Land of Sweets. Stepping through the dark interior of a wardrobe, however, better expresses the idea that even objects of everyday life can be a gateway to another world, with a little smidgen of imagination.

In contrast to Hoffman's written tale, ballet requires visual representation of scene shifts. The snow scene occurs in between and connects Marie's experiences in her home on Christmas Eve with her experiences in the Land of the Sweets with the Nutcracker Prince. This scene accompanies Marie and Prince's journey (via chariot) to the Land of Sweets. The snow scene serves to represent the both the great distance they travelled and travel into a different dimension. Snow is the perfect "in-between"—it turns our "real" world into a magical and other-worldly winter wonderland.

[thecoldpenguin]

From book to ballet

The Nutcracker story transformed when it moved from book to ballet. Due to the unique constraints of the dance medium, extensive liberties were taken from the original written tale, mostly to simplify and facilitate understanding.

For starters, Hoffman's original developed the Marie's character over several weeks of nightmarish dreams and experience of extensive patronization during the daytime in between each night. Dumas's adaptation shortened the night by night ordeal slightly. The timeline of the Nutcracker ballet takes places all in a single night, which helps to reduce timeline confusion and streamline the story for the ballet's two short "chapters" (Acts I and II), but it also loses Hoffman's intended character development.

In performance, the audience has greater agency to make judgments on characters and to fill in the characters' thought processes on their own. The audience gets to create their own descriptions of the character's personality and mind, based on what they see on stage, because it is no longer explicitly given by the author. For some, this element offers the freedom to make the story their own, and for others, it only introduces great uncertainty.

In Hoffman's tale, the Nutcracker is only turned into a prince when Marie tells him that she will love him even if he is ugly. However, these events are based solely in spoken words, and ballet must convey the plot through action alone. To make the rationale for the Nutcracker's transformation clearer on stage, the defeat of the Mouse King, an explicitly understandable action, is instead the catalyst for the Nutcracker to become a prince in a dramatic puff of smoke.

This need for large scale movements and actions, able to be seen from the farthest recesses of the theater, is again seen in the difference of how the Nutcracker was broken by Fritz. In the ballet, the Nutcracker is violently hurled across the stage, or dropped, or otherwise mishandled in a game of tug-o-war, which breaks off its jaw. The Nutcracker's injury in the written tale is on a smaller scale: Fritz forces the Nutcracker to break unwieldy nuts, which breaks off a few of the Nutcracker's teeth. I found it fascinating that in the book, the Nutcracker is not meant as a toy for Marie, but rather a tool that actually cracks nuts for the family. As a kid, I'd wondered about this. The ornamental, fragile figurine I saw everywhere seemed hardly capable of, or meant for, cracking nuts. The Nutcracker never saw nuts during the ballet either, so were nutcrackers supposed to live up to their name or not? Plus, I thought, who in their right mind gives a little girl a scary looking nutcracker for Christmas.. It is interesting that the entire nutcracking aspect of the Nutcracker, which is well fleshed out in the written tale and which would've answered some questions, is sacrificed in the ballet version for the sake of more visible action.

To shorten and simplify the tale and make time for more dance, only select scenes were adapted from the book to the ballet. The coherence of the narrative is diminished when certain parts are taken out. For example, why did the Mouse King and the Nutcracker have their ongoing feud? Why was the prince cursed into a Nutcracker's body in the first place? While it is possible to understand ballet stories, as described in a previous post, sometimes not enough of the story is revealed, leaving one feeling like they missed something.

It was exciting to find answers to these questions in Hoffman's book— an extensive section called "The Tale of the Hard Nut". It is a separate short story within the larger story. In a story that already traverses between two worlds, this tale is a third alternate reality that involves jumping back in time, or somehow indicating being outside of the established timeline of the larger story. The section is understandably too complex to be conveyed effectively through ballet. Hoffman used chapter headings and contextualized the story as a fairytale that Drosselmeyer was telling Marie and Fritz, but with none of these literary tools at the ballet dance medium's disposal, the ballet version leaves this entire background story out. 

[bostonballet]

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow~ Merry Christmas Eve everyone! 

[thecoldpenguin]

~snowflakes floating through the air~

[figjamlolita]

[thecoldpenguin]

Named Marie, Maria, Clara, and Masha throughout different productions of the Nutcracker, the coveted role of the main character is often played by a promising and talented young ballerina (around 10-12 years old) of a ballet company’s associated school.

[thecoldpenguin]

Draco and Hermione's First Christmas

Draco: HERMIONE!

Hermione: *comes running wand drawn* What! Are you okay? What's the matter?!

Draco: *frantically searching boxes, pops head up* Hermione! Where are the Nutcrackers? We need the Nutcrackers!

Hermione: Draco what are you on about? We don't have any.

Draco: *holds up book in his hand* We need a Nutcracker! Who else is going to defeat the Mouse King! Quick where do we find a Nutcracker?

Hermione: Draco...did you read The Nutcracker by any chance?

Draco: Yes i just finished it. I told you I would be learning about muggle culture. The book has a Nutcracker, we need a Nutcracker. I will owl father and see if he knows any clockmakers seeing as you don't have one already.

Hermione: Draco sweetheart, put the book down, it's just a story, not based off of anything real.

Draco: What? You mean there are no such things as Nutcrackers? No Mouse King?

Hermione: Well there are Nutcrackers yes, but they are ornamental, and no there is no Mouse King. Children's story.

Draco: We are not telling my father about this.

[darkspellmaster]

Things I noticed in the Nutcracker and the Four Realms that tied into various versions of the Nutcracker story.

1.       The early on nod to decorating the Christmas tree

2.       Swan lake reference in the box that Clara helps fix

3.       The set up in Drosselmeyer’s Christmas party being built like an old-fashioned puppet show for kids. Which connects to one of the events that the kids witness in the story

4.       Coming out of the tree connects to various versions of Clara/Marie going through the Christmas tree

5.       Mouse trapping connected to how the story of the nutcrackers curse happened.

6.       We see a version of Phillip with Fritz and his nutcracker

7.       Fritz wanting to dance is a nod to how some productions make him out to be just lonely rather than mean.

8.       Lady dancing on stage before the gifts were given is a nod to Drosselmeyer bringing the dolls to the party.

9.       Captain Phillip Hoffman –a nod to E.T.A Hoffman the author of the original fairytale

10.   I’m pretty sure that Shivers and Hawthorn’s names are illusions to something, not sure what yet.

11.   Misty Copeland coming out of the box was also an illusion to how in some versions the toys are in boxes and are wind up dolls.

12.   The stage set up maybe based on the Russian ballet version of the show. The only reason I remember this is because PBS had a version of the Moscow Ballet for Christmas airing and the set design was very similar to what was shown on screen when Misty was dancing. This was back in the 1980s and was a recording of a 1970s version of the show.

13.   Fantasia nods with the conductor as a number of Nutcracker arrangements were part of the original.

14.   The song at the end being the one that the parents danced to is a nod to the end dance done by either Clara and the Nutcracker or the Sugarplum and her caviler.

15.   The nutcracker ornament looking like Clara’s father.

16.   Marie’s name in the first place.

17.   Russian doll versions of Mother Ginger’s children

There were more I’m sure but I’d have to go back and see it a second time.

As a note, I really enjoyed this. The sets were beautiful, acting wise it worked really well in conveying a story that is both simple and has a lot of depth and you have to figure little factors out yourself like in most ballets, since they don’t tell you the whole story and you have to critically think about things.

Over all I don’t see why critics are disliking this version. If they want the more traditional retelling then go, see the ballet. But, in truth no one is going to capture it perfectly in any form because not even the ballet version has the story right, since it itself is an adaptation of the original story.

[thecoldpenguin]

The new Disney movie "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" came out in theaters less than a month ago on November 2, and draws inspiration from the beloved holiday Nutcracker classic. As darkspellmaster suggests, the movie includes plentiful allusions to the original Nutcracker story of E. T. A. Hoffman and Marius Petipa. However, even though many of the characters carry familiar names, their roles and the plot of the movie are unrecognizably different. The movie preserves the themes of imagination, childhood, and bravery. Like the original Nutcracker books and ballet, it is a heartwarming story of a young girl finding herself and her confidence through a fantastical journey through parallel worlds and the wide expanse of her imagination. 

As of now, the movie has yet to break even with its production cost of $120 million. Critics have been generally unfavorable, citing its lack of compelling story and lack of incorporation of dance. Even the popular review from Rotten Tomatoes gives a low 32% green splat. Personally, I have not yet watched the movie, but I read the plot summary of the movie to be better informed while writing this post. While intriguing, the movie seems to be too far removed from ballet, my primary interest, so I likely won't be watching the movie in theaters. Perhaps in the future I'll find a moment to see for myself.

[thecoldpenguin]

A Christmas Tradition

Hoffman and Dumas were both popular, well-known authors in their day. Hoffman’s tale of the Nutcracker and Dumas’s adaptation were well accepted then, but as time passed, these texts fell into obscurity. But even as Hoffman’s name has faded into oblivion, his story remains as one of the most iconic pieces of Christmastime popular culture. Most people today know of the Nutcracker as the ballet whose music is heard as ubiquitously as if it is the sound of cold wintry air. How did this extravagant story remain relevant and become the Christmas tradition it is today?

Composer Tchaikovsky and master choreographer Petipa had just successfully completed a ballet adaptation of the Sleeping Beauty when they collaborated again in 1890 on an adaptation of the Nutcracker. Petipa, who enjoyed Dumas’s tale, gave a reluctant Tchaikovsky specific requests for the music to accompany the ballet he imagined. However, Petipa grew ill and his assistant, Lev Ivanov, completed most of the choreography. Unfortunately Ivanov’s choreography, constrained by the framework of what Petipa had started and left unfinished, fell short of the public’s expectations and met mixed reviews when the Nutcracker ballet premiered in St. Petersburg in 1892. The public found the choreography and plot too disjointed and too strange. 

On the other hand, Tchaikovsky’s iconic score was undeniably a success. Tchaikovsky extracted a suite from the full score, known as the nutcracker suite, which was played independently even before the ballet's premiere and quickly gained the international popularity that led it to be some of the best known romantic era pieces today. (In fact, I listened to Nutcracker music while reading Hoffman's and Dumas's books and while writing many of these posts!)

The ballet continued to be performed across Europe, not necessarily at Christmas time, and rarely in full. The first full-length production of the Nutcracker in the United States was on Christmas Eve 1944 in San Francisco, which met with success. But it was George Balanchine's NYC Ballet production in 1954, (the first Nutcracker to be telecast!) that was the catalyst that lifted the Nutcracker to new heights. The Balanchine Nutcracker's spectacular wonder, the addition of a massive magic Christmas tree that grows and grows, and hundreds of elaborate glittery costumes put the audience in awe. It had a certain romantic appeal- a huge christmas tree and snowy landscape, a land of marvelous sweets and gifts. The Nutcracker story was becoming a festival of joy, in the framework of a wholesome coming of age story. 

Unlike many ballets, young children fill a majority of the roles in the Nutcracker, including Marie and her brother Fritz, children at the party, mice and toy soldiers, bonbons, angels, and more. Older children often fill roles in the more complex waltz of the snowflakes and waltz of the flowers. The significant number of roles played by children in the Nutcracker contributed to its initial unpopularity with the public in St. Petersburg, who hoped to see more professional dancing. However, this is a major factor in the the continued eminence and commerciality of the Nutcracker ballet today. Parents feel the obligation to invite the whole family to watch their little munchkin (also an actual role) perform in their Nutcracker. The wholesome, visually stimulating production is also a prime first exposure to classical music and ballet for children in the audience. The power lies in the children, to turn the Nutcracker into the best-selling revenue builder of the year. 

As the Nutcracker story spread across the world and through time, it engendered a wide variety of cultural adaptations and contemporary variations. At its core a story of holiday celebration turned imaginative fantasy, the Nutcracker ballet has unique adaptability to different contexts which has given it relevance and global appreciation. For example, China's National Ballet presented an adaptation for Chinese New Year in 2016, featuring a Crane Goddess in place of the Sugar Plum Fairy, and dragons instead of mice. In 2014, Joburg Ballet set their unique Nutcracker in the desert and brought in elements of local South African dance. The Slutcracker is a modern satirical adaptation that has been performed in Massachusetts since 2008. The Slutcracker follows a young woman's sexual awakening during a holiday dream-like sequence, and includes ballerinas, burlesque, drag, hoopers, acrobats, and belly dancers. Here in Durham, the Walltown Children's Theatre presented the "Durham Nutcracker" which reimagines the traditional ballet performance to include jazz, funk, hip-hop, and modern, reflecting the interests of the young people in the Durham community. Based loosely on the Nutcracker story, the Walltown's version describes a young girl, Sarah, who faces challenges and learns that perseverance and courage are as important as talent to becoming successful. This unique production leaves an inspiring message that encourages tolerance, diversity, and creative expression of ideas. Much of the Nutcracker's continued success and relatability is owed to the ingenious adaptations made to suit the audience and social context.

[thecoldpenguin]

History of the Story

(image: illustration from Hoffman’s 1817 publication “Nußknacker und Mausekönig”)

Though best known today in its balletic form, the Nutcracker story has its origins as a book written by E. T. A. Hoffman in 1817, “Nußknacker und Mausekönig,” (”Nutcracker and Mouse King”). In 1845, Alexandre Dumas published a French adaptation of Hoffman’s German story-- “L’histoire d’un casse-noisette,” (”The Story of a Nutcracker”). Dumas’s version of the story became the basis of the first Nutcracker ballet, as a collaboration between the famous French and Russian choreographer, Marius Petipa, his assistant Lev Ivanov, and the renowned Russian composer, Pytor Illich Tchaikovsky, in 1890. As I will discuss in a later post, this premiere of the Nutcracker in St. Petersburg in 1892 was only marginally successful, and it was George Balanchine’s choreography for the New York City Ballet in 1954 that set the Nutcracker as the Christmas tradition it is today.

As the story of the Nutcracker was adapted from Hoffman to Dumas to various ballets and even movies, each author’s purpose, attitude, and intended audience play a role in the shaping of their version of the story. E. T. A. Hoffman wished to express his dissatisfaction with his overly rational, pretentiously bourgeois society (of which he was a part nonetheless, as a civil servant.) Hoffman created in his writing that other world that he longed for, of freedom from repression, of happiness, imagination, beauty, sublime. Hoffman intended to revolutionize the fairy tale genre, to provoke his readers to see the world with wild imagination, despite the banal conventions of society. Much darker and more violent than your usual fairy tale, Hoffman’s Nutcracker story was intended for adult audiences. His unusual fairy tale is unsettlingly macabre, ironic and satirical at times, and makes a statement against the class system and the constrictive, disciplinary way children were being raised. In the story, Marie, the protagonist, exemplifies the child-like imagination, creativity, and wonder that Hoffman wants to nurse and encourage in society, starting with the children. The stuffy conventions and rationalism of Marie’s family provide stark contrast to Marie’s belief and insistence in her fantasies. Hoffman’s message is one of igniting the imagination in order to realize one’s dreams and desires, like Marie as she saves and marries the nutcracker Prince and becomes Queen (as a 7-year-old?!), as a rebellion against the suffocating rationalism that Hoffman felt had taken over Europe.

Alexandre Dumas’s adaptation pays homage to Hoffman in its exposition, while also shifting the audience to children: a narrator entertains a group of French children by telling them the story of the Nutcracker which, he tells them, is set in Germany and written by a German man named Hoffman. Dumas’s slightly altered version of the story is cheerier, lighter, and more suitable for children. Unlike Hoffman, Dumas sought more to entertain through his writings than to teach or theorize. He was a prolific writer and loved his popularity with the public. While the plot is nearly identical and retains the wonderment and curiosity of the original, Dumas gives less attention and emphasis to the grotesqueness of Godfather Drosselmeyer and the internal learning experience of Marie. Marie’s family is sweeter, and there are small changes made to names, occupations, and side characters. Intended for children, the sweetened version takes the time to explain differences in gift-giving traditions in Germany and France, emphasize the traits of good Christian children, and describe the concept of sharing-- (”[The nutcracker] belongs as much to Fritz as it belongs to you, and to you as much as to Fritz”).

When the Nutcracker was adapted for the ballet, it was based on Dumas’s adaptation and intended simply to entertain, so most productions have the lost the dark, violent macabre of Hoffman’s original and his attitude toward imagination, reality and childhood. As can be expected, due to the unique medium of ballet, the story was quite significantly altered and simplified to best facilitate understanding and showcase the exquisite talents of the dancers. This adaptation from book to ballet warrants much more detail in a later post. And from ballet back to book, children’s illustrated books have also been created (see header image of my Tumblr website) that recounts the ballet’s saccharine plot in simple language. Contemporarily, many versions of the ballet have surfaced, hailing from many different cultures. With these fresh iterations, the Nutcracker’s short story and long history will continue to endure the test of time for the foreseeable future.

[thecoldpenguin]

Ballet: dancing across a storybook

Though a story without words, a narrative ballet is not without language. The Nutcracker ballet is told through movement and mime, through costumes, background sets, props, music, lighting, and space. Visual and auditory imagery form the basis of storytelling in dance. 

Classical ballet steps can convey emotion and mood. From speed of movement, or its abruptness, to the way the dancer lifts their arm, we can understand whether the dancer is happy, angry, afraid, or sad. However, classical ballet technique itself is not wholly equipped for explicit storytelling, so narrative ballets use mime to inform the audience of the story. Certain natural gestures, usually easily understood by audiences, provide the silent language necessary to advance the plot to the next segment of dance choreography. An arm gesture inwards indicates “me,” pointing indicates “there,” and a mimed sword jab is widely understood. This video presents several common mimes used in ballet storytelling, though using a different ballet as example: 

Other, more specific, mimes are explicitly taught to the audience in the course of performance. For example, the Nutcracker makes frequent use of wiggling-fingers-in-front-of-the-mouth-while-hunching to say “mouse.” The first appearance of the mice is accompanied by this gesture by both Drosselmeyer and the giant mice, so that the audience understands the reference when they see this gesture again later in Act II. In Act II, Marie and the Nutcracker Prince tell the Sugar Plum Fairy of their heroic battle with the Mouse King by summarizing the battle wholly through mime. The Prince mimes battle with the Mouse King through sword jabs and wiggly-fingers-in-front-of-the-mouth, points out Marie and indicates that she threw a shoe at the Mouse King, and finishes with his fist raised in victory. However while mime forms the much of the language and plot in ballet, the story can be understood through the dancers’ body language, emotion, and acting, the costuming, and music, together as a whole.

Take the Nutcracker’s opening scene, for example. There is a giant Christmas tree in the back of the stage, red and green ribbons, and piles of presents that older people hand to sprightly little children. There is also Tchaikovsky’s lively musical number that today’s popular culture easily associates with Christmas, recalling memories of last-minute shopping at the mall (I will discuss this phenomenon in a later post). With young and old dancing merrily and delighting in Drosselmeyer’s presents-- human dolls that emerge out of giant gift box props-- it is clear that we are watching a Christmas party. 

Music also plays a crucial role in driving the development of the ballet story. Like musical paragraph breaks, the music’s melody can signal a change in topic. While the music is lively throughout the opening scene and the background set remains the same, changes in melody usher in the transitions between welcoming guests, dancing with company, and handing out presents. Music provides both the mood and punctuation of a ballet story. When mysterious Godfather Drosselmeyer enters the scene, the energetic music abruptly becomes creepy, tense, and hushed, an auditory exclamation point. Complemented by a suddenly darkened stage, Drosselmeyer’s large black cape, his strange gestures and flourishes, and the reaction of the other partygoers, the story tells its audience that the new arrival is shrouded in mystery. When the lighting, music, and facial expressions lighten up upon realizing his identity, and Marie hugs the man, the audience understands that though mystical and dramatic, Drosselmeyer is still trustworthy. The tempo and composition of Tchaikovsky’s music deftly shapes the events in the story, from hurried and sharp in the Mouse King battle, to graceful and angelic in the snow, to joyful and childish in the bonbons performance. 

[thecoldpenguin]

The Nutcracker Ballet

The story of the Nutcracker ballet is short and simple. A young 7-year-old girl, Marie, also known as Clara, Maria, or Masha, depending on the production, is celebrating Christmas Eve with her family and friends at her home in Germany. One of the guests is her Godfather Drosselmeyer, a darkly mysterious man who always brings the most curious inventions and presents. He shows off two dancing life-size dolls, and then passes out presents-- including a beautiful nutcracker soldier for Marie. Marie’s brother Fritz becomes jealous and accidentally breaks the nutcracker, breaking Marie’s heart in the process. Godfather Drosselmeyer wraps the broken Nutcracker’s jaw in his handkerchief with flourish, and assures Marie that he will be okay. Soon the house grows quiet as the guests leave and the family goes to bed. 

Marie worries about her Nutcracker resting with broken jaw, and leaves her bed to check on the Nutcracker in the living room. At the strike of midnight, Marie is frightened by large aggressive mice wielding swords in her living room. Her Nutcracker comes to life to save the day and valiantly battles the Mouse King. The Nutcracker is about to lose the fight when Marie throws her shoe at the Mouse King, distracting him enough for the Nutcracker to kill him. With the defeat of the Mouse King, the Nutcracker turns into a dashing prince, and offers to show Marie his kingdom, the Kingdom of Sweets.

In Act II of the ballet, Marie and the Nutcracker Prince travel through enchanted dancing snowflakes, and are welcomed by the Sugar Plum Fairy. Upon hearing of their heroism, she celebrates them with a series of dances by Spanish chocolate, Arabian coffee, Chinese tea, candy canes, bonbons, flowers, and more. After a pleasurable evening in the Kingdom of Sweets, Marie awakens in the living room with a fully mended nutcracker in her arms. 

[iwontdancenetwork]

View this post on Instagram

Cassandra Trenary & Gabe Stone Shayer rehearse the Chinese Pas in Act II of The Nutcracker

[thecoldpenguin]

Act II of the ballet is an exuberant celebration of dancer’s skills, with a hint of multiculturalism.

[thecoldpenguin]

The Nutcracker: Introduction

The Nutcracker, an incredible tale of wonderment, bravery, magic, and growth. The Christmas fairytale brings joy to millions young and old, with a whimsical display of dancers accompanied by Tchaikovsky’s well-known music. The story is simple, yet captivating, continuing to usher in an audience year after year. It tells of a young girl Clara (or Marie) and her family in Germany at Christmas-time, when reality meshes with the fantastical, toys come to life to battle nightmarish giant mice, a nutcracker prince saves the night and whisks young Clara away, and we find ourselves experiencing the wonders of a Land of Sweets.

As a ballet, this is a story told through movement and music. I have always loved ballet, having danced since I was a tot. While I grew up surrounded by Nutcracker fever every fall, I never participated in the performance myself, but I nevertheless love this lighthearted and wholesome ballet. 

In addition to the ballet, the Nutcracker story has also taken the form of books and movies throughout time. This semester, I would like to explore ballet as a unique medium of storytelling, in comparison with other mediums. I would also explore the story’s transformation and development into the classic holiday tradition it is today, and how this tradition has persisted despite the decline of ballet as a form of mainstream entertainment. From E. T. A. Hoffmann’s original novel, Alexandre Dumas’ adaptation, various ballet productions-- including a local Durham modern-day take, and movies, it will be intriguing to trace how the story has evolved over time. It will also be interesting to note the story’s opportunity for social commentary, how it started as a critique of convention and then with certain subsequent adaptations and productions, a statement of culture and change.