Helene

I saw Olympic Ballet Theatre's performance of The Nutcracker at Meany Hall on the campus of the University of Washington. The cast was a mixture of students from the school -- they looked like they ranged in age from 8 or 9 to late teens, possibly early 20's -- professionals from several companies in the region, including Spectrum Dance Theater and danielandsomesuperfrieds, and three featured dancers, Andrea Long, Principal Dancer with Dance Theatre of Harlem, former NYCB dancer Darius Crenshaw, and LINES Ballet's Aesha Ash. I'm not sure who the male party guests were. The choreography was a mix of complexity from the simple choreography of the Russian dance, which featured eight young boys, through the Balanchine choreography for the Sugar Plum Fairy/Cavalier pas de deux. The first act party scene was as detailed as any fully professional company's I've seen, but it was scaled to a smaller stage and a small-sized cast. There were choreographic choices that were unusual and fun, such as Clara being partnered and lifted in short sections by the Snow King, Drosselmeyer, and the Cavalier; Clara being transported in her sleigh by four "reindeer;" and a pas de trois for the two maids and the butler during the party scene. There were choices inspired by necessity: without a young prince -- the Nutcracker, an adult dancer, becomes the Snow King and there is a Cavalier in the second Act -- a Harlequin and Colombine act out the Mouse King and Nutcracker in what is traditionally the Prince's mime scene; because there were only six Flowers, small groups of dancers were featured one after the other; and there were mime and comical situations co-mingled into dances performed by some of the younger dancers, like Tea. Not every choice was successful: for example, there was no soldier, and the soldier's music became a pas de deux for the two dolls, which was a bit cramped and not particularly interesting, and a dance for the party men, with Drosselmeyer was on the stiff side. Regardless of age, quality varied, which is to be expected from dancers of various levels, but the commitment from the Company, particularly the students, was evident throughout the performance. The students in the Dance of the Flowers and Marzipan were accomplished and lovely. The "borrowed dancers" were terrific: Hannah Lagerway as the Snow Queen, Peter de Grasse as Nutcracker, Snow King, and Arabian Coffee , Emmerich Schollgruber -- a bit conservative as the Harlequin doll, but a scene stealer as the Mouse King -- and Danielle P. Wilkins, who amazed as Arabian Coffee. Andrea Long as Sugar Plum looked like she was doing not much more than marking, and after the energy of the six young women in Waltz of the Flowers, was disappointing in the Balanchine pas de deux. (The SPF variation was performed as the second variation in the pas de deux, not earlier in the Act.) Darius Crenshaw picked up energy during his variation and the coda, and his beautiful turnout was evident in sweeping glissades and the beautiful position of his working leg in pirouettes. I looked up Olympic Ballet Theater's mission statement on their website: "Olympic Ballet Theatre seeks to: * Develop new audiences for theatre dance by producing high quality classical and original ballets. * Attract young audiences through special programming with lively, familiar, story dances. * Draw mature audiences by featuring world-renown artists in local productions. * Offer professional opportunities to dancers, choreographers, and designers in the Puget Sound area. * Foster commununity collaboration. * Maintain a secure funding base from which to operate." While I can't speak to their financial situation, what I saw this afternoon met the rest of the company's goals quite splendidly.

Yes, public media should support the arts. But should they support Nutcracker? I see this piece as a sign that the U.S. over-marketing of Nutcracker as "a holiday tradition" is reaching a saturation point. I'm sure marketing people think they are being very clever. I mean if you're going to have synergy with another event, what's more well publicised or feel good than Christmas, right? Short answer: no. It creates a serious branding problem. The intention of all the Nutcrackers is obviously to fill the theater, pay the bills on the short term and introduce some members of the audience to ballet, so they'll come again. But what happens in the mind of the audience is this: "FACT 1: There are kids on the stage, in the audience and this is a children's story" => "Nutcracker is a kiddie ballet" AND "FACT 2: Nutcracker is the only ballet I know" => "Ballet is for kids". On the long term ballet as a brand is associated with kids. Most of the adult audience will come again only for Nutcracker, therefore creating a vicious cycle where more Nutcrackers have to be performed to survive financially. Another point she makes is that watching mediocre dancers is not that fun for the untrained eye. This is a good point. Contrary to what you'd expect, the less you know about ballet the more unlikely you are to enjoy a bad performance. It takes knowledge to separate the specific performance from the ballet and you must already be interested enough to make the effort to disregard the mess and search for what is beautiful. Chris, you make great points, but nowhere in the piece does she make those points**. She makes two references to quality of performance: "Even when staged by professionals, it's not exactly what you would consider white hot entertainment" and that the Kingdom of Sweets contains "a lineup of talent that would make Simon Cowell cry." To which I would reply, "Exactly." "White hot" entertainment is not what The Nutcracker or Sleeping Beauty or Swan Lake or Agon is supposed to be. A performance of The Nutcracker with skateboarders and a car befitting NASCAR might make Simon Cowell happy, but it would make me want to hurl. **Because your points are important ones and warrant a thread of their own, I've split off bart's response to your post -- which quotes all of your main points -- and created a new thread here: http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=21188

I've added the link in today's Links forum, and here it is again for discussion: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5046837 Thank you, dazedandconfused, for bringing it to our attention. This is a link to an audio download page on the NPR site, and it requires Windows Media Player or Real Player in order to listen to it. The reason I put moved this thread to "Issues in Ballet" instead of "Ballets" is that I think that at least part of the issue is how dismissive and mocking people in media can be, especially when they think they are being funny. And while "All Things Considered" doesn't have the audience numbers of say, Rush Limbaugh, I am guessing that the NPR demographic is close to people who are open to the arts. Any comments on the piece? :blush: dazedandconfused and anyone else who is interested in creating a link: for audio and video downloads, we allow a link to the downloads page. To post a link to a downloads page, the simplest way to do it is: 1. Copy the URL into memory (Highlight and CTRL+C or Apple+C or right-click/Copy) 2. Paste it into the post. The link will appear on the page like this: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5046837 A fancier way is to create a text link, which isn't required: 1. Copy the URL into memory (Highlight and CTRL+C or Apple+C or right-click/Copy) 2. Click the http:// button above the posting box if you're in Reply or "Reply. If you're in "Fast Reply", click "More Options" to make the formatting buttons appear. 3. Paste the URL into the little box that opens and click "OK." 4. Another little box will prompt you to type some text, which, when clicked, will bring up the linked page. For example, "This is the link" and click OK. 5. Finish the end of the sentence, if you have more to add. For example "to the audio download page." The post should look like this: This is the link to the audio download page. If you want to test to see if this has worked, you can click "Preview Post". If you click "This is the link" you'll go to the download page. [end Off Topic]

That thread was started in 2003, with an update in June 2004. We've been waiting for this book for a very long time.