Yellow Face and Bugaku

[Helene]

The Stowell/Sendak version didn't have Mother Ginger either.  There was a house and the kids, and the ballerina Clara and Prince stood at either side and "presented" them (before leaving the stage while they danced, if I remember correctly.  But the whole structure, especially of Act II was different:  it was the dreamscape of a tween, based on the manifest content of the party portrayed with all of the anxieties and ambivalence of dreams and puberty.  At the end of the Clara/Sugarplum Fairy variation in the intro scene before the divertissements -- same as where Balanchine ended up putting it -- there's a tiny polite formal (but tense) battle between the Pasha (transformation of Drosselmeier, who was an ambivalent character in Act I) and the Prince, a mini-re-enactment of the Hoffman story, one of a handful of references to it threaded through the decor and narrative.  There are no angels:  that was set to Clara and the Prince's boat ride to Pasha's kingdom.  Hot Chocolate became the Morrocan (?) Dance, presumably to represent Pasha's kingdom -- a lead couple and corps -- followed by the Chinese Tiger (not Bear), with four students on point keeping him captive via ribbons, Peacock, who arrived caged, with two handlers who stopped her from trying to grand jete to escape, three so-called Dervishes who resembled cringe-worthy Hottentots to the Candy Cane music, two women and a man in a Commedia section to Marzipan, the kids in the Mother Ginger section, and Flora leading the Waltz of the Flowers, instead of Dewdrop.  (The choreography was hard, and the women, including Flora, had skirts with about 700 layers of tulle: it's amazing they could move in them.)  

[ECat]

Oh how I loved that Sendak version that I would enjoy watching every year on PBS. The performances were so memorable. Patricia Barker with her gorgeous legs, feet, and extensions was my favorite. I loved the way it was filmed - many closeups for maximum dramatics. Hugh Bigney made a very sensual Drosselmeyer.  It seemed to me as though there was some jealousy or possessiveness on his part toward the adult Clara. Lucinda Hughey was a fabulous Flora.

[pherank]

On 1/1/2022 at 9:56 AM, Helene said:

I assume for the same reason that many productions use variations on Three Ivans instead of Candy Canes: because they have discretion.  I would ask why any of the characters except the Polichinelles are portrayed as people, since they're supposed to be food and other physical objects.  Balanchine clearly chose to portray Coffee -- originally a man smoking a hookah, but then was changed to a woman -- Tea, and the Polichinelles as humans, but Candy Cane, Marzipan, Flowers, Dewdrop, are all things, not people, while Mother Ginger is a giantess and angels are otherworldly, and different productions mix and match.

In the PNB Balanchine, Coffee is a Peacock, as a tribute to the Stowell/Sendak production.  In the latter, Tea was a Bear, a Sendak creation.   In San Francisco (Tomasson's production), Tea is a Chinese dragon.

The choreography for Tea is characterized quite well as a cricket.

SFB's version refers to the Chinese New Year's parade in SF Chinatown which happens to feature martial arts clubs in the parade, and of course the big dragon. So Tomasson gives us a taste of those things without really paying much attention to the original "tea" theme (or "chocolate" or "coffee" for that matter). His emphasis is more on the character dancing than on the original idea of a Land of Sweets:

QUOTE:  For Tomasson, the idea of a Clara transported to “Sugarland” as he calls past productions of Act II, never worked for him. “No one seems to know where Sugarland is,” he says, laughing. “Why can’t Clara imagine that her fantasy is taking place in her own city in one of those incredible pavilions?

“Looking at photographs of the Exposition, it must have been incredible,” says Tomasson. “I thought, ‘Why not use the concept of the beautiful international pavilions—in a loose way, of course—to suggest the time period in Act II?’”

[Helene]

I love that entire concept and his ballet.

[pherank]

3 hours ago, Helene said:

I love that entire concept and his ballet.

Rachel Howard wrote recently that Nutcracker was "arguably Tomasson’s finest achievement during his 37 years leading the company". It strikes me as a more cohesive production than some. I only wish the 2nd Act wasn't quite so minimal in its stagings. I never liked the overly stuffed Kingdom/Land of Sweets look that NYCB uses, but I think there needs to be "richness" to the fantasy, if that makes any sense. And since the stagings reference the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition, I wish they had shown more of the glamorous architecture that was present.

[l'histoire]

On 1/1/2022 at 9:55 AM, volcanohunter said:

Not trying to be provocative here, but what does a cricket have to do with green tea? If the other sweets contain no references to animals, isn't it odd that one suddenly appears in the divertissement? It's not as though the audience also sees bulls, stallions or bears in this production.

Look, as a cultural historian who happens to be a China specialist, I'm less concerned about "does this all make sense?" (My bread-and-butter of my first decade of an academic career was studying plays where dead women are miraculously brought back to life and can go on to do FANTASTIC things - most of which don't make much sense (gee, sounds like several Romantic-era ballets I could name) - but at least, from my POV, they weren't parroting weird racist gestures that apparently said "Chinese" to a 19th century Russian audience) - it's fantasy, after all. I just prefer my fantasy not be overtly racist/Orientalist/colonial. As someone that studies & loves some forms of Chinese opera, the "fingers pointing upwards & being wiggled about frantically" is a really, really strange thing to hit on from Chinese performance traditions - the subtle gestures of hands & fingers are very important, yes, but as I have said multiple times on this board, I think Balanchine (had he been exposed to those particular dramatic traditions) probably would've found a lot of inspiration in the lovely, subtle, and fluid gestures of Chinese opera actresses, especially in the slower ones like kunqu. The opening of Serenade - which still gives me goose bumps, years after I first saw it live - reminds me of nothing so much as it does watching young kunqu artists practicing the movements of their arms. As a China scholar (especially in the current climate), I "liked" what I saw of the PNB "Cricket" variation. They can call it whatever they'd like. At least it wasn't yet another variation parroting some version of stereotypical " ancient China." It was quite clever. 

[apologies for the post, board software is not behaving as nicely as it should with my laptop)

Edited January 3, 2022 by l'histoire

[naomikage]

On 12/25/2020 at 10:51 PM, volcanohunter said:

It's worth asking whether Bugaku has ever been performed by a Japanese company, of which there are many. Granted, Balanchine doesn't figure especially prominently in their repertoire, and Bugaku is a minor work, but if the ballet hasn't been taken up, it would be telling.

I am very late to this conversation, but as a Japanese living in Japan, I can assure that Balanchine's Bugaku has not been performed by a Japanese company and also doubt that NYCB has ever performed in Japan (it is a work inspired by Japanese Gagaku dance which was performed in NY in 1959 and the NYCB 1958 Japan tour). This work is simply not known here even though the composer Toshiro Mayuzumi is Japanese. (By the way, Mr. Mayuzumi was known to be a ultra right-winger here)

Bejart's Bugaku is known more and has been performed here as it was commissioned by the Tokyo Ballet and is in their repertoire, their most recent performance was last summer. I have seen it live and there was some giggling in the audience as some movements are quite comical, but Bejart understands Japanese culture quite well and he does pay a lot of respect. 

It is true that only a few works of Balanchine are danced by Japanese companies, National Ballet of Japan will perform Theme and Variations this weekend (I hope the performances will go on as the Omicron variant is spreading fast and some performances of other companies are getting canceled) and they have Symphony in C, Serenade, Apollo, Symphony in Three Movements, Tarantella in their repertoire. (They were expecting Concerto Barrocco thie spring but because of travel restrictions the coaches are unable to travel so it was canceled, same with Tokyo City Ballet that intended to do Allegro Brillante as a new production) Star Dancers Ballet is a company that frequently performs 20th century choreography and they perform Serenade, Walpurgisnacht and Western Symphony,