Daily Treat: December 15
Dec. 15th, 2012 12:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rsadelleChico is a relatively small place, which means that our local community ballet company is also relatively small. They only do one full-length ballet a year, so they switch off: they do The Nutcracker every other year, and varying other ballets in non-Nutcracker years. This year was a Nutcracker year. I love The Nutcracker, and I love their version of it. They have community members play some of the adult roles: two of my mom's friends are Mother Goose and a maid, and the District Attorney plays Clara's father. They use the same costumes year after year, which also gives it a continuity. And because it's a smallish community, you get to see the kids grow up through the years. The tiny girls who played the angels this year will be the Claras and Sugar Plum Fairies of the future.
There were two very interesting things about this year's production. First, they had more men. The Sugar Plum Fairy has always and forever been a solo role in their production, but this year they gave her a Cavalier. Instead of having a waltz of the flowers, they had The Grand Cotillion, with Debutantes and their male Escorts. I was extra excited that one of my favorite dancers (partly because her movement is so natural and partly because she's the only one who would smile at me from the very beginning when I took class with the teenagers) got to dance a pas de deux role, which I haven't seen her do before. Secondly, for the Arabian Dance, they had The Peacock and The Sultan. By making the girl a Peacock instead of a harem girl, they completely desexualized the dance, even though they used a lot of the traditional movements, including the lift where she's on his shoulder and his whole hand is covering her stomach.
I tried this morning to find a good Nutcracker excerpt for today's treat, but my time is limited and I didn't quite manage it. So instead have this, Patricia McBride and Mikhail Baryshnikov in Balanchine's Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, 1979. It's still Tchaikovsky, and it looks perfectly effortless, especially the lifts.
There were two very interesting things about this year's production. First, they had more men. The Sugar Plum Fairy has always and forever been a solo role in their production, but this year they gave her a Cavalier. Instead of having a waltz of the flowers, they had The Grand Cotillion, with Debutantes and their male Escorts. I was extra excited that one of my favorite dancers (partly because her movement is so natural and partly because she's the only one who would smile at me from the very beginning when I took class with the teenagers) got to dance a pas de deux role, which I haven't seen her do before. Secondly, for the Arabian Dance, they had The Peacock and The Sultan. By making the girl a Peacock instead of a harem girl, they completely desexualized the dance, even though they used a lot of the traditional movements, including the lift where she's on his shoulder and his whole hand is covering her stomach.
I tried this morning to find a good Nutcracker excerpt for today's treat, but my time is limited and I didn't quite manage it. So instead have this, Patricia McBride and Mikhail Baryshnikov in Balanchine's Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, 1979. It's still Tchaikovsky, and it looks perfectly effortless, especially the lifts.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-15 09:08 pm (UTC)It is hard to find Nutcracker on youtube. I've tried to find Sugar Plum variations on youtube before and the closest/best version of the variation I learned is http://youtu.be/K65lcuHQn-E
(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-16 09:38 pm (UTC)When I was looking, it seems like there's a lot of Nutcracker on YouTube (there are even a couple of whole productions), but nothing I quite liked enough to post. I'm not sure if it's part of being a professional or that she's playing to a much bigger space and the camera gets too close, but the determined smile makes that Sugar Plum Fairy less charming to me. The kids in the local production often have a problem of not smiling enough, but I think I'd rather that than the oversmiling. (Also, they're charming because they're kids and local.)
Did you see the San Francisco Ballet Nutcracker that aired on PBS a couple of years ago? (I think this is the trailer for that specific production.) I remember loving it, and it looks like they did a good job with the video production. (Which is sometimes an issue when trying to film dance.)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-16 10:04 pm (UTC)I don't think so! I haven't watched the full Nutcracker in years. Maybe I'll try to find a copy though...
(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-17 02:29 am (UTC)