As an admirer of Belle, I’m a beginner, but if there’s one I can name, it’s Nutcracker. This year, the ballet branches and companies have moved the Christmas tradition of coming together for its annual performance, if it will be able to continue at all. Nutcracker Is a huge money maker for companies, many of which were working with thin budgets before the coronavirus epidemic. The dance itself is rich and compelling, but can be criticized for its diversity and lack of depiction of other cultures – such as the history of ballet.
Nutcracker It was first released in 1892 and has been a seasonal hit in New York City since veteran choreographer George Balanchines. Nutcracker The first was performed in 1954 in New York City Center, starring Maria Telchef Sugar Plum Ferry. Today, Lincoln Center is home to the New York City Ballet. The Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library – the largest dance library and archive anywhere in the world, accessible and free to anyone – is also at the Lincoln Center.
Nutcracker There is only a small percentage of the library’s dance collection, which includes a few thousand images. Belle herself comes to us from Prussia in all her fairytale pride; It was based on a short story written there in 1816. In 1958, the American version, choreographed by Balanchine, was broadcast to Americans at their home. According to Linda Murray, curator of the dance division, this was a big part of the ballet’s success and integration into popular culture. “This moment was important because people experienced ballet in their own homes amidst their own traditions. And the well-known voice of June Lockhart seems to have reached work as a narrator and cemented ballet as a holiday tradition, ”Murray said.
The Dance Division, which celebrated its 75th anniversary last year, was started in 1944 by a young librarian named Ginvivi Oswald. At the time, there was no complete archive of dance photographs, videos or memoirs – just a handful of dance images sorted with a music collection.
“Because she was a woman, quite frankly, a lot of the dance material was assigned to her,” Murray said. “Oswald soon realized that dance archives were unique in nature and could not be adequately described using music scholarship conventions. She saw the need for her own section for dance as a subject that has its own guidelines for description and care. “Oswald worked with archivists and modern dancers to donate to the collection, and his charisma quickly convinced the dance field about the importance of the division’s work.
In the 1930s and 1940s, current popular contributors to modern dance such as Doris Humphrey and Martha Graham lived in poverty; Humphrey was obliged to contribute to the collection, as she realized that she would not be able to carry on her work without help.
“Traditionally the one that created the archive was that people collected notecards, letters and things over a lifetime.” The more delicate situation that exists on our phones today is difficult to archive, which means that today’s ticket ok dance could somehow end up in Canon Nutcracker, But it will be difficult.
In America Nutcracker Descriptive is often used to include elements of the local community. Washington Washington, D.C. In, the Washington Ballet performs a version where George and Washington are Washington nutrackers; The Joffrey Ballet in Chicago has a version set during the World’s Fair; And in Newport, Rhode Island, at the historic historic mansions on Belle Bellevue Avenue. “No part of the joy Nutcracker Seeing your homeland in choreography, ”Murray said. “It’s more than a ballet, it’s an identity concept.”
In short, Belle’s plot is about a young girl who connects with a broken nutcracker shaped like a toy solid. On Christmas Eve, he comes alive and fights an evil rat king. Like many of the older children’s stories, it is visually dark at times, when scenes and characters are woven together to capture the magic of both Christmas Eve and childhood.
As the producers have adapted to include regionalism, some of the main aspects of the dance and the choreography remain the same – and they have been called to be racist. During the second act, the ballet takes audiences “around the world” with the inspiration to eat a variety of Christmas items presented around the Christmas holidays – Spanish-inspired dances for hot chocolate, “Arabic” dances for coffee and Chinese-inspired dances for a tea. Georgina Pazkoguin, a soloist with the New York City Ballet, and Phil Chan Chan, an arts advocate and choreographer, founded the organization Final Bow for Yellowface in 2017 to enhance conversations between companies around the world about older representations of Asians. Nutcracker And other ballet.
Chan Chan, who has been researching the descriptions of exotic and geopolitical Asian Americans, is also currently a dance research partner with NYPL and said he sees a tendency to be “culturally relevant as long as it’s beautiful.” Influence on art.
The statement on Final Bow for Yellowface’s website echoes that sentiment: “In the same way that Blackface is limiting and defaming African Americans, continuing to portray 19th-century Asians, Asian American dancers are not allowed character nuisance today. “
“If we leave the European center Nutcracker, What are we really looking at? Many dances need to be updated to make them less racist, sexist, Islamophobic by today’s standards – the 1800s were a different time. We’re all used to seeing Shakespeare in different settings, but Belle is really slow in this game. That could change and we can take the anticipated 21st century imagery today for those who keep the ballet tradition alive, ”said Chan.
We looked at the Jerome Robbins Dance Division’s Historical Collection in New York, which spans decades of production – from Technicolor 1940s to Groovey 1960s to extreme Suez-Esk performances in the 1980s to dancers, costumes and rat kings.
Here is a list of streaming dance companies Nutcracker.
