The Nutcracker
Nuts & Bolts: A Jazzy
In the last half century The Nutcracker–originally a story by E.T.A. Hoffmann and later a ballet by Petipa and Ivanov to a glorious score by Tchaikovsky–has proved to be more dance project than classical ballet. And it’s a project many have taken on, perhaps because of the dream that frames it or the fantasy parade that ends it. But in any case, like Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, The Nutcracker has been mercilessly trashed by regional companies everywhere (the Annapolis Ballet Theater has a drag queen for the Mouse King). It seems anybody trying to make a statement starts with the season of goodwill and forges out of it something “radical and new.”
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One must know the original to have a handle on the variants. Clara is a young girl whose strange uncle arrives to enliven a Christmas party. He gives Clara a Nutcracker. Her brother breaks it. Clara falls asleep and has a dream. The Christmas tree grows to enormous proportions (always an entertaining scene in low-budget productions), and poor Clara is attacked by humongous mice. A human-size Nutcracker appears with an army and saves the day. When he takes his Nutcracker head off, he’s revealed to be a prince. In the second act the prince escorts Clara through a wonderland in which magical creatures and dancers from various cultures perform for her. The dream ends, and Clara awakes loving her little Nutcracker more than ever.
Then we have the African-American rewrites of The Nutcracker. “Revenge of the Nutcracker,” perhaps? Like most classical ballets, The Nutcracker is wildly incorrect politically. Ballet rarely escapes its imperialist origins, which remain even in the abstract choreographic hierarchy of neoclassical formalism. Most classical ballets end with some excuse to have representatives from various regions and cultures dancing at the feet of a ruling white couple, usually a prince and princess.
Shot through the entire work are Hall’s own trippy, hypnotic interludes of house music: “I got jazz in my soul.” Once this contemporary, subversive, highly entertaining evening was over, I kept hearing this refrain.
