{"id":1326,"date":"2010-12-30T08:29:12","date_gmt":"2010-12-30T13:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/?p=1326"},"modified":"2010-12-30T11:18:56","modified_gmt":"2010-12-30T16:18:56","slug":"american-ballet-theatres-nutcracker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/american-ballet-theatres-nutcracker.htm","title":{"rendered":"American Ballet Theatre’s Nutcracker"},"content":{"rendered":"

American Ballet Theatre<\/a> presents The Nutcracker
\nChoreography by Alexei Ratmansky
\nDecember 26, 2010
\nBrooklyn Academy of Music<\/em><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t remember having ever seen a story ballet that took the audience behind the scenes of its characters\u2019 stately homes.\u00a0 Alexei Ratmansky\u2019s Nutcracker opens in the kitchen, where the servants are putting the finishing touches on the dishes for the party and the children sneak inside to catch a glimpse of the feast.\u00a0 I found this setting to be so endearing.\u00a0 From the very beginning, it established the tone for what was to come.\u00a0 This Nutcracker had any number of beautiful and heart warming moments and its characters seemed so genuine.\u00a0 Inviting the audience in to the kitchen and letting us know that there’s a little problem with mice in the house seemed to break the ice and create an easygoing rapport from the very beginning.<\/p>\n

One problem that I\u2019ve had in the past with various Nutcrackers is that the Party Scene can sometimes seem interminable.\u00a0 But because Ratmansky opens his Nutcracker with this very charming Kitchen Scene, the pacing of the Party Scene is perfect.\u00a0 There is plenty to watch, the young guests are boisterous and exuberant, and there are a few sweet surprises.<\/p>\n

\"Battle<\/a><\/p>\n

The design of the scenery (created by Richard Hudson) is ingenious.\u00a0 Sets transform from Kitchen Scene to Party Scene to Battle Scene, to Snow Scene with such ease.\u00a0\u00a0 In the Battle Scene, the Christmas tree grows as if going right through the ceiling of the home, but in the blink of an eye, all the action is taking place at the foot of the tree as Clara watches from a chair above.\u00a0 The audience is shown the chair from a perspective that leaves us feeling as if we are on the floor with the Mice and Soldiers too.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\"Clara<\/a><\/p>\n

I loved the Snow Scene.\u00a0 Snow is one of my favorite dances in all of classical ballet.\u00a0 I\u2019ve heard it said that if a person had gone their entire life without ever having seen a snow storm, then Tchaikovsky\u2019s music could give them the experience.\u00a0 Ratmansky\u2019s Snowflakes weren\u2019t just swirling beautifully; at times they became menacing as a blizzard.\u00a0 In those moments, I felt as if the light was fading and night was closing in, bringing potential danger.\u00a0\u00a0 Especially beautiful was the way that the dance ended, with each ballerina laying on the stage on a diagonal, face up, her back arched.\u00a0 As the final notes were played, each one released the arch and fell flat, in the same way that a snowflake has dimension while its riding on the wind and then falls flat on to the drift.<\/p>\n

\"Snowflakes<\/a><\/p>\n

In Act II, Arabian was a crowd pleaser as four ladies vied for the attention of one shirtless man, who goes on to feel a bit of their wrath before the piece ends.\u00a0 The Russians added a bit of slapstick interspersed with spectacular switch leaps and barrel turns. I was just knocked out by the Flowers.\u00a0 Their beautiful costumes moved like big puffy carnations.\u00a0 Early in the dance a row of ballerinas lower into arabesque penchee and their skirts seem to open up just like the petals of a flower.\u00a0 The Flowers dance with Bees who alternately supply a few laughs and some dashing partnering.\u00a0 The dance ends beautifully with each Flower, one by one, being lifted, thrown and caught by another Bee.<\/p>\n

In the program Ratmansky speaks of his deliberate decision to minimize the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy, rather than making her the focus of the Second Act.\u00a0 From beginning to end, his story focuses on Clara, the stages of her journey and her dreams of the future.\u00a0 So rather than winding up the night with a Grand Pas De Deux danced by the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier, Young Clara and her Prince meet themselves as adults, played by Veronika Part and Marcelo Gomes.\u00a0 In their Grand Pas De Deux, Clara the child is seeing herself as an adult.\u00a0 Veronika Part transitions seamlessly between regal ballerina and playful little girl, often with the smallest childlike gesture.\u00a0 In this dance, Ratmansky clearly chose to stay faithful to the story instead of going for big ballet flash.\u00a0 In the lobby after the performance I overheard some audience members lamenting that the Grand Pas De Deux didn\u2019t showcase the dancers\u2019 strengths.\u00a0 But to me, it seemed the perfect ending for the atmosphere created from the beginning of the ballet.\u00a0 It was a heartwarming story told in faithful choreography.\u00a0 And for those who needed a dose of bravura, Marcelo Gomes provided it with a stunning sequence of turns in his solo.<\/p>\n

\"Clara<\/a><\/p>\n

The children did a great job.\u00a0 Kai Monroe (as Fritz) and Philip Perez (as The Nutcracker Boy) were especially charismatic and Athena Petrizzo (pictured above as Clara) delivered a very convincing performance, carrying a good deal of this production on her young shoulders.\u00a0 From the opening notes, I was completely drawn in to the spirit of the story, and this is even after having sat through my fair share of Nutcrackers this season.\u00a0 The choreography was full of good humor and a few tricks of the eye.\u00a0 At times I was amazed by how much Ratmansky was able to convey with very simple understated movement.<\/p>\n

\n

It all made for a wonderful and memorable evening.\u00a0 I loved this production.\u00a0 It was well worth braving the New York City blizzard of 2010 to witness it.<\/p>\n

All photos by Rosalie O’Connor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

American Ballet Theatre presents The Nutcracker Choreography by Alexei Ratmansky December 26, 2010 Brooklyn Academy of Music I don\u2019t remember having ever seen a story ballet that took the audience behind the scenes of its characters\u2019 stately homes.\u00a0 Alexei Ratmansky\u2019s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,26,20],"tags":[135,134,133,137,88,136],"class_list":["post-1326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brooklyn","category-dance","category-karen","tag-alexei-ratmansky","tag-american-ballet-theatre","tag-brooklyn-academy-of-music","tag-marcelo-gomes","tag-the-nutcracker","tag-veronika-part"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1326"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1383,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1326\/revisions\/1383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}