The Nutcracker Critique

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On Friday, December 16th, I went to see the Nutcracker. It was put on by Laguna Ballet at Mckinney Theater, located at Saddleback College. This year’s guest artists are Anton Pankevich, a former member of the Dutch National Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and currently with San Jose Ballet; and Sven Toorvald, former member of the Houston Ballet and Hubbard Street of Chicago. In 1891, choreographer Marius Petipa asked Peter Tchaikovsky to compose the music for Alexandre Dumas’ adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffman’s tale “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.” This is when the ballet was born. This adaptation was more dark and gloomy than the modern day ballet. After the first choreographed version tanked, George Balanchine, another very famous choreographer, created a new version of The Nutcracker. His choreography lightened up the ballet and intrigued and awed the audience. Since 1954, The Nutcracker has been the most widely performed ballet in the world. Almost every ballet company throughout the world performs the The Nutcracker during the holiday season. The show starts off with a scene of two people packing to leave. They are doing this very spastically which shows that they are excited to get where ever they are going. It appears that they were going to a celebration for the holiday. The elders are rewarding the children with gifts, and the children are glowing with excitement. A teenage girl gets a box about the size of what a Barbie box would be nowadays. A little boy tries to steal it from her, so the gift must be special and treasured. The woman reprimands him and orders him to return the mysterious gift. The celebration moves along. Judging by the special treatment of this box, this could be the beloved nutcracker that becomes the inspiration to this entire ballet. Fast, upbeat music begins to play and the young girls begin to dance. They dance with lots of

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