For as long as I can remember, Nutcracker performances and the holiday season have gone together. Many dancers have early memories of being in a Nutcracker. From major ballet companies to small regional companies, energies have gone into creating Nutcracker performances to delight local audiences and to help support the company financially, as shows are usually well attended. Even some modern companies have ventured into their own interpretations. Donald Byrd created the Harlem Nutcracker back in 1996 but unfortunately by 2001 it had financially bankrupted his company. He is now recreating the work in Seattle, with more financial care, and this year he has offered the Harlem Nutcracker Teaser to be followed by a full production next year. Mark Morris created The Hard Nut which is set to Tchaikovsky’s 1982 score. It takes inspiration from the “comic artist Charles Burns, whose art is personal and deeply instilled with archetypal concepts of guilt, childhood, adolescent sexuality, and poignant nostalgic portrayals of post-war America” (Wikipedia). The Hard Nut was performed this year at the Detroit Opera House.
For this blog I am going to share three different Nutcrackers which you can stream online. New York City Ballet’s Nutcracker created by George Balanchine is available to watch on Hulu. Disney Plus has a brand-new Hip-Hop Nutcracker which has some surprise cameo performances. Netflix has Debbie Allen’s Dance Dreams: Hot Chocolate Nutcracker which is a documentary about her school and shows the process from audition to performance of her Nutcracker which involves many students and even some teachers.
On Hulu, The New York City Ballet production is the classical Nutcracker we usually think about. It had its original premiere in 1954 created by George Balanchine to the music of Peter Tchaikovsky. Like the original Nutcracker ballet created in 1892 by Marius Petipa, it is in two acts. The libretto was adapted from Hoffmann’s 1816 short story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The version on Hulu was filmed in 1993 adapted by Peter Martins with narration by Kelvin Klein.
The New York City Ballet website informs us that the production involves all “90 dancers in the company, 62 musicians, 40 stagehands and more than 125 children in two alternating casts from the School of American Ballet.”
The stage elements are amazing with a Christmas tree that grows from 12 feet to 41 feet and a bed that floats through the sky. While it is filmed beautifully, I sometimes was frustrated by the close-ups when I really wanted to have a full view of the stage. The dancing is outstanding with Darci Kistler as the Sugar Plum Fairy and her partner Damian Woetzel as Cavalier. Kyra Nichols is beautiful as Dewdrop. The children from the school are well trained and fun to watch as party guests, soldiers, angels, and mice. I was surprised that the young boy playing Drosselmeier’s nephew was Macaulay Culkin, best known for Home Alone. And sure, enough Culkin did indeed study at the School of American Ballet.
On Netflix is an original documentary produced by Shondraland titled Dance Dreams: Hot Chocolate Nutcracker. It focuses on Debbie Allen, who had an outstanding award-winning career on television, in theaters and the movies as a dancer, singer and actress. In 2001 she formed the Debbie Allen Dance Academy (DADA). In 2008 she created Hot Chocolate Nutcracker. The documentary was created in 2020. While the documentary opens with Debbie Allen coaching young children to the music of Tchaikovsky, the ballet also incorporates a variety of other music and styles. 200 children from the ages of 4 and older participate in the ballet. We never see The Hot Chocolate Nutcracker from beginning to end; instead we are given a backstage look at how it is put together from the children’s auditions to rehearsals to backstage before the performance. Excerpts from the performance are included.
Woven into the documentary is Debbie Allen’s biography. Teachers at the DADA are interviewed, as well as several students. A few students are followed in more detail sharing their dreams and frustrations of having a career in dance. Debbie Allen’s coaching of the dancers is very interesting as she treats them as professionals and expects them to behavior appropriately. At one point she insists they stop talking or get fired!!
Savion Glover is guest choreographer, and we see several excerpts where tap dancing is featured. This production is filled with high energy and lots of imagination. The young dancers are well rehearsed and many of the dancers have participated in the ballet over several years (as do dancers from the School of American Ballet in the NYC Ballet’s Nutcracker). They give 8 performances each year with a total of 11,520 seats and ticket sales of $450,000. This is a major fundraiser for DADA, which provides classes for students whether they can pay or not.
Hip Hop Nutcracker is a new video on Disney Plus and it is lots of fun to watch. It is described as a newly imagined and reinvented Nutcracker. Basically the plot is that Maria Clara’s parents are not getting along and she takes them on various adventures to get them back together.
The first fun thing I noticed was how cleverly they use the Tchaikovsky music. We hear a theme and soon it blends into a hip hop sound or music. At one point Maria Clara does a playful hip hopish solo to some of the actual score and amazingly it fits very well. The program opens with a narrator rapping and he comes back in a few other places. The group choreography is lively, well executed and just plain fun to watch.
There are two unique cameo appearances. The first is Tiler Peck coming to life as a Toy Doll. It has traditional ballet steps with some added twists. In a November 29, 2022 interview Tiler speaks about when she first saw The Nutcracker at Lincoln Center and decided she wanted to perform on that stage, to her joy in dancing various roles in The Nutcracker with the New York City Ballet and finally how she enjoyed being a part of the Hip Hop Nutcracker. She is hoping that it will bring a different audience to The Nutcracker. https://news.yahoo.com/ballet-dancer-tiler-peck-dishes-212929808.html
The second cameo, somewhat briefer so it is easy to miss, is Mikhail Baryshnikov. He joins the character Drosselmeyer as both come down brownstone steps. A scene title calls him the Spirit of Snow. Alas it is much too short. The first time I watched it…. I did a double take saying, “Wow that looks like Baryshnikov” and of course when I looked at the cast credits, sure enough it was!
I hope you take some time to watch at least one of these Nutcrackers. All three are different and each is special in its own way. And maybe some of you have memories of being in The Nutcracker. Elizabeth McPherson,(a regular reader, Avodah Dance Ensemble member for 7 years, and now Dr. McPherson, Director of Dance at Montclair State University, and author of several dance history books) shared this picture of her getting ready backstage for Atlanta’s Nutcracker when she was about ten years old. Her teacher, Janet Clough, is fixing her hair. Thank you, Elizabeth, for sharing a Nutcracker memory with us. Do any other readers have pictures or memories they would like to share of being in or seeing a Nutcracker performance?
with her teacher, Janet Clough, fixing her hair.
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