By TurnedOutPointeOfView on Saturday, January 4, 2020
Thank you for your question, @idaspedtsberg
Well… personally,
I LOVE The Nutcracker!! I absolutely love it!
I think there is a kind of magic around it because it is THE reason why so many people become dancers! Ask any room full of dancers, Why did you start ballet? More then half will say, “I saw The Nutcracker.”
You can see a child’s face entirely light up when they watch it! You can almost see the dream forming in their own minds. Hoping that one day they to will get to be on that stage! And that is magic! It is so rewarding to witness, especially now as a Professional because it reminds us that this life that we have, was once just a dream. It reminds us of just how lucky we truly are to do what we love.
I think why The Nutcracker has a bit of a reputation among dancers, is because we do a lot of shows, in a short amount of time, of the same thing, everyday. And in many companies, The Nutcracker, comes around EVERY December. (The Royal Danish Ballet is also jumping on that train from this year forward.)
Companies tend to not switch up the version that they perform either. At the Royal Danish Ballet we dance the George Balanchine version. Personally, I love this version. But the girls do have more opportunities to dance then the boys. Girls get the magical dance of Snow, filled with jumps, great music and teamwork. Boys get heavy costumes and large masks as Mice. The girls can dance as Spanish, Arabian, Chinese, Marzipan, Flowers, Dew Drop, or the Sugar Plum Fairy. The boys get Spanish, one boy in the Chinese dance, one boy in the Candy Cane dance or the Cavalier to the Sugar Plum… Not quite as many thrilling options.
After you’ve done several weeks of rehearsal and then you are on show twenty something of The Nutcracker… you are tired. You are border line exhausted and still have ten plus more shows in front you. That is when, sometimes the patience for The Nutcracker starts to run thin. Which is where that reputation of professionals hating the Nutcracker comes from.
IN reality, ALL dancers have a soft spot for The Nutcracker. We owe that ballet our life. It created our dreams.
Xoxo,
-Hol
