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Everybody’s treat
Jennifer Fisher looks at our Nutcracker nation
BY MARCIA B. SIEGEL
Nutcracker Nation
By Jennifer Fisher. Yale University Press, 230 pages, $27.


The first Christmas catalogue came in the mail just after Labor Day, and Jennifer Fisher’s Nutcracker Nation arrived soon after that. Fisher sets out to examine the perennial ballet favorite as a moneymaking cultural product with significant redeeming value. In spite of its own opportunistic timing, her study might even provide a momentary antidote to the cash-register mentality that infects the holidays.

The Nutcracker, as Fisher demonstrates, is no monolithic artifact. Since its first production, which was choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov in 1892 for the Mariinsky Theater (now home to the Kirov Ballet and Opera), it has become a theme to be riffed upon as much as a masterpiece to be preserved. Fisher believes that when it " immigrated " to this side of the Atlantic in the 20th century, it began a versatile career as a conduit for psychological, artistic, ethnic, and community aspirations as diverse as North America itself.

For Fisher and her fellow devotees, just the thought of the traditional Nutcracker triggers comforting memories of family holidays, childhood pastimes, scary monsters easily defeated, beautiful ballerina role models, and magical escapes into the world of theater. As long as a production adheres to this " template, " she believes, it can evoke powerful and personal responses. She points out early on that The Nutcracker was never a " virtuosic showpiece for its leads. " Only the second of its two acts is devoted to classical dancing. The first act depicts the world of children: the party, the loving or strange grown-up Others, the dreaming, the irrational fears. The second-act divertissement is pure fairy tale, a reward with no ambiguities. It’s the interplay of the real and the unreal, reinterpreted in the image of a local audience, that keeps the Nutcracker ballet alive.

Clara, the heroine, can be played by a real girl or an adult dancer. The Nutcracker, once liberated from his identity as a fancy kitchen utensil, can be a boy or a man. The relationship between them and the godfather/magician Droßelmeier can be as simple as a visit from Santa Claus or as complicated as pre-adolescent sexual angst. Both the protagonists and the fairy-tale characters can be choreographed up or down according to the local talent; they can be surrounded by accomplices, extra effects, and comic turns.

Different editions of the ballet can engage in ethnic stereotyping or promote ethnic pride. There’s a Nutcracker with dancing wheelchairs, and one for endangered plants and animals, and a dance-along for any enthusiast with access to a tutu and a tiara. Of course, the theme can be modernized, glamorized, and imported into popular media like film, TV, and ice skating.

Fisher gives a fascinating account of two contrasting productions: the massive community effort staged annually by the Loudoun Ballet of Leesburg, Virginia; and the professional version done in Toronto by the National Ballet of Canada. Or versions, in the latter case, since the Celia Franca standard was thrown out during the period of Fisher’s research (1995-’97) and replaced with James Kudelka’s remake when he became director of the company. The backstage operations Fisher traces in Toronto and Leesburg reveal a whole insider culture that probably forms the nucleus of every Nutcracker audience.

Disturbing contemporary questions underlie The Nutcracker’s spirited history. How far can the ballet stretch in alternative directions without disappearing? And, perhaps more ominous, can a classical ballet compete with the mega-financing and blanket visibility of commercial spectacle? Invasions of outfits like the Rockettes’ Holiday Show are neither new nor limited to Boston. As Fisher notes, the " lavish sets and special effects " of Kudelka’s Nutcracker in Toronto were perceived as a bid to compete with " lavish musicals that were taking away business. "

Nutcracker Nation invites us to think about the reasons for this ballet’s enduring appeal despite its often perilous prospects. The Nutcracker may make money for its sponsoring organizations, but the budgets increase, and in places the attendance is declining. I wonder who constitutes the " community " of The Nutcracker for companies like Boston Ballet. If Boston’s production, which each year is seen by more people than any other, can’t make enough money in the 3600-seat Wang Theatre to satisfy the Wang Center, can it pull back and still be economically viable? It’s no accident, and no disgrace, that both professional and community Nutcrackers have tapped into new audiences with small-scale touring and large-scale local participation.

Fisher describes wonderful moments of communitas that sometimes occur when a performance speaks to the experience, the longings, and the collective energy of an audience, moments that make The Nutcracker more than entertainment. Fisher herself acquired ownership through her early ballet classes and a euphoric teenage career as a Snowflake with the Louisville Ballet. Others may make the connection as production volunteers, as performers, or as witness to a single moment of beauty in one performance.

Nutcracker Nation began as a doctoral dissertation at the University of California at Irvine, and it retains a few scars from that process. But the academic conceits are mostly unobtrusive, and Fisher, who is a dance critic as well as a teacher, writes in a lively, readable prose.


Issue Date: December 5 - 11, 2003
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