Mom! She's doing it again!

Back home for the holidays and suddenly faced with nothing to do, I'm blogging with renewed vigor. I've been stockpiling ideas for so long, I'll never get to most of them. But for once, I've decided to write about something timely: The Nutcracker.

Any dancer, current or former, will tell you that their own hometown Nutcracker is the best. I am no exception. I danced in the Robinson Ballet's annual Nutcracker for eight years and worked backstage for nearly as long. At various points, I have danced the parts of Clara, the maid, a harlequin doll, a soldier, a snowflake, a China doll, and many, many other roles. When I hear the music, I can feel the steps. Muscle memory is a grand thing. I've seen a lot of other Nutcracker performances before--some world-caliber; some less so--but none will ever measure up to the "real" one, the one that I first saw at the age of six when my dance teacher, Miss Maureen, was the Sugar Plum Fairy and I was wide-eyed with wonder.

Jennifer Fischer, a dance scholar and a former snowflake herself, examines this phenomenon in Nutcracker Nation: How an Old World Ballet Became a Christmas Tradition in the New World. The first Nutcracker in nineteenth century St. Petersburg was a spectacular failure. When it came to the United States, its popularity exploded. The New York City Ballet has undisputed possession of the most popular American version, which reached its 2000th performance just this week. But there are so many others, there is no definitive. There's the Pacific Northwest Ballet version with creepy sets by Maurice Sendak (who wrote Where the Wild Things Are). There's Mark Morris's Hard Nut, which takes place in the Swinging '60s, meaning the party guests are all stoned and dressed like Cher. In my own city, there's the Boston Ballet (traditional and flashy, with shimmering set pieces that move around without the aid of techies wearing rat masks), the José Mateo version out in Waltham (less flashy, but nevertheless very well danced), and the Urban Nutcracker (a fusion of ballet, swing, hip-hop, and tap, set to Duke Ellington's Nutcracker score). My hometown version up in Maine has a cast drawn from local dance schools, costumes sewn by parents, and set pieces built by, well, people like me.

Unable to head home this year for my own Nutcracker, I splurged for a $30 upper balcony ticket for the Boston Ballet. I was duly impressed with the pyrotechnics and the flying hot air balloon. And those techies sure know how to make good use of a scrim. The costumes glittered accordingly. But the subject I'd like to write about here is the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Boston Ballet's grand pas de deux has almost exactly the same choreography as the one I learned in partnering class in high school (likely derived from the traditional Petipa and Ivanov 1892 version from Russia). It felt like home. But I've never seen it danced with that level of technical expertise. I attended a Saturday matinée, which always means seeing the 3rd or 4th cast, so I can't imagine what I might have seen had it been a first cast. One expects nothing less than perfection from the Boston Ballet, and that afternoon's Sugar Plum Fairy, Misa Kuranaga, didn't disappoint. Having attempted these steps myself, I appreciate the skill involved in the pas de deux more than most.

But you know what, technique is only so much. Don't get me wrong; anyone worthy of wearing the pink tutu on one of those big stages works harder than anyone and has definitely earned their stripes. But the best lead performances I've ever seen have been by teenagers who have maybe half the skills of Ms. Kuranaga and and have no other option than to pour their hearts and souls into the dancing. They're good dancers, and they've worked all year for this moment. They're inexperienced, scared shitless, and energetic beyond our world. They're in love with the stage, and it shows in the joy on their faces. The Boston Ballet dancers smile appropriately, but after so many Nutcrackers over so many years, it looks like they're on autopilot. They're delicate and beautiful, but they forgot their passion back in the rehearsal studio. They can jump, but they don't fly.

The above photo (By Gary Soucy, lifted from his website) is from a Robinson Ballet performance at the Maine Center for the Arts a few years back. The dancer suspended mid-leap is 17 years old. Doesn't it look like she's having the absolute time of her life? So if you're thinking about going to see The Nutcracker this year or in the future, I recommend something that's not the Boston Ballet or the New York City Ballet or the like. Go to a performance where the audience members include the dancers' moms. Something genuine. Happy Holidays.