Dance + Live Performance | Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh City Paper: The Nutcracker is a holiday tradition all over the United States, but in some countries, it's just another ballet. That was the case for fourth year Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre company member Emily Simpson, who was born in England and grew up in China and Thailand.
“I didn’t grow up with The Nutcracker at all,” says Simpson. “In China and Thailand, they don’t celebrate Christmas so my family celebrated on our own.”
4 comments:
I love The Nutcracker. I’ve seen so many different versions of the ballet and I love how every company has the artistic ability to make a change to it and adapt it to the culture of their dancers and home cities. I think that it’s so cool that they pull inspiration from Pittsburgh to create the different “worlds” that Clara travels through. How incredible that each dancer is given multiple roles. This is so unique in that most shows only have performers play one role. This must be incredibly challenging for the entire cast and crew. Working of A/B Machines, I’ve found it difficult to keep all of the costumes straight, I can’t imagine what it’s like to rotate through multiple actor and multiple versions of the same costume for such a complex ballet as The Nutcracker. I hope I’ll be able to see it one day soon. I love ballet and I think this is an unique and fun way to connect the audience to the familiar landscape and history of Pittsburgh.
I love the Nutcracker. I have loved nutcrackers since I was a toddler, but I never saw the ballet until I found a VHS of the George Balanchine version at a resale shop. I watched in on a loop, it was fascinating to me, not because of the dancing like in the Snow scene, but the pantomime of the Christmas party and Battle. Then for my birthday a year later I saw the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago. I enjoyed it even more because it was set around the Civil War and had a distinctly American flare to it. That was until it was changed into this weird version set in Chicago during the Columbian Exposition and completely changing the story, not a fan. But I love that the Pittsburgh adapts it just enough to be identifiable to the city but not so crazy it is unrecognizable as the classic Nutcracker I grew up with.
When I was younger I used to do ballet and jazz, and at the company I danced with we put on The Nutcracker every year. It is one of my favorite holiday traditions because I get to remember what it was like to be a dancer and how much I love this show. It seems silly to watch it every year but my mom and I (and sometimes my sister) will go see this show in December without fail. What I think is different about this is the number of dancers that they have and the fact that they will have ten different Maries'. Normally you have one or two of each character but PBT is casting their ballerinas in many different parts so they each have to learn multiple dances. That is super hard and I applaud the ballerinas, especially Simpson who has to learn ten parts. I think that this is an interesting idea because it allows the dancers to do a lot more, but it makes it really really difficult for them in practice.
I cannot explain how much I love The Nutcracker. Growing up in an arts school most of my life, my school did its own Nutcracker every year which I had the pleasure of working on throughout my high school career. After my time at Carnegie Mellon, I would love to work for a ballet company in their administrative/management department. I stage managed a lot of ballets throughout high school, so I saw all of the effects of the physically-demanding roles the article also touches on. Watching ballet makes it seem so effortless but in reality, as soon as they get off stage, it is imperative to have water, a towel, and maybe even a trash can waiting for them. Dancers careers are fully based on their bodies so getting roles such as the Sugar Plum Fairy makes it super important for them to be in tip-top shape, but the role itself damages their body. I applaud dancers for the toll taken on them physically and mentally for their art form and I cannot wait to experience The Nutcracker in Pittsburgh for the first time.
Post a Comment