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Hard (Nut) Facts

I couldn’t stop thinking about hockey at the New York City Ballet’s “Nutcracker” this year, and not only because the stage appeared to be made of ice: there were a slew of spectacular falls one night I attended. Mainly, I was thinking about statistics. Hockey players are tracked in ways that are both obvious (goals, assists, saves, points, hits, penalties) and subtler (penalty infraction minutes, plus/minus, shots on goal, shorthanded goals and assists, powerplay goals and assists, game-winning goals and assists, overtime goals, game-tying goals, etc). As I sat for my second “Nutcracker” this season (I’d also brought my sons to a kiddie matinee), I was thinking of two stats in particular: games played and ice time. I realized I have no idea how many “Nuts” I’ve danced in my life—or seen—but I know it is a lot.

Robert La Fosse as Herr Drosselmeier with students from the School of American Ballet in “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker.” Photograph by Erin Baiano

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I can estimate. The NYCB puts on roughly 50 “Nut” shows every year, and in my 17-year stint there (I’m not even counting my pre-professional years of “Nuts”) I could potentially have danced 1,000 shows. (Yet I missed a few “Nut” runs for injuries, though I honestly can’t remember how many—or for how many of those breaks I was still well-enough to do the Party Scene.) Also, the “Nut” workload drastically shifts over the course of a career. In my very first “Nut” season, I danced every single performance of Snow and Flowers and half of the Party Scenes as a Parent. In hockey parlance, that’s a lot of ice time. (Thankfully, they don’t make apprentices do such a heavy lift anymore, since so many young dancers—like me—got stress fractures.) In my last “Nut” season, two months post-partum, I danced just a handful of Frau Stahlbaums in fond farewell. The most consistent role of my career was in the “Nutcracker”: Coffee. I started dancing it in my second year of Nutcrackering, and I danced it every healthy year except for my last. I became such a Coffee specialist that I probably should have become a barista. However, it’s hard to calculate how many Coffees I have danced. Maybe 100?  

My thoughts trended this way because on the evening of December 12th, I found myself entranced by how Robert LaFosse positively inhabited the role of Herr Drosselmeier. He first stepped into the part in 1993; how many Party Scenes has he seen?! His characterization is sharp and creepy, yet gleefully so. His fingers curl into balletic claws. The shot he furtively downs back by the tree during the Grandfather’s Dance shows that he’s a tad unhinged, adding danger to his clock-riding Valkyrie sequence into the Battle Scene. On the morning of December 4th, principal dancer Taylor Stanley assumed the role for the first time, and their take was decidedly dancier. They articulated their feet and lilted about, belying their youth and making for a gentler, more poetic interpretation overall. Both reads were great, but it will be interesting to see how Stanley’s approach evolves if they continue to guest-Dross after retiring their ballet slippers someday. Because, like fine wines, Drosselmeiers tend to get better as they age. LaFosse’s Drosselmeier—a masterpiece chiseled over three decades—is not to be missed. Hopefully he will haunt Marie’s Christmas Eve slumbers for many years to come. I wonder who has logged the most “Nutcrackers” in the history of the company? Surely a Drosselmeier.

Taylor Stanley as Herr Drosselmeier with students from the School of American Ballet in “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker.” Photograph by Erin Baiano

Tiler Peck is another experienced performer (in her 19th year with the company), yet her Sugarplum Fairy on the 12th was fresh. She radiantly held balances, added a double piqué turn to her finale manège, and managed to phrase her presentational passés in the middle of the fast partnered coda pirouettes from 5th position. Her less seasoned Cavalier, Roman Mejia (in his 7th year), showed no greenness as he added in a helicoptering exit at the end of his manège and a giant leap before the overhead lifts in the grand pas. Partners offstage as well as on, they excitingly egged each other on. At the kiddie matinee, Miriam Miller and Alec Knight were more cautious, and statelier. Miller sculpted big, beautiful shapes to match the majestic peaks of Tchaikovsky’s score. 

Both of the Dewdrops I saw—India Bradley and Ashley Hod—were of the coltish, laser beam variety (my favorite approach). Both cut like knives through the sumptuous, tiered-petal cake of the corps; and both displayed springy leaps even when gassed at the end. When Hod started to bourrée in the cluster at the beginning of the waltz, her thighs were so pulled up, and her vibrato so intense, that she seemed like she might achieve liftoff. Fabulous. She was a bee abuzz, anointing the blooms.              

I would love to know how many Candy Cane shows senior principal Daniel Ulbricht has logged. Talk about specializing! He has been THE Candy Cane for over 20 years, and he’s still sensational in it. The hoop dance ice time is minor, but it is jam-packed. (Though it is not as brief as the similarly explosive Soldier Doll dance, which runs less than a minute.) And Ulbricht, for all his years, still manages to do several more consecutive single jumps downstage through the hoop than his far younger peers. Though corps member Andres Zuniga’s easy doubles in the finale must be commended as well.  

Tiler Peck and Roman Mejía in “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker.” Photograph by Erin Baiano

I haven’t been following hockey that closely this season, but before attending a recent game, I could catch up by quickly consulting a few stats. Ballet does not work that way, thankfully. It is not a zero-sum game, it is an art form that builds a mood, an alternate world. And unlike in hockey, where a shoveled-in scrum goal counts as much as a finessed triple-pass goal, the how is often more important than the what. And especially during the long and repetitive “Nutcracker” season, there is usually great leeway in the how, like the varied Drosselmeier and Dewdrop shadings. I have noticed, however, that the Party Scene has gotten consistently less fun in recent years. Where Frau Stahlbaum used to skip along with her son Fritz and get caught by the guests in the London Bridge sequence, she now more primly walks and avoids the trap. Likewise, the Grandmother is no longer invited to dance by Drosselmeier during the jig repeat in the Grandfather’s Dance. These and a few other small tweaks add up, and the scene is feeling a bit stiffer overall. It was more interesting when the individual dancers could play around with whichever version they pleased in the moment. After all, you need some way to keep 50 shows a season fresh.  

Some dancers were having a very good time out there, however. Specifically, the tall guys in fat suits and drag. Gilbert Bolden III was a Mouse King with panache—adding a whimsical rond de jambe layout to his fight. And Preston Chamblee was the best Mother Ginger I’ve seen in a while. He gave hysterical Cole Escola/Mary Todd Lincoln vibes. When you’ve been around hundreds of the same “Nutcracker” production, these little liberties taken are incredibly entertaining. 

But no matter how many times I’ve seen Balanchine’s “Nutcracker,” I always discover something new. This year, I was thinking how it should be mandatory viewing for budding novelists: the story structure is so tight. Rouben Ter-Arutunian’s beautiful scrim with the angel and the star that accompanies the overture reverberates throughout the show. (And contemplating that backdrop is my favorite part of my new audience-only vantage point. What depth of field on those icy rooftops! Mark Stanley’s brilliant lighting (after Ronald Bates) catches the glitter and creates twinkling movement to match Tchaikovsky’s bright score.) Marie and the Prince close out the act by walking towards another backdrop star, the North Star, amongst the snowy pines. And as that painted angel opens Act I, the tiny angels—the youngest children in the production—open Act II, as if to signal that we’ve now entered the artwork in the fanciful second half. They are bidden across the stage by the angelic Sugarplum Fairy, whose delicate wand is a miniature shooting star. 

Tiler Peck and students of the School of American Ballet in “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker.” Photograph by Erin Baiano

It is no accident that the Sugarplum Fairy, the most senior ballerina in the show, is framed by the newest cast members. Everything in this “Nutcracker” is foreshadowed and echoed. There are baby and adult mice, kid Candy Canes and their grownup leader. At the conclusion of the Party Scene, the stage is bisected in a generational divide as the children mirror the dancing of their parents. Marie herself is doubled. Her journey to the Land of Sweets is her dream of adulthood, and the Sugarplum and Cavalier are her projection of herself and her youthful crush, Drosselmeier’s nephew. Just as that nephew/Nutcracker makes the last kid entrance in the first Act, the Cavalier makes the last entrance in the second. 

And when that great, overgrown Christmas tree’s lights finally dim, it ascends to the rafters, ceding the spotlight to the snow-covered evergreens of the living forest. Like Janus, Balanchine’s “Nutcracker” looks both forward and backward in time, onstage and off. The Sugarplum Fairy beams at her cherubic escorts and guides Marie through a roseate fantasy of the future. The children in the audience envision all the adventures they will have and all the battles they will win alongside Marie, while the adult spectators can nostalgically watch their small seatmates’ idealizations. Or they can get lost in the ghosts of their own Christmases—and perhaps “Nutcrackers”—past.

Faye Arthurs

Faye Arthurs is a former ballet dancer with New York City Ballet. She chronicled her time as a professional dancer in her blog Thoughts from the Paint. She graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in English from Fordham University. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and their sons.

comments

Rachel Howard

Inspiring!

Karen

This is such a good read, Faye. Thank you

Ed

Faye Arthurs’s description of the nuances of the party scene will enhance my appreciation of the “Nutcracker”.

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