Nancy is also a pianist who has performed ... movements and the musical score
move the ... nutcracker with a human-like head to his goddaughter, Clara.
Grand Rapids Ballet | Terzes Photography
GRAND RAPIDS BALLET
THE NUTCRACKER
with the
Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra
is a publication of Kalamazoo RESA’s Education for the Arts, Aesthetic Education Program
Windows on the Work Committee Editor: Window Narrator Research: Contributors
Design:
Nick Mahmat Nancy Husk Nancy Husk Michele VanderBeek Grand Rapids Ballet Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra Miller Auditorium
Nick Mahmat
Education for the Arts Director: Bryan Zocher Director’s Secretary: Kris DeRyder Coordinator: Deb Strickland Aesthetic Education Program Coordinator: Nick Mahmat Alternative and Special Education Arts Initiative Program Coordinator: Angie Melvin Comments or questions about this publication may be directed to Nick Mahmat, Aesthetic Education Program Coordinator at 488-6267 or
[email protected]
WINDOW NARRATOR, NANCY HUSK, is retired from teaching general and choral music in Gull Lake Community Schools. In that role she served as vocal director for three Gull Lake schoolcommunity musicals. From 2001 – 2009 she coordinated Aesthetic Education at Ryan Intermediate School. Durring several of her years at Ryan all classrooms within the school were participating in the Aesthetic Education Program. Nancy is also a pianist who has performed chamber music and accompanied instrumentalists and choirs in Southwest Michigan. She has a Bachelors of Music Education from Indiana University and an M.A. from WMU.
Strategies for using the Window on the Work Purpose The purpose of the Window on the Work is to provide educators and teaching artists with contextual information pertaining to the focus works presented by the Education for the Arts Aesthetic Education Program. This information can fuel the educational process between educators and teaching artists in developing lesson plans and can offer additional pathways (windows) into the repertory and possible connections to existing school curriculum. There are several ways that the information may be shared. For instance: • • Each educator reads a section and reports back to the school team in the planning process • Questions are brainstormed about the work of art and then researched by the educators • Additional resources are identified for further investigation
In the planning process, use the Window on the Work:
During the unit of study, use the Window on the Work:
After the unit of study, use the Window on the Work:
• To brainstorm themes for study development • As a reference tool as questions and interests develop in the planning session • To elaborate and expand the instructional focus that has developed out of the planning process • To learn more about the work of art • To consider possible responses to the question pages as the Window is read • To discover connections to other work by the same artists and to other works in the same genre
• To expand on a lesson idea • As a reference to respond to students’ questions • To keep the discussion about the work alive in the classroom • For source material such as artist quotes or background information that may be utilized when incorporating contextual information experientially into a workshop. • To discover additional connections
• To continue discussion about the work • To compare to other works of art the class may study in the future • To expand curriculum study in the classroom on a particular culture, period in history, etc. • As a jumping-off point to make connections with other classroom activities, personal connections, and courses of study
Windows on the Work are written for Classroom Teachers and Teaching Artists working in the Aesthetic Education Program and as such are not written or intended for a student audience. The Window on the Work publications should be used for planning purposes and should not be shared with students prior to attending the work of art under study.
The Work
The Work
The following section contains information on the Grand Rapids Ballet’s production of the Nutcracker featuring the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra. Please consider the following questions as you view and read about the work. They may also serve as helpful discussion questions with students during workshops or after viewing the performance. •
What do you notice about the performance?
•
What elements make up the performance?
•
What do you notice about the dancer’s movements?
•
What do you notice about the music of the Nutcracker? Describe the music.
•
The Nutcracker is a story ballet meaning it follows a narrative. How do the dancer’s movements and the musical score move the story forward?
These performances are supported in part by the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs and the Michigan Humanities Council.
A performance of the full ballet takes 85 to 90 minutes; EFA’s student shows will omit sections for a 55-minute performance.
The Work
Grand Rapids Ballet | Photographer: Chris Clark
The Nutcracker, Op. 71, first performed in 1892, is a two-act story ballet based on E.T.A. Hoffman’s story “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” adapted by Alexander Dumas (author of The Three Musketeers). The music is by the Russian romantic composer, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The Kalamazoo performance will be a collaboration between the Grand Rapids Ballet Company and the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra directed by Raymond Harvey.
THE NUTCRACKER THE STORY A fter an introductory Miniature Overture, a Christmas tree is decorated and lit on Christmas Eve. A march is played, the children enter and dance, and the parents enter and dance. A mysterious toy maker, clockmaker, and magician, Herr Drosselmeyer arrives. He gives a small traditional Russian nutcracker with a human-like head to his goddaughter, Clara. Clara’s envious brother, Fritz, almost immediately breaks the Nutcracker which Drosselmeyer repairs with a magic handkerchief. After everyone has gone to bed, Clara sneaks back to the tree, falling asleep with the Nutcracker in her arms.
As the clock strikes midnight, the tree grows taller and taller, the Nutcracker becomes life-sized, and a mouse army fills the room. The toys around the tree come to life and an army of Gingerbread men does battle with the mice, who proceed to eat them. When the mice advance on a wounded Nutcracker, Clara hits the Mouse King with her shoe. With the mouse army defeated, the Nutcracker changes into a handsome prince who leads Clara through a moonlit pine forest where dancing snowflakes welcome them. Act II opens in the Land of Sweets where the Prince and Clara are greeted by the Sugar Plum Fairy and entertained by troupes of dancers – Spanish, Arabian, Chinese, Russian, Reed-pipes, and Clowns. The entertainment concludes with the Waltz of the Flowers followed by a closing pas de deux (slow ballet duet) danced by the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier. A final waltz by all the dancers finishes with the crowning of Clara and her Nutcracker prince.
The Work
The Overture The first melody (A section) starts with a jagged accented rhythm that smooths out in an answering finish. It moves from one instrument part to another, from high to lower and back. There are variations or slight changes in the theme at times, but it is always there. The B section’s melody is a lovely legato (smooth) line which begins by ascending and descending. The end of the B section sounds like the end of the piece. It is not. The A and B sections are repeated in their entirety (ABAB binary form). The only percussion is a triangle.
THE MUSIC
"What people might not realize when they hear the overture, which is so very famous, is that Tchaikovsky cut the legs of the orchestra off. Not only is there no brass playing—there are no bassoons. There are no cellos. There are no double basses. Bass line is played by the viola. The whole thing is like the top of the Christmas tree. I tried to think of any composer who did anything like that before. It's only in two or three pieces of Tchaikovsky, where he simply played everything at the treble."
Conductor Simon Rattle commenting on a 2009 recording of the ballet by the Berlin Philharmonic
The Christmas Tree This piece uses sound effects (gunshots and a trombone slide). It is less formally structured to move the narrative forward.
The March The theme (A) is first played by clarinets, horns, and trumpets with a triplet figure that sounds like a military flourish. The winds’ phrases are answered by string phrases, a typical orchestration device. The accompaniment is pizzicato (plucked) cellos and double basses, a typical Tchaikovsky effect. The middle section’s staccato (separated), running theme (C) is played by three flutes and a clarinet. The form is ABACABA, rondo form.
The Children’s Gallop and Dance of the Parents
The Music
The two parts are contrasts with an ending dance. The Gallop is presto (very fast) with dotted (uneven) rhythms in duple (2-beat) time. The Dance is andante (walking speed) with even rhythms in triple (3-beat) time. The section ends with dance music more similar to the Gallop although it is allegro (fast) in 6/8 time (2 groups of 3).
The Work
Dance Scene: Arrival of Drosselmeyer and Distribution of Gifts The opening phrases are in the low brass and with the viola. The music changes to move the narrative forward with changes in theme, tempo (speed of the beat), and instruments seven times and with more low instruments than in previous pieces. A low clarinet solo introduces a waltz tempo (3-beat groups; fast) followed by strings. A bassoon theme leads to a final presto (very fast) gypsy-like theme. Grand Rapids Ballet | Photographer: Chris Clark
Dance Scene and Grandfather Dance The scene begins with legato violins in what sounds like a pleading theme over a busy viola. A duple meter (2beat) simple folk-like melody in the strings is repeated with changing effects to match the narrative. Percussion and trumpet sound effects are added at times. The Grandfather Dance is a gentle waltz alternating with a busy Russian folk-like melody in two.
Scene with Clara and the Nutcracker
The Music
The opening melody is simple. The harp gives the beginning a dream-like quality. A lovely English horn solo echoes the melody. Suddenly the music awakens with harp flourishes, bird-like flute melodies, and a triangle sounding the hour of midnight. This is the music during which the Christmas tree grows. Dynamics (volume), register (high and low), and texture (thickness created by the number of different instrument parts) grow with the repetition of simple phrases in a variety of instruments. Triumphant music with the full orchestra ends the scene.
Grand Rapids Ballet | Photographer: Chris Clark
The Work
The Battle The battle is created musically with the repetition of short phrases echoing frantically throughout the orchestra. Special effects create the chaos of battle: percussion, gunshot (rim shot on the snare drum), the screams of flutes, the call of trumpets, a cannon, snare drum, and gong. All the activity gets higher and higher as it nears the climax. The music resolves into a low and slow stop to the battle.
Scene: A Pine Forest in Winter The scene begins with a quiet horn melody in slow triple (3-beat) meter answered by the strings. The harp plays underneath, again giving a dream-like quality to the scene. Triumphant brass create a thicker texture with percussion added, reminiscent of the 1812 Overture. The music recedes to a quiet ending.
Grand Rapids Ballet | Terzes Photography
Waltz of the Snowflakes
The Music
Offstage voices, originally scored for boy choir, double the violins’ melody. Tchaikovsky uses hemiola (a simultaneous combination of three against two), in this case a melody in three half notes against an accompaniment in three quarter notes. “The extremes of speed, timbre, dynamics and pitch, coupled with frequent caesuras (sudden stops) make metre (grouping of beats) in the introduction almost imperceptible.”
Chocolate (Spanish Dance) The Work
In the A section a trumpet plays a characteristically Spanish melody. Flutes and woodwinds repeat it.
The B section showcases strings with castanets and is repeated with the thicker texture of full orchestra. Both themes use hemiola again to create a sense of gracefulness.
Photographer: Chris Clark
Coffee (Arabian Dance) The low strings play an ostinato (repeated pattern) throughout this modal piece, lending it a peaceful sense of legato. The melody moves between English horn supported by clarinet and the high strings.
Tea (Chinese Dance) In this dance, the two bassoons play an ostinato throughout with the two clarinets and bass clarinet thickening it in the second half. The melody alternates between very high flute and pizzicato (plucked) strings.
The Chinese Dance performed by the Grand Rapids Ballet
Trepak (Russian Dance) Dance of the Reed-Pipes (or Reed-Flutes) A flute trio plays the theme over pizzicato (plucked) low strings. After an interlude featuring the English horn, the repeat of the theme is thickened with the accompaniment of middle instruments. A B section is played by brass and strings. The final form is AABA.
The Music
This dance is in AABA form, presto (very fast) tempo. It is in duple meter (groups of 2 beats). This dance is based on Ukrainian folk melodies and a Ukrainian folk dance from an area that was settled by Cossacks. Some choreographers use traditional Cossack movements. Others borrow from the troika (meaning literally three horses), which was traditionally danced by two women and one man or, eventually, three women. Its movements are intended to simulate the movements of horses.
The Work
Mother Gigogne and the Clowns (Mother Ginger and Her Children or Dance of the Clowns) This dance begins with full orchestra in a folklike simple tune featuring tambourine rhythms. The A section is repeated with added brass and higher strings creating more sparkle. A B section played by woodwinds provides a more subdued contrast. The A section returns with brass and strings. A trio section in 6/8 is particularly clown-like when the strings pluck the melody in the second part. An extension of the trio melody is played over dissonant low accompaniment, adding to the clownish character. The repeated A section returns followed by a coda featuring brass in a circus-band sound. The whole form is: AABACAA coda
Waltz of the Flowers The form is intro AABBAA CCDC AABBAA coda. (A coda is an extended ending). The intro features harp, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons followed by a harp cadenza (an opportunity to show off the instrument). The A melody is played by horns over plucked strings answered by clarinet. B’s melody is played by strings and answered by flutes. The C section features flutes and strings with triangle adding sparkle. The D section contrasts with a low minor melody played by cellos. The coda creates increased intensity with full orchestra and faster repetition of phrases.
Tarantella The second part of a pas de deux is a solo for the male dancer. This tarantella, from Italian folk dances in 6/8, is fast and allows the dancer to show off leaps and jumps. Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy The third part is a solo by the prima ballerina and is slower to show off her balance, line and en pointe (on her toes) work. This dance is known for Tchaikovsky’s use of the celesta. The overall form is ABA and the melody is very chromatic (moves by half-steps). Coda The final part brings the two dancers back together in a fast section of duet dancing.
Final Waltz and Apotheosis The last dance, led by Clara and her Nutcracker Prince, features strings and woodwinds in the A and B sections with a quieter C section played at first by woodwinds and then later by quiet brass. The D section features celesta and harp supplemented by piccolo and flute on the repeat. The entire structure is AABBAACCDDCCAA coda. An apotheosis is a final glorification of the artwork. Both The Nutcracker and Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty ballet end with an apotheosis. In this case, quieter woodwinds begin a simple, slower theme over celesta and harp arpeggios (broken chords) which grow into grand chords throughout the orchestra over dramatic string tremolos.
Intrada (Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier) The first part of a pas de deux (dance for two) is traditionally danced by the prima ballerina and her partner. Tchaikovsky uses a harp introduction. The A melody is played by cellos on a single descending scale from which he creates a melancholic melody. It is repeated by high woodwinds and then the full orchestra with strings on melody. The short B section features solo woodwinds followed by strings and then added drama with the addition of brass. The A section returns with full orchestra, and a coda features harp and tremolo strings (sounds like trembling).
Photographer: Chris Clark
The Music
Pas de Deux
The Artists
The Artists
The following section contains information about the artists who are part of The Nutcracker.You may wish to consider the following questions as you read along. •
Who are the artists involved in this specific production of The Nutcracker?
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What is known of their background?
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How do these artists describe their approach to this work?
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893) The Artists
T
Tchaikovsky as a teenaged law student
Tchaikovsky and his wife Antonina Miliukova during their honeymoon in 1877
chaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, Russia, 630 miles east of Moscow. He showed an early talent for piano, at age eight outplaying his teacher after three years of study. His family encouraged his musical development but was concerned that, as a musician, he would become little more than a peasant in tsarist Russia. Instead they enrolled 12-year-old Peter at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence in St. Petersburg to study law for an eventual career as a civil servant. His mother died two years later. Tchaikovsky called her death “the crucial event” that ultimately shaped his life. While away at school, Peter continued piano lessons and attended concerts in the capital city, but at age 19 he graduated and began a 3-year career in the Ministry of Justice. Tchaikovsky was 21 when Tsar Alexander II freed the Russian serfs (1861) initiating a new movement to Westernize Russia. Russian musicians were divided between those who continued to adhere to traditional Russian music with its static harmonies and repetition and those attracted to Western forms and technique. Among the latter was Anton Rubinstein, founder of the Conservatory of St. Petersburg. He patterned it after Mendelssohn’s Conservatory at Leipzig (Germany), emphasizing training and technique rather than catering to upper-class dilettantes. Tchaikovsky enrolled in Rubenstein’s first class and became Russia’s first native-trained professional composer. When Tchaikovsky finished his three years of training, Anton recommended him to his brother, pianist Nicholas Rubenstein, who had founded the Conservatory of Moscow. It became Tchaikovsky’s home base for the next 12 years as he taught harmony and traveled throughout Europe as a music critic, composing as he had
time. During this period he wrote a variety of short pieces for piano and songs for voice, three string quartets, three symphonies for orchestra, four operas, his famous Piano Concerto No. 1, and his first ballet, Swan Lake. In 1877, at the age of 37, Tchaikovsky married a former student, Antonina Miliukova, and within 2½ months left her, deeply depressed that he had made a terrible mistake. They never reunited nor divorced. Shortly after his separation he was offered a commission by the widow of a Russian railway tycoon, Nadezhda von Meck. Liking his music, she became his patron under the unusual condition that they never meet. They began instead a 13-year correspondence of over 1,000 letters during which time she supported him with 6,000 rubles a year. During those 13 years, Tchaikovsky wandered all over Europe and rural Russia, never staying long in one place and always composing and eventually conducting. One biographer states: “Thanks in large part to Nadezhda von Meck, he became the first fulltime professional Russian composer”. In 1880 Tsar Alexander II commissioned a piece for his silver jubilee, and Tchaikovsky produced the 1812 Overture. In the late 1880s the tsar’s son Alexander III honored Tchaikovsky with an annual pension which gave him even more financial security. Meanwhile, he was becoming well-loved in Europe and more popular in Russia thanks to the tsar’s patronage. Overcoming life-long stage fright, he began more conducting to promote his and other Russian music. After the success of his second ballet, Sleeping Beauty, in 1890, Tchaikovsky was asked by the director of the Imperial Theater to compose both an opera and a ballet to be performed in
TCHAIKOVSKY’S INFLUENCES AND LEGACY Due to his training at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and his travels, Tchaikovsky was an admirer of German composers. He sought to please his audiences as did Mozart and Mendelssohn. Robert Schumann was perhaps his greatest contemporary influence on Tchaikovsky’s formal structuring of his music and his harmonies. His use of the orchestra’s instruments was likely influenced by Liszt and Wagner. He attributed Beethoven, Mozart, and his Russian predecessor, Glinka, as inspirations for his work. Always Russian traditional and folk music influenced him despite his Western training. He wrote: “I grew up in a quiet spot and was saturated from earliest childhood with the wonderful beauty of Russian popular song. I am therefore passionately devoted to every expression of the Russian spirit. In short, I am a Russian through and through!”
Tchaikovsky three months after The Nutcracker’s premiere
A year after the first performance of The Nutcracker, Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere of his Sixth Symphony in St. Petersburg. Within days of the concert, having been warned that cholera was prevalent in the capital city, he drank a glass of unboiled water. He contracted the disease which killed his mother and died within the week. There has always been speculation that drinking the unboiled water was intentional suicide, the final act of a man who suffered deep depression and self-doubt. He is buried in St. Petersburg among other famous Russian composers.
Marius Petipa (1818 - 1910)
A French ballet dancer, teacher, and choreographer, Petipa is considered by many to have been the most influential ballet choreographer that has ever lived. He created over 50 ballets including Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker. From 1871 through 1903 he was the ballet master
Tchaikovsky mentored the teenaged Sergei Rachmaninoff, commissioning him to write a piano arrangement of
the Sleeping Beauty suite. Tchaikovsky’s lyricism and rich orchestrations can be heard in Rachmaninoff’s style. Passionately devoted to beautiful melodies and captivating orchestrations, Tchaikovsky was dismissed by many 20th century critics as a shallow Romantic. Donald Grout, for instance, in his A History of Western Music states: “Tchaikovsky is at his best in less pretentious music (than his symphonies), particularly his ballets Swan Lake (1876), The Sleeping Beauty (1890), and The Nutcracker (1892).” Tchaikovsky’s Russian successor, Igor Stravinsky, however, enthusiastically embraced Tchaikovsky’s music. “He was the most Russian of us all!” Stravinsky’s own 1922 ballet The Fairy’s Kiss he said was “inspired by the Muse of Tchaikovsky.” Tchaikovsky is being revived as well in the 21st century. “We have acquired a different view of Romantic ‘excess,’” cultural commentator Joseph Horowitz says. “Tchaikovsky is today more admired than deplored for his emotional frankness; if his music seems harried and insecure, so are we all.”
at St. Petersburg’s Imperial Theatres, in charge of choreographing, teaching, rehearsing, and staging ballets. Of his many ballets, The Sleeping Beauty is thought to be Petipa’s “most opulent surviving work.” The director of the Imperial Theatres originated the scenario for The Sleeping Beauty, and “Petipa gave his composer, Tchaikovsky, detailed instructions about the type of music he wished, virtually measure by measure for the entire duration of the ballet . . . Tchaikovsky regarded them (the specifications) as challenges and composed one of ballet’s greatest scores.” Petipa also sketched The Nutcracker in detail for Tchaikovsky, overseeing his assistant, Lev Ivanov, in the actual choreography. Ivanov was a very talented choreographer but was said to be a bit too laid back and was forever in the Petipa’s shadow. Ivanov “occasionally choreographed scenes for which Petipa took credit. No one knows how good a
choreographer he might have been had he been more assertive, but there is no question that he possessed genius because he choreographed The Nutcracker and parts of Swan Lake.”
The Artists
the same program. He collaborated with Sleeping Beauty’s choreographer, Marius Petipa, who chose Hoffman’s story of The Nutcracker. Tchaikovsky sketched the ballet between February and June, 1891, and completed the orchestration during the winter of 1892. He interrupted his work to make a successful tour of America, conducting one of his works at the opening of Carnegie Hall in New York City.
The Artists
GRAND RAPIDS BALLET COMPANY Celebrating its 41st season, the Grand Rapids Ballet Company (GRBC) is committed to lifting the human spirit through the art of dance. A proud recipient of the ArtServe Michigan Governor’s Arts Award for Outstanding Cultural Organization, Michigan’s only professional ballet company has a rich history marked by steady growth, a commitment to excellence, and strong community support.
The children in this production include dancers from the Grand Rapids Ballet Junior Company and auditioned dancers both younger than 10 (the Company’s minimum age) and older. They also include dancers from Kalamazoo. The children’s cast for the Grand Rapids Ballet Nutcracker performance began rehearsals midSeptember for an hour-anda-half one day a week. They will play mice, soldiers, and angels.
The School of the Grand Rapids Ballet has provided top quality training and performance opportunities to aspiring dancers for years. New last year was the formation of a Junior Company. Previously known as Junior and Senior Trainees, these students will form one Junior Company under GRBC’s Professional Company. Students age 9 to 18 audition to be part of this Company and enjoy the thrill of performing in their own productions and alongside Company dancers. The School of GRBC has an enrollment of over 200 students taught by instructors from professional dance backgrounds; more than 1,500 students receive free introductory classes through the Dance Immersion program; and the educational programs GRBC offers to the community are outstanding ways to foster the connection between the arts and education. Currently GRB is busy rehearsing and preparing for their performance of Sleeping Beauty in October. As soon as this performance comes to a close, the company will begin rehearsals for The Nutcracker. The company will rehearse for about a month from November until December. They will rehearse Monday through Friday with some Saturday rehearsals. Two weeks prior to their first performance, the full cast: Company, Junior Company, and Children’s Cast will rehearse the party scene/ Act I every evening for two weeks before the opening performance, since that is when the children are available to rehearse. Each role in the performance, ranging from the professionals through the children’s cast, are double cast, so each performance will rotate between different dancers who have learned those particular parts. Two weeks prior to the performance, GRB will rehearse on their own stage, and the final week before the performance, the full cast will rehearse on the stage at DeVos.
The Artists
PATRICIA BARKER, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Patricia Barker, former principal dancer with Pacific Northwest Ballet, is considered one of the world’s most gifted ballerinas. She received her early ballet training from Lynne Williams in Richland, WA, studied on scholarship both at Boston Ballet School with E. Virginia Williams and Violette Verdi and Pacific Northwest Ballet School with Francia Russell, Perry Brunson and Janet Reed. Ms. Barker has danced in many of the great full length ballets and contemporary works from renowned choreographers. She performed with Pacific Northwest Ballet extensively throughout Europe, Asia, Australia and North America. She appeared as a guest artist with national and international ballet companies and performed in many galas throughout the world. Ms. Barker danced the lead role of Clara in Nutcracker the Motion Picture, and starred as Titania in the BBC’s film, A Midsummer Night’s Dream in a celebratory re-opening of the Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London. She graced the covers of Dance Magazine, Danser, Pointe Magazine, Dance Australia, Dance Teacher, Dance Pages, Ballet Review and Dance International. She stages, rehearses and coaches ballets for professional companies including staging works for the Balanchine Trust on the Slovak National Ballet and the Hungarian National Ballet. In her role as Artistic Advisor for the Slovak National Ballet, she also advised on programming and fund raising. Ms. Barker is a judge for international ballet competitions and teaches at nationally renowned ballet schools. She collaborated with Freed of London, producing an instructional video answering dancers’ most frequently asked questions about the art of wearing Pointe shoes. As a member of the artistic team of Broadway Bound, she choreographed full scale productions performed by children between the ages of 5 to 18.
KALAMAZOO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
CONCERT CONVENTIONS FROM THE KALAMAZOO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA We love to hear the lobby “buzz” before and after the concert. So, please limit your conversations to before or after the music. Oh, and anything that makes unwanted noise should be left at home or silenced. This includes: cell phones, pagers, wrist watches, crinkly candy wrappers, baby monitors, children under the age of two, most pets, and some distant relatives. Most people applaud a performer to express their awe and appreciation for the performance. So, whenever so moved, please applaud. However, it may benefit your relationship to the loved one next to you to know that most symphony-goers feel bound to an unwritten contract to applaud only at the end of the entire musical work. For example, in a four movement work, people actually wait until the end of the fourth movement to applaud. But, they generally make up for lost applause by applauding a really long time. How long? Long enough for the conductor to bow, shake hands with some musicians, walk off the stage, pause, come back on the stage, invite the orchestra to stand, bow, shake hands with some musicians, and walk off again. So, when not wanting to totally embarrass your evening’s companion, wait until others applaud, then follow their lead.
Founded in 1921, the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra is Southwest Michigan’s premier musical organization, providing musical enrichment to over 80,000 adults and youth per year. The KSO offers a variety of concerts focused on symphonic masterworks, classic rock and popular music, a featured composer, chamber music, and music for children. The third-largest professional orchestra in the state, the KSO has won numerous awards and grants, including the Met Life Award for Arts Access in Underserved Communities, a major Ford Foundation grant to found its innovative Artist-in-Residence program, and repeated recognition from the National Endowment for the Arts for its extensive education programs which last year reached over 50,000 students from 190 schools in eight counties.
RAYMOND HARVEY, CONDUCTOR
With an immediately noticeable style that has been described as “elegant, but suffused with energy,” Raymond Harvey has garnered critical acclaim on symphonic podiums throughout the U.S. Currently Music Director of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, Dr. Harvey has also been Music Director of the Springfield (MA) Symphony and the Fresno Philharmonic. He has appeared as guest conductor with many of the country’s leading orchestras, including those of Philadelphia, Atlanta, St. Louis, Utah, Indianapolis, Rochester, Buffalo, Detroit, Louisville, New Orleans, and San Antonio, as well as the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts and the Boston Pops.
Equally at home in the world of opera, Mr. Harvey served for 15 years as Artistic Director and Music Director of the El Paso Opera in Texas. Among the many productions he has conducted are Carmen, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, La Boheme, Turandot, Aida, La Traviata, Romeo and Juliet, Cavalleria Rusticana, Pagliacci, and Don Giovanni. Other engagements include the Houston Grand Opera, Indianapolis Opera, and the Texas Opera Theater. Also recognized as an outstanding pianist, choral conductor, and teacher, Raymond Harvey holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Yale School of Music. He has been featured in Ebony and Symphony magazines and is profiled in the book “Black Conductors” by Antoinette Handy.
The Craft The Craft What is an artist’s craft? How does one describe their artistic process, approach, or the purpose of their work? The following section explores questions that relate to the craft of The Nutcracker. You may wish to consider the following questions as you read. • How does one become a dancer? What skills are needed? • How do artists collaborate to create complex, multidisciplinary work? • What are some of the compositional and instrumental choices made by Tchaikovsky specific to The Nutcracker? • What are some basic ballet terms and what do they mean?
The Craft
SO YOU WANT TO DANCE . . . In the words of the famous choreographer, George Balanchine, “One is born to be a great dancer. No teacher can work miracles, nor will years of training make a good dancer of an untalented pupil. One may be able to acquire a certain technical facility, but no one can ever ‘acquire an exceptional talent.’ . . . The ballet is theater, and theater is the magic world of illusions. As long as the sweat of class is evident on the stage, illusion is defeated.”
T
he age that training starts varies from dancer to dancer, but typically a girl will begin her ballet training between the ages of three and six years old. Early classes introduce some of the basic dance steps, positions of the feet, positions of the arms, and ballet terminology in a fun, creative way. Once dancers are about eight years old, the training becomes a bit more tedious. Dancers are expected to learn more ballet technique and execute it correctly. Around the age of eleven or twelve, many girls will begin pointe lessons. There is no exact starting age for lessons, but dancers’ foot bones need to be mature and their muscles sufficiently strong. Training continues until a girl is in her late teenage years. She then auditions and applies to a ballet school or sometimes auditions directly for a company. After further training in a ballet school or being accepted in a company, a dancer will typically apprentice with the company for a year or two before actually becoming a company member. The amount of time apprenticing varies dancer by dancer and company by company. Once in the company, if her technical ability enhances her natural ability, a dancer may progress from dancing in the corps to being prima ballerina or principal dancer.
For lead male dancers, the process can be a bit different. Although some male dancers start ballet classes at a young age and continue through their teenage years until auditioning and getting into a ballet school or company, some do not even start ballet until their early to mid-teenage years. After sufficient training they, like their female counterparts, audition for ballet school or a company, eventually apprentice with a company and progress possibly to the role of principal dancer.
A DANCER’S DAY
Dancers, like athletes, need to alternate activity and rest and, like athletes, never stop training. A typical performance day might look like this . . . • an hour-and-a-half ballet class in the later morning, • a two-and-a-half hour rehearsal period, • a rest break for three-and-a-half hours, • a warm-up for a half hour, • a half-an-hour to prepare their hair and make-up, and get into their costumes. The last few minutes before curtain, dancers may go onstage for a final practice, or they may run through a complex pas de deux with a partner. Then the curtain rises, the performance begins, and two-and-a-half hours later the curtain comes down on their long day.
F
rom the time that dancers first moved to music, music makers and dancers have adjusted to one another – speed, accents, length of phrases (musical sentences), when to begin a contrast. Ballet, as a performance art, required that all these adjustments be decided in advance. By the 19th century Romantic era, ballets incorporated another element which could be adjusted: story. Whether to use a story and which one to use is often the choreographer’s first decision as it was for The Nutcracker. Sometimes the composer collaborates on this decision. This was not the case for The Nutcracker. Tchaikovsky was told which story had been chosen. The choreographer, Marius Petipa, was used to working with staff composers who worked at his direction. Despite the fact that Tchaikovsky’s renown lent the production prestige, Petipa still functioned as maestro. Through the theatre manager who had commissioned Tchaikovsky, Petipa delivered instructions on the tempo, character, and number of beats in a section for each part of the ballet. The manager later intervened to encourage the use of more narrative sections in place of all the structured dances Petipa had conceived. Midway through composing, Tchaikovsky and Petipa, however, met and confirmed the plan for Act II, using the suggested structured dances. The decisionmaking was a dance in itself. Ballet, from composition and choreography to performance, is a malleable collaborative art. As ballet companies plan productions, they feel free to cut and paste music; reorder scenes; reconceive characters and plot; and add, subtract, or replace choreography. Once the decision is made to adhere to tradition or make major changes, each company’s production of The Nutcracker, because it is often performed annually, becomes an accretion of ideas. The Grand Rapids Ballet Company artistic director, Patricia Barker, is but the last in a line of at least six choreographers who have crafted their production. Each year new costumes and props are added, often necessitating new choreography.
Photographer: Chris Clark
BALLET: A COLLABORATIVE ACT
HOW DO TWO ORGANIZATIONS IN TWO DIFFERENT CITIES COLLABORATE?
J
ust as in Tchaikovsky’s day, the choreographer takes the lead. She chooses a recording of the ballet which has the tempi (speeds of pieces) which she likes the best. The recording is used for rehearsing the dancers and is also given to the orchestral conductor. The ballet company rehearses for weeks ahead of the performance. The orchestra rehearses just once before they come together for two joint rehearsals. What holds the dancers and the orchestra together is the conductor. Dancers stay together by listening
to the music; musicians watch the conductor. During a performance, the conductor may need to vary a prearranged tempo to match the dancers’ movements. A good ballet conductor is an expert accompanist and collaborator. Scheduling also requires collaboration. Like athletes, dancers need rest between rehearsals and performances. Their final rehearsal will end by 8:00 p.m., an early cutoff for orchestral musicians, to give dancers 12 hours rest before warming up at 8:00 a.m. for our 10:00 a.m. performance.
TCHAIKOVSKY’S STYLE Tchaikovsky’s music was particularly suited to a dramatic art-like ballet. His melodies have a yearning sound which he creates with suspensions and anticipations, which sound like the melody is leaning into itself. He uses other elements to intensify the excitement even in a non-dramatic piece like the Waltz of the Flowers. Joseph Machlis describes the piece: “The music climbs steadily from the middle register to the bright and nervous high, so that the three elements – acceleration of pace, increase in volume, and rise in pitch – reinforce one another to create the climax.”
TCHAIKOVSKY’S STYLE Tchaikovsky admittedly made musical decisions to please his audiences, relying on beautiful melody and fascinating orchestration. Like other late Romantic composers, Tchaikovsky used the orchestra for musical effects. His biographer, David Brown, states: “Tchaikovsky tends to balance timbrel extremes, matching high, delicate tones with darker, sometimes gloomier ones. The most familiar example of his extreme range of sound is in The Nutcracker.” In addition to the more traditional instruments of the orchestra, Tchaikovsky added toy instruments to the Christmas scene, offstage voices (originally boy choir) to the Waltz of the Snowflakes, the English horn (more mellow and haunting than its close relative, the oboe), and the celesta.
You ask me how I manage the instrumentation. I never compose in the abstract. I invent the musical idea and its instrumentation simultaneously.” Excerpt of a letter from Tchaikovsky to his patron, Mme. Nadezhda von Meck, widow of a Russian industrialist.
IMPORTANT INSTRUMENTS IN THE SCORE OF THE NUTCRACKER THE CELESTA
Tchaikovsky wrote to his publisher in 1891: “I have discovered a new instrument in Paris, something between a piano and a glockenspiel, with a divinely beautiful tone. I want to introduce this into the ballet.” He actually used a celesta in an opera in 1891, not wanting to be “scooped” by other composers, and then used it throughout Act II of The Nutcracker. The celesta looks like a small upright piano. Its keys are connected to hammer mechanisms similar to a piano’s, but, rather than striking strings, they strike a graduated set of steel plates
suspended over wooden resonators. It has four or five octaves of keys and a pedal which can sustain the sound. The bestknown piece for celesta is “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.”
Celesta
DID YOU KNOW?
Sometimes good music results from a bet. A friend wagered Tchaikovsky could not write a melody based solely on the notes of a scale. He did agree that the scale could be ascending or descending. The melody of the Pas de Deux’s Intrada is proof that Tchaikovsky won the bet. It is a single descending major scale, a haunting melody played initially by a cello.
An English horn shown above an oboe
A Ballet GLOSSARY Adagio: A series of very slow movements performed together to look graceful and effortless, floating. It can also mean the beginning of a pas de deux dance where a man and woman dance together, performing slow lifts, turns, and other supported steps. Allegro: Quick moving steps, often containing jumps, performed to a quick tempo of music. Allongé: To stretch, to elongate, usually referring to stretching and straightening a leg or arm. Arabesque: When one stands on one leg with the other leg extended straight back.
THE ENGLISH HORN
The English horn is a doublereed woodwind closely related to the oboe. Its pear-shaped bell (opening) produces a more covered sound than an oboe. Its greater length produces a lower sound, between the oboe’s and the bassoon’s.
Its earliest known use in an orchestra dates from 1749. Tchaikovsky also used the English horn for the “love theme” of his Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture. An English horn was used in Elton John’s Can You Feel the Love Tonight and Candle in the Wind 1997.
Attitude: The working leg is raised, bent from the knee at an angle of 90 degrees and turned out so that the knee is at the same level as the foot. This position can be done from the front, side, or back.
Battement: A French term meaning “kick.” Brisé: Quick moving step where the feet and legs beat together in a jump from 5th position to 5th position while traveling either forward or backwards. Changement: A small jump in 5th position, changing legs from front to back. Chassé: A movement where one foot moves forward and the other quickly follows behind, chasing it. Choreographer: An artist who creates dances by arranging steps to music. Choreography: The way in which dance steps are combined to create a visual expression of the music. Corps de ballet: Dancers in a ballet company that perform the group dances as opposed to solo parts.
Avant: Means forward, en avant is any step moving forward.
Croisé: A position in which the dancer’s legs appear crossed to the audience.
Balancé: A series of steps that swing in a balancing motion, often several together.
Demi-Plié: A half bend of the knees.
Ballerina: a female ballet dancer. Ballet: A classical dance form characterized by formalized steps and technique. Barre: A long, rounded piece of wood attached to the walls of a ballet studio (or on free standing supports) that dancers hold onto for support during “barre exercises.”
Demi-pointes: Rising up to the ball of your foot, not on full point of the toe shoes; means half point. Developpé: A movement in which a dancer stands in fifth position and holds the barre for support. The dancer slides one leg up the side of the other to the knee and then extends her leg as her arms are raised. The leg is held still for a moment and then lowered.
A Ballet GLOSSARY Fouetté: A whipping movement on one leg while changing the hip and upper body direction. Frappé: To strike or hit, quick action of the leg and foot. Grand Jeté en Avant: A large, horizontal jump in which the dancer splits her legs while jumping in the air and then lands on one foot. Grand Plié: A full bend of the knees. The heels are lifted when the full bend is reached (except in the second position, where they remain on the floor) and are then pushed back down to the floor as the dancer passes through a demi-plie and straightens the knees. Pantomime: A set of gestures used in ballet to tell a story, explain events, or indicate specific ideas or feelings.
Rosin: A crumbly powder that turns white and rough when the dancer steps into it. Rosin makes ballet shoes less slippery and safer for difficult and dangerous pointe work. Sur le coup de pied: In this position, the working foot is wrapped around the ankle of the other leg. Sur le coup de pied means “on the neck of the foot” in French. Spotting: A technique used by dancers to keep themselves from getting dizzy when turning. Soubresaut: Soubresaut is French for “sudden leap.” This is a jump in which the dancer both takes off from and lands in fifth position with the legs tightly crossed and feet pointed in the air.
Pirouette: A turn or a spin around on one leg done on pointe or on demi-point.
Tour en L’Aire: A jump, which involves a complete 360 degree turn or multiple turns in midair. The dancer starts in fifth position. He demi-pliés and pushes off the floor into the air and makes a complete turn (or two) before landing on the floor in fifth position demi-plié.
Pointe Shoes: A type of ballet shoe used by advanced dancers that has special reinforcements in the toe and sole so that a ballerina can stand on her toes while dancing.
Turnout: The turning out of the legs and feet from the hips. With perfect turnout, a dancer’s feet point in opposite directions from each other to form a straight line, with the heels touching.
Pas de deux: A dance performed by two people.
Pointe Work: Dancing that occurs on the tips of the toes. This is performed in pointe shoes. Positions: There are five basic feet positions in ballet and there are also five basic arm positions. Relévé: A movement in which the dancer rises to demi pointe or pointe. The dancer begins in first or fifth position and smoothly lifts both of her heels as far off the floor as she can. When she reaches the balls of her feet, she slowly goes back down and ends again in first or fifth position.
A Music GLOSSARY Accent: Emphasis using louder sound. Arpeggios: Broken chords. Coda: Extended ending. Dynamics: The use of volume of sound for expression.
Form: The arrangement of phrases (musical sentences) and sections using repetition, contrast, and variation to produce unity and create interest. Hemiola: A musical rhythm which uses 6 beats grouped so that they can be heard as three groups of two or two groups of three. Legato: Smooth. Melody: A sequence of notes forming a tune. Orchestration: The way a composer or arranger assigns musical parts to different instruments. Ostinato: A repeated rhythmic or melodic pattern. Overture: The orchestral introduction to a musical dramatic work. Phrase: A musical sentence or idea which often sounds complete by itself, usually set apart by breaths. Pizzicato: Plucked. Register: How high or low sound is. Scale: A sequence of musical notes in order from low to high or high to low within an octave (e.g. C to C). Staccato: Separated. Tempo: The speed of the beat (pl. tempi or tempos) Texture: The thickness of sound produced by the number of layers of musical lines. Tremolo: Various trembling effects which can be produced by rapidly reiterating a note or by rapidly alternating notes. Waltz: Music or a dance performed in counts of three with a strong accent on the first beat.
The Origins
The Origins The following section contains brief information pertaining to the historical context of the work.You may wish to consider the following questions as you read. • How did The Nutcracker come to be? • How did the original team of artists approach the work? • When was The Nutcracker created and what was the initial reaction to this work? • How has the production evolved over time to become a beloved holiday tradition? • What is the history of ballet?
The Origins
The Nutcracker’s Creation and Evolution Late in 1891 the director of the Imperial Theatre of St. Petersburg asked Peter Tchaikovsky to compose two large works to be performed on the same program, a ballet and an opera. On the ballet Tchaikovsky naturally collaborated with the theatre’s famed ballet master, Marius Petipa. Petipa chose Alexander Dumas’ version of E.T.A. Hoffman’s fantasy, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.” Petipa sketched the ballet in detail, specifying both tempos and the number of measures for each dance. While working on the
choreography, Petipa became ill. His long-time assistant, Lev Ivanov, finished the work. Meanwhile, Tchaikovsky sketched the music over three months in 1891 and finished the orchestration in 1892, often bridling under Petipa’s restrictions. He felt that the music was “infinitely poorer” than that of Sleeping Beauty, yet he released an orchestral suite of musical excerpts prior to the performance of the ballet. The Nutcracker and Tchaikovsky’s opera Iolanta were first performed at the Marinsky Imperial Theatre on December 17, 1892. Although Tsar Alexander III was delighted with the ballet, the audience and critics panned it. Dancers were lambasted, the choreography of the battle scene was deemed “confusing,” and the libretto was criticized for not remaining faithful to the original Hoffman tale from which Dumas had removed much of its darkness. For the most part, the music fared better. It was
TOP RIGHT Anna Pavlova BOTTOM LEFT Original set designs for the 1892 production BOTTOM RIGHT The Nutcracker picture book illustrated by Morice Sendak
described as “astonishingly rich in inspiration” and “from beginning to end, beautiful, melodious, original, and characteristic.” The Nutcracker Suite, excerpts for orchestral performance alone, became instantly popular.
continued in the repertoire of the Marinsky Theatre but was not staged in Moscow until the Bolshoi Ballet performed it in 1919. The first American performance took place Christmas Eve, 1944, danced by the San Francisco Ballet. The incomparable ballerina, Anna In 1983 Maurice Sendak, Pavlova, adapted the last two commissioned by the Pacific pieces from Act I into a ballet she Northwest Ballet, worked through called Snowflakes which she and his initial sense of The Nutcracker her company performed in America being “the most bland and banal of and Europe from 1911 until her ballets” to recapture the darkness death in 1931. The Nutcracker of Hoffman’s original tale and bring Clara into the foreground as a young woman struggling with the confusion of growing up. Sendak published his drawings of Hoffman’s original story in his 1984 The Nutcracker picture book. The Nutcracker is still not without its critics. “The tyranny of The Nutcracker is emblematic of how dull and risk-averse American ballet has become.” Thus Sarah Kaufman, dance critic of the Washington Post, castigates The Nutcracker for
“its warm and welcoming veneer.” Despite her criticism, it is probably the most popular ballet in the world, certainly in America where it has been a holiday tradition since famed choreographer George Balanchine made some revisions in 1954 for the New York City Ballet’s annual performance. Tchaikovsky wrote his patroness von Meck: “An artist should not be troubled by the indifference of his contemporaries. He should go on working and say all that he has been predestined to say. He should know that posterity alone can render a true verdict.” Obviously posterity has endorsed The Nutcracker.
The Origins
TOP LEFT AND CENTER Stanislava Belinskaya as Clara, Lydia Rubtsova as Marianna and Vassily Stukolkin as Fritz, in the original production of The Nutcracker. Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, 1892
The Origins
A HISTORY OF
BALLET
B
allet (from the Italian ballare, to dance) originated in spectaculars of music, pantomime, poetry, painted scenery, and dance interludes to entertain and involve the Italian Renaissance courts of the 1400s. Court musicians and dancers performed with courtiers joining the dancing near the end. Dances were elaborations of Italian folk and social dancing. Costumes were the clothes of the day with all their length and weight. Catherine de Medici brought ballet to France when she married Henri II in 1533. Multi-media pageants based on mythological themes entertained their court. Her son, Henri III, commissioned the first ballet for which a complete musical score survived, The Queen’s Ballet Comedy, a 5-hour extravaganza choreographed for Queen Louise and women of the court to dance. In Henry VIII’s England the masque was a similar court entertainment fostered by a king who loved dancing.
French ballet included many positions and steps used today but was limited by heavy costumes and masks and, for the women, high heels. By the end of the century, ballets had more dramatic content, lead male dancers were experimenting with leaps and jumps, and some daring ballerinas shortened their skirts to perform pirouettes. In 1796 one choreographer used invisible wires to give the dancers the illusion of flying. Ballet moved from the court to theatres and was included as an interlude in operas. In the 1800s ballet blossomed into the art-form we know today inspired by the Romantic movement’s theme of the struggle between bitter reality and the beautiful dream. Love stories, fairy tales, and folk legends were danced. Ballerina Maria Taglioni is credited with being the first to dance on her toes (en pointe) in an 1832 full-length ballet. Lightness, elevation, line, defying gravity, and extending
DID YOU KNOW? The 14-year-old king of France, Louis XIV,
received the title “Sun King” after dancing five roles in a 12-hour production by the court choreographer and composer Jean-Baptiste Lully, Ballet of the Night. In 1661 Louis XIV of France established the Royal Academy of Dance, and court dancing was replaced by professional dancers. Pierre Beauchamp, a royal choreographer, is said to have originated the five feet positions of ballet, but the dances continued to be based on social dances of the day against a backdrop of elaborate stage design. By 1700
balance were the embodiments of the Romantic ideal of overcoming human reality. The female ideal was embodied in the prima ballerina, who now dominated the ballet stage after the earlier confinement of costumes, heels, and social restraints. The tutu of classical ballet showed off the ballerina’s legwork but preserved her modesty with a wide gusset.
By the mid-1800s ballet began to lose favor in Western Europe. Its center became Russia and its Imperial theatres. Marius Petipa dominated Russian ballet from his arrival as a dancer in 1847 to his retirement as ballet master in 1903.
Petipa developed the classic ballet technique: • •
• •
•
Pliés are often used where one squats and both legs are bent at the same time. The feet and legs are turned out except when playing more unusual characters like a frog. When the feet are not on the floor, they are pointed. When the leg is not bent, it is stretched completely or put behind in a semiclassical position where the leg is slightly bent, but not completely. Posture, alignment, strength, balance, feeling and flexibility are required elements.
Ballet returned to Paris with the Ballets Russes formed from exiled Russian dancers by Sergei Diaghilev in 1909. His collaboration with Russian composer Igor Stravinsky produced the ballet standards, The Firebird and Petrushka. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, choreographed by the famed dancer Njinsky, with its portrayal of human sacrifice and modern music provoked the shocked audience to riot after its premiere. Ballet was popularized in the United States due to Russian influence. George Balanchine, a Ballet Russe dancer, founded the New York City Opera Ballet and adapted ballet to television and the movies. Another Russian dancer formed the American Ballet Theatre. American themes, however, were captured by Americans in the collaboration of composer Aaron Copland and choreographer Agnes de Mille. Jerome Robbins choreographed narrative or story ballets like Fancy Free as well as incorporating dance into popular Broadway and TV shows he produced and directed. Today ballet companies dance a variety of styles including modern dance.
BALLET’S INSPIRATIONS Although ballet steps originated in social dances, its choreography is inspired by either story, style, or music. Narrative ballet tells a story through movement, usually a story borrowed from an outside source like Hoffman’s “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.” Choreography can also be used to represent a style or place as The Nutcracker’s dances in the Land of Sweets do – Petipa and Tchaikovsky’s imagined lands of Arabia or China.
Finally choreography can be the embodiment of an abstract piece of music. Often the music chosen is no longer copyrightprotected, saving the expense of commissioning music. Unlike Petipa’s process of sketching the dance for the composer, the choreographer listens to preexisting music and decides how best to express the music through the instrument of the body.
KEEPING ON YOUR TOES
Dancing en pointe demonstrates the athleticism of ballerinas and an increasing number of male dancers as well. It originated in the Romantic ideal of overcoming human constraints and in the Romantic ballet’s supernatural female characters – fairies, spirits, and birds. The pointe shoe or toe shoe has a toe box or block, a cup-shaped front of the shoe made of burlap, canvas, or newspaper hardened with glue. The platform is the front of the shoe at the toe where dancers often cut away the satin covering to make dancing en pointe less slippery. Leather soles also help grip the floor. There is a stiff mid-sole shank of cardboard or fiberboard which supports the dancer’s foot as well. Toe shoes are short-lived. They may wear down after a few
lessons, and two pairs may be needed for a full-length performance. Because strong, developed legs and feet are required for dancing en pointe, dancers don’t begin until they are at least 11 years old.
The Origins
Petipa’s insistence of the priority of dance over music, with music serving as accompaniment to already conceived dance, led to music created by staff composers who often simply reconfigured already existing music. New productions borrowed from other composers, creating a forgettable musical pastiche. His strength was choreographing for prima ballerinas. Those roles in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty are among ballerinas’ most coveted even today. One criticism of Petipa’s choreography for The Nutcracker, however, was that the prima ballerina was not featured until the end of the ballet,
These performances are supported in part by the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs and the Michigan Humanities Council.
Education for the Arts Offices: Service Center Office: 1819 East Milham Avenue Portage, MI 49002-3035 Epic Center Office: Epic Center Suite 201 359 South Kalamazoo Mall Kalamazoo, MI 49007 Tel: 269.488.6267 www.kresa.org/efa
Kalamazoo Resa, Education for the Arts | Grand Rapids Ballet with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra: The Nutcracker | 2012-2013
