Ballet West: The Nutcracker

The Nutcracker is as much of a holiday tradition as streaming White Christmas on Netflix. We depend on it as a marker of the season, a reason to call up favorite friends and family for a jolly holiday date. We revel in the familiarity of the story, the staging, the characters. We know what is coming next and wait with bated breath for our favorite solos. We compare this year’s show to last year’s show, or to the time when we were in it. We pick out something special to wear to the Capitol Theatre.

This is the 75th-anniversary year of Willam Christensen’s The Nutcracker. As with anything where familiarity has come to the forefront (hello, long-term relationships!), there is the danger of taking it for granted. In knowing it by heart, we don’t have to listen to the story carefully, or mine for the nuance beneath the surface. In short, we don’t really look at what’s in front of us.

It lies, then, in the performers to shock us awake. This past Saturday, at Ballet West’s The Nutcracker, I found myself longing for that soon into the first act.

Christensen’s Nutcracker, the longest-running version of the production worldwide, is heavily influenced by vaudeville, and incorporates a certain amount of shtick and comedy.  As a program note by Ballet West artistic director Adam Sklute described, this was one of the stylistic choices Christensen employed in making a “uniquely American” Nutcracker. But at times, a focus on entertaining bleeds into parody of characters, where there may otherwise be room to root them in reality.

I wondered, even while staying true to Christensen, if there was still room for a deeper sense of storytelling? A more committed research of character? An approach to a beloved performance focused not on delivering familiar high points, but on approaching the original source material with true curiosity?

And then I got my answer.

When Emily Neale took the stage for the Arabian dance, she shook me awake. Through every languid extension and elastic suspension, she exuded seductive, exotic energy. Her gaze confident and a bit playful, she fully embodied, rather than just portrayed, the role. Together with partner Dominic Ballard, she renewed the infamous duet. I felt like I’d never seen it before. It felt gutsy and alive.

I became immediately aware that this difference was a crucial factor in my experience, as I noticed it in other places. The moments in which dancers risked taking a role dead-seriously, theatrically diving in head first, popped out like bolded font. As the Nutcracker Prince, Kyle Davis brought such grounded and calm energy that, in the brief moment he took to the center, the audience went quiet. Hadriel Diniz, Amber Miller, and Gabrielle Salvatto let the rhythm of the Spanish dance flavor their every step, bringing with each leap and turn the full emotion of a foreign land. In committing like this, they honored their characters.

I know, I’m not mentioning the obvious technical prowess inherent in pulling off a flawless Nutcracker, but when we are in a long-term relationship, it just takes more to get us flushed. This show has stood the test of time as communities across the country refuse to live without it. The gorgeous trappings of sparkly colorful costumes, whimsical sets, and promising young talent cannot help but bring Christmas cheer. But what’s underneath is also for the taking.

There is a chance to reconnect with The Nutcracker on a deeper, more meaningful level. It lies in the performers giving the ballet’s characters their due emotional weight. It’s in the subtle moments of pantomime at the party, in the delicacy of the Snow Queen, in Drosselmeyer believing he can conjure magic. It cannot be layered on top of choreography but instead has to inform it from its roots. This ballet is dance theater, after all - the storytelling is as paramount as the pirouettes. 

Ballet West’s The Nutcracker continues through Thursday, December 26, at the Janet Quinney Lawson Capitol Theatre. 

Emeri Fetzer is a dancer and communications specialist. She works at the University of Utah, performs with Phantom Limb Company, and is looking forward to developing new choreography in the coming year. 

Ballet West: Balanchine's Ballets Russes

For the premiere of its 56th season, Ballet West is presenting a mammoth historic revival that also offers - and asks of audiences - something acutely new and different. Assembled for the 110th anniversary of the iconic and incomparable company the Ballets Russes, the bill includes three of George Balanchine’s oldest works, created during the years he spent experimenting with the Ballets Russes under the direction of Sergei Diaghilev: Le Chant du Rossignol, Apollo, and The Prodigal Son. 

The production, Balanchine’s Ballets Russes, is an impressive window to the inception of tools, images, and themes Balanchine would carry into the work he did throughout his lifetime. All of the flexion, angularity, layering of bodies, and familiar archetypes were evidently present even then, as were the first inklings of an ethos that would someday define an entirely new approach to ballet. These three one-act ballets are also an incredible view into the rich collaborative relationships fostered by the Ballets Russes, with opulent intricate costumes designed by Henri Matisse and Georges Rouault and scores by Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Prokofiev. 

Ballet West’s casting for each ballet was gorgeous and precise. I especially enjoyed Adrian Fry, Katie Critchlow, Sayaka Ohtaki, and Beckanne Sisk in Apollo, and Hadriel Diniz opposite Katlyn Addison’s steely, nuanced Siren in The Prodigal Son. 

The three ballets were presented sequentially, in the order of their creation dates, which allowed the audience to trace the progressing results of Balanchine’s experimentation and collaboration. While each ballet was a stunning and cohesive achievement in its own right, each is now also made exponentially more powerful and relevant both through juxtaposition and a new ethos of presentation. 

The sparks that made this program truly noteworthy were fueled by its endeavor to be not just a series of beautiful ballets rich in legacy and refined in craft but also an ambitious, eye-opening, and socially conscious course of study. 

A bulk of this attention fell to the revival of Le Chant du Rossignol. Bringing back this lost piece of history demanded a precise and nuanced balancing act to recover its essential charm and beauty, as well as demonstrate its influence as Balanchine’s first ever work for the Ballets Russes – without the undertones of racist exoticism that infused the original. 

Addressing the racial and cultural issues at play with even more up-front and earnest clarity than during the redux of The Nutcracker’s Chinese divertissement last year, Ballet West took an approach involving partnerships with multiple specialist and community collaborators to effect this modernized revival. The process was three-fold: a project of in-depth research and dialogue; concrete changes made in response to that work; and a campaign to provide enrichment, transparency, and accessibility for audiences. 

Following extensive research done by the restaging team of Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer, who recovered existing knowledge of the original production, Ballet West invited leaders of the Asian American community, including Phil Chan, of the organization Final Bow for Yellow Face, and local arts advocate Max Chang, into the rehearsal process to begin a dialogue and develop a path forward. This was followed by further discussions with and feedback from local schools and the general public, prior to opening weekend. 

It was wonderful to see Ballet West show up for this challenging, complex, and necessary conversation. It is also of utmost importance to note that Ballet West is responding to a pressure and cultural shift in the landscape that has been ongoing for some time now. The momentum begun and directed by dancers of color like Chan and his partner at Final Bow for Yellow Face, the New York City Ballet dancer Georgina Pazcoguin, may be attributed to the force now pushing companies across the country to expel outdated, harmful, or appropriative choreography in recent years. Final Bow’s website features a slew of information and resources for dancemakers looking to make more responsible choices and a pledge “committing [the signer] to speak up against Yellowface on our stages, and work[ing] to create more positive and nuanced representations of Asians in ballet.” Chan and Pazcoguin advise performing organizations in their re-staging of classic works, and, since 2017, have succeeded in gaining the pledges of nearly all major American ballet companies (information taken from the website and Instagram account of Final Bow for Yellowface). 

In Le Chant du Rossignol, these efforts culminated in the elimination of choices in costuming, choreography, and characterization that were deemed the most problematic. Ballet West has enumerated several of these changes, including the choreographic replacement of caricatured hand movement, shuffling of the feet, and bobbing of heads, and also specific changes to the makeup design for all characters to eliminate traces of yellowface and exaggerated exoticism. 

To me, these changes certainly appeared to result in a more respectful and educated perspective in performance. It felt less uncomfortable and upsetting than similar ballet productions I’ve attended previously. But, not being a member of the Chinese or Chinese American communities, it’s really not for me to say whether they went far enough in alleviating the damaging insensitivities of the past. I sincerely hope they did, so that those communities may feel seen, welcome, and respected. 

The final key to making these efforts truly effective was in the transparency and resources that Ballet West offered their audience to create an experience that far surpassed mere entertainment; the audience was expected to learn something. A program note four times longer than any I’ve seen before, from artistic director Adam Sklute, doubled as a history lesson; a letter from restagers Hodson and Archer about their process gave insight into their arduous treasure hunt, complete with juicy details from mythic figures of ballet past; multiple panels in the lobby covered costume design, reconstruction in conversation with representation, and the history of Chinese railroad workers here in Utah; and a letter from Phil Chan of Final Bow for Yellowface articulated the need for these kinds of changes and his experience with the production process (there was also a pre-performance lecture that I sadly couldn’t make it to). Many of these resources are also available online - they are fascinating and I would highly encourage anyone to make time to peruse them and then to visit yellowface.org for further context on the critical work that Final Bow for Yellowface is doing. 

It is incredible and exciting to see a company like Ballet West digging into and committing itself to a journey down this road. This performance was a very far cry from the experience I had just three years ago reviewing their production of Madame Butterfly for this publication, and I am grateful for the many voices inside of and outside this company that are pushing them into a new and better future. 

I hope to count on Ballet West’s future endeavors (looking at you, Nutcracker Arabian and sundry gendered stereotypes) following suit – no longer feeling indebted to a self-serving and self-destructing nostalgia but instead examining, creating, and re-creating with respect, accountability, and transparency. This willingness to adapt without preciousness and engage audiences and communities in meaningful conversation will be a vital new way for Ballet West to stoke fresh interest, provide leadership in the arts, and keep its legacy alive and vibrant. 

Ballet West’s Balanchine’s Ballets Russes continues through Saturday, November 2, with a matinee at 2 p.m. and a final performance at 7:30 p.m.

Emily Snow is a Denver native who now calls Salt Lake City home. She has most recently been seen performing with Municipal Ballet Co. and with Durian Durian, an art band that combines electronic music and postmodern dance.

Ballet West: National Choreographic Festival, Program B

The second weekend of Ballet West’s National Choreographic Festival features three pieces created by women: Jennifer Archibald’s Myoho performed by Cincinnati Ballet, Robyn Mineko Williams’s To Clear performed by Charlotte Ballet, and África Guzmán’s Sweet and Bitter performed by Ballet West. Like the first weekend of the festival, each choreographer presents a different approach to contemporary ballet, revealing a diversity of aesthetics as well as the significance of including women’s voices in ballet programming.

The director of Cincinnati Ballet, Victoria Morgan, has brought financial stability and artistic excellence to the organization during her 20-year tenure as artistic director, 8 years of which she spent in the dual role of CEO. At a panel discussion of women in leadership roles, hosted by Ballet West on May 23, Morgan said, “It’s ironic, in part, because you don’t see women in these roles, you don’t realize that you have that capability.”

Her statement speaks to the politics of representation and who has, historically, decided how women are presented and represented. Scholar and theorist bell hooks writes about how “the field of representation (how we see ourselves, how others see us) is a site of ongoing struggle.” In an essay called “In our Glory: Photography and Black Life,” hooks writes that photography was a “political instrument, a way to resist misrepresentation as well as a means by which alternative images could be produced.” In many ways the festival presented by Ballet West is another reworking of these “misrepresentations” and a place where “alternative images” of capable women are made visible and tangible.

Jennifer Archibald’s choreography exemplifies the importance of the politics of representation. Archibald was named resident choreographer of Cincinnati Ballet in 2017 and Myoho marks her fourth creation for the company (following 2014’s Sit, 2016’s Redeem, and 2017’s Never.Nest). Cincinnati’s dancers shine in her creations, which is a testament to both their talents as performers as well as Archibald’s extraordinary creativity and craft. Her choreography updates ballet’s vocabulary by intertwining elements of jazz, modern, and hip-hop with the classical vocabulary. The results are neither gimmicky nor acrobatic but rather intensely fascinating and evocative. Archibald brings ballet into the 21st century with the kind of imagination and intelligence that George Balanchine brought to ballet in the last century: sections of Myoho looked like Agon, but newly resonant. Exquisite feats of partnering and careful attention to dancers’ formations made Myoho, like Agon, a physical and emotional contest. Myoho tests the dancers’ limits and capacities, and it was incredible that, coming from Ohio the night before, they adjusted to Salt Lake City’s elevation just in time for this demanding performance.

In the panel discussion on May 23, Archibald said, “For me, when I walk into a studio I see more than dancers’ physical abilities. I am checking in with them emotionally… I look at them as humans, instead of what they execute from point A to point B. When you invest in that aspect of their humanity, I think the ensemble work is stronger and the experience is better for myself and for them.” These words sum up perfectly what happened on stage last night: the dancers combined steely strength with lightning-fast accents. Partnering sections allowed both men and women to occupy roles of resisting, relishing, and evading one another. The entire cast of ten inhabited Archibald’s movement as both a challenge and an affirmation, as if to say, “Not only can I dance this phrase, I can also add my own nuances to it.”  

Two men, Cervilio Miguel Amador and James Cunningham, were fascinating in a duet that was as much a demonstration of leaning into support and interdependencies as it was a showcase for their exceptional dancing. Again, Archibald’s vocabulary enables this kind of emotional insight: she has a keen eye for both formal elements, as when couples enter the stage in similar lifts, creating a sense of dynamism and equilibrium, and for highlighting dancers’ relationships with one another. In a brilliant touch, one of the women placed her finger on a man’s lips after a virtuosic duet, as if to say, “That’s enough for the moment.”

Indeed the title of her piece can be translated as “Myo” which means mystic or wonderful, and “ho,” which means law. According to the Soka Gakkai International website, “Myoho” is “the wonder of ordinary people, beset by delusion and suffering, awakening to the fundamental law in their own lives, bringing forth wisdom and compassion and realizing that they are inherently Buddhas able to solve their own problems and those of others. The Mystic Law transforms the life of anyone—even the unhappiest person, at any time and in any circumstances—into a life of supreme happiness.”

In many ways, Archibald’s work with Cincinnati Ballet brought me supreme happiness: I spent three days in San Francisco recently for the Unbound festival of new choreography and none of the works had the nuance and vibrancy of Archibald’s. This is also a compliment to Cincinnati’s dancers: they tap into a place where they are fearless and they excel. Their costume design, by Archibald, placed the women in yellow leotards with futuristic collars that extended over the napes of their necks, suggesting the top of a cape and heightening their sense of invincibility. The score included music by Nico Muhly, Robert Honstein, and David Lang and the intertwining of instruments and machines contributed to the idea that Archibald makes ballet relevant to our digitally-enhanced 21st century.

During the panel, Archibald also said, “I love teaching and I continue to teach high school through university students. How I attack all of my classes is to not only see the star in the room. It’s important for me to see the dancer that may not be at the forefront, but has the skill level and the talent, but not the confidence to step forward. It’s important to see everyone and motivate everyone.” Based on last night’s performance, it’s clear that her choreography motivates her audiences as much as it motivates her students, and Myoho received a standing ovation.

Charlotte Ballet is now directed by Hope Muir, who trained and performed in Great Britain before joining Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (HSDC). Muir selected a work by Robyn Mineko Williams, who danced with HSDC for 12 seasons, to bring to the National Choreographic Festival. Called To Clear, the piece was a brilliant choice for the contrast that Williams’ choreography provided. Working in a more exploratory and grounded style, Williams developed scenes that evoked poetic and enigmatic interactions: the piece began with one woman standing on a folding chair, as a man, Anson Zwingelberg, walked slowly from downstage to upstage, towards her. Two technicians, working hand-held lights in the downstage corners of the stage, created shadows that duplicated their actions on the backdrop. The imagery suggested that this relationship was similar to other human interactions, and as the piece continued the cast of seven created duets, trios, and quartets that felt poignant and dream-like: in one section each cast member slid a hand around one dancer’s waist, as if about to hug or embrace them from behind, but then abandoned the gesture.

Costumes by Aimee J. Coleman contributed to the pedestrian environment, with the men and women in socks and distinct outfits, wearing long-sleeved and sleeveless tops, with pedestrian shorts, capris, and even a pant-suit. The muted tones added to the casual environment and the commissioned score by Robert F. Haynes and Tony Lazzara enriched the atmosphere with blankets of sounds that felt like they were enveloping the scenes. Actions segued seamlessly: for example, a deep lunge morphed into a turn, and then into an arabesque, allowing the momentum of each part to determine the course of events rather than lingering in any position. Zwingelberg, who graduated from Juilliard with his BFA last year, stood out among the cast of beautiful performers.

Ballet West chose África Guzmán’s Sweet and Bitter to close the program and its merger of dramatic interactions and spectacular partnering created a powerful ending. Allison DeBona and Chase O’Connell were stellar as the lead couple, and their closing pas de deux was poignant and haunting, ending with O’Connell lifting and cradling DeBona in his arms.

Katherine Lawrence, Katlyn Addison, Chelsea Keefer, Hadriel Diniz, Alexander MacFarlan, and Jordan Veit added vibrancy and playfulness to the piece, embodying the “sweet” part of Guzman’s title. The women especially lingered in balances as if savoring the movement and this added allure to their performances. Guzmán’s choreography, a fusion of theatricality and physical feats, evokes a lineage of European ballet-makers like Nacho Duato (who Guzmán worked with for 20 years) and Jiří Kylián, and was complemented by a score by Ezio Bosso, which combined both driving and demure sections.

During the panel, Guzmán acknowledged the importance of powerful women in her career, such as Maya Plisetskaya, her first director, and Hope Muir added similar observations. Great Britain, said Muir, is “quite a small island. Ninette de Valois founded the Royal Ballet and Marie Rambert started Ballet Rambert, which is the oldest company in Britain, and one that I was fortunate to dance with... Now you’ve got National Dance Company Wales with a female director [Caroline Finn] and Scottish Dance Theatre has a female director [Fleur Darkin] and there’s Tamara Rojo at English National Ballet.” For Muir, such examples of women in leadership roles led her to believe “it was possible,” a statement that contrasts with Morgan’s observation about seeing so few female directors during her performing career.

The French philosopher Jacques Rancière presents a theory that explains these observations: it’s called “the distribution of the sensible,” which means we can only see or “sense” those ideas that have been presented or framed for us. As a result, aesthetic approaches are deeply entwined with politics, and those works deemed “good” or “valuable” are supported by particular regimes of seeing and thinking. Another way of stating this idea is that aesthetic choices are also political choices: when we support the voices and ideas of people who are not equitably represented, we are enriching our knowledge of the world we live in.

What the National Choreographic Festival makes abundantly clear is that female choreographers are a vital part of our ballet landscapes. While the festival presents a vibrant spectrum, I believe there are still more artists to include. Salt Lake City is home to several distinguished dance-makers, including Penny Saunders, who just premiered an acclaimed full-length for Grand Rapids Ballet, and Melissa Bobick, who was selected for this summer’s prestigious Choreographic Institute at the University of North Carolina, School of the Arts, which is led by another vital female leader, Susan Jaffe.

As Morgan said during the panel discussion, “I might say confidence is important, but then I realize I didn’t feel confident when I stepped into these roles. I think it’s interesting that there’s this theme of recognizing the potential of dancers who are around you. It’s not always necessarily about confidence, but a lot about being vulnerable and creating relationships where dancers feel safe. The ability to generate that kind of atmosphere in a studio is essential.” As this festival proves, it’s also essential to generate support and opportunities for these women who are keeping ballet real.

Principal Artist Chase O'Connell and First Soloist Allison DeBona in Africa Guzmán's Sweet and Bitter. Photo by Beau Pearson.

Kate Mattingly is an assistant professor at the University of Utah’s School of Dance, and holds a PhD in performance studies from UC Berkeley.

She moderated the panel discussion at Ballet West, which featured the female choreographers and artistic directors invited to Salt Lake City for the second weekend of the National Choreographic Festival.

Read Kate's review of the first weekend of the National Choreographic Festival here.