DANCE REVIEW
Two ballet companies bring Christmas classic to life
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| Ryan Camou and Kamakoa Page play the Cavalier and Sugar Plum Fairy in the Hawaii State Ballet's "The Nutcracker." Hawaii State Ballet . . . 'The Nutcracker' Hawaii State Ballet • 7 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday, 2:30 Saturday and Sunday Hawaii Ballet Theatre • 2, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday |
Blinking lights decorate mango trees, there is faux snow spray-painted on store windows, and we feel an uncontrollable urge to buy gifts. It's Christmas time in Honolulu again, and, here as on the Mainland, Christmas is synonymous with "Nutcracker" season. "The Nutcracker," a ballet set in 19th-century Russia by Lev Ivanov, with music by Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, has become a holiday tradition.
At the opening of the Hawaii State Ballet's "Nutcracker" at the Mamiya Theater Friday night, even the lobby reflected the Christmas season: Little girls dressed in red velvet dresses stared, hypnotized, at a variety of nutcracker dolls and small ballerina tree ornaments for sale.
Inside the theater, girls dressed in red and white striped unitards dispensed miniature candy canes stapled to a coupon good for a class at the School of Hawaii State Ballet.
"The Nutcracker" — through its magic and abundant candy — is an event that not only caters to children as audience members, it is also a venue for young ballet students to acquire their first stage experiences. Hawaii State Ballet provides several aspiring ballerinas, and a few young boys, with a valuable learning experience in the theater. The choreographer and director, John Landovsky, has adapted the original work to suit his young dancer's abilities. The corps de ballet is well rehearsed, and the girls show off their training within the simplified choreography.
However, aside from ballet technique, the magic of "The Nutcracker" also depends on mime, sets, costumes and lighting design. Although most of us are familiar with the simple plot of this ballet (a Christmas party followed by a fantasy-filled dream), good acting is still crucial. Working with an acting coach would not only enrich the learning experience of the cast, it would enhance the overall quality of this production. Similarly, more attention to costume, set and lighting design would upgrade this production from a recital to a more professional-looking "Nutcracker."
A very different "Nutcracker" was presented at Leeward Community College Theater on Saturday. Although it also included children and pre-professional ballet students, Hawaii Ballet Theatre's "Nutcracker" was tightly choreographed, and all production elements worked together to make the dancers shine and foster the magic of this holiday ballet.
Artistic director and choreographer Charlys Ing created a lively, funny and engaging first act. Minou Lallemand, although an adult, plays a lovely and convincingly young Clara. The highlight of the well-choreographed battle scene between mice and soldiers were the baby mice.
The children executed fairly complex choreography that went beyond scurrying around and just being cute, although the cuteness quotient is always high when children perform. The snowflakes delivered a crisp performance of Ing's elegant adaptation of this section of the ballet, tossing handfuls of snow into the air as they leaped.
The second act of every adaptation of "The Nutcracker" always raises the delicate question of how to restage its "character dances," conceptualized 110 years ago. Should the dances from Spain, Russia, China and the "Arabian dance" be rechoreographed to faithfully represent their cultures, or should the choreographer try to stick as closely as possible to the original 19th-century version?
Ing's choreography of the "Arabian dance," retitled "Arabian Coffee Cordials," shows that there is yet a third option: using contemporary ballet vocabulary and retaining the "Arabian" reference mainly through the music and costume, Ing creates a new, abstract dance that minimizes the use out-of-date cultural misconceptions.
The Spanish, Russian and Chinese dances do not reach the same level of abstraction, still relying on recognizable cultural stereotypes.
With air travel and the Internet making the world smaller every day, the second act of this ballet raises some important questions. Since so much liberty has been taken with Ivanov's choreography anyway, why not tweak the content of this ballet to make it relevant to our time, culture and geographical location? Isn't it time one of our ballet companies on O'ahu took the chance of adapting this Christmas story to reflect Hawai'i's rich ethnic and cultural diversity? Should we perpetuate imperial Russia's vision of the world, or should we allow our fantasy world to reflect the changes in the real world?
Ana Paula Höfling is finishing her MFA in dance at UH-Manoa, where she teaches ballet.
