Holidays, in addition to being a festive time for celebrating with friends and family, is also a time to enjoy classic fine arts together. A stable every Christmas season is the Nutcracker, which the literature is republished in multiple forms including play, dance, and orchestra concerts. This season I had the pleasure of being a audience of The Nutcracker presented at the McCaw Hall. The show was phenomenal, and included moments of cheerfulness and happiness, but during others moments of grave danger and suspense. The performers applied contrasting bodily techniques and motions to express different emotions, and wrapped up the scene with appropriate props and decors that awed the audience ever time the stage came to light. George Balanchine’s
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The stage was dimly light with spotlight shinning the battle, and Tchaikovsky’s suspenseful music was clashing throughout the hall adding the firewood to the heated scene. There was a pack of gigantic mice surrounding the mouse king and the nutcracker prince in circle, who persistently and continuously stepped forward with their feet, leaned their upper torso inward and an in reflective swing pushed on their legs to reposition themselves. All the mice doing this in unison made it seem that even if the prince managed to defeat the king, he would still be eliminated by the storming pack of mice army. The mouse king appeared much threatening as well – he was much larger than the other mice and on his head was bunches of mouse heads clumped together like a grape. In addition to this obscure appearance, it would rhythmically swing toward and back with legs stepping forward and back, with synchronized powerful swing of an arm yielding the sword it grasped firmly on its hand. The prince, being a nutcracker, would move much rigidly and stoutly, piercing its sword forward with a mighty forward push with his entire upper body and arm straightened out. As he was made out of wood, he would take each step forward and back with his legs slightly bent. It was only a matter of time until the prince stood victorious, but those short couple minutes were definitely
The stage was dimly light with spotlight shinning the battle, and Tchaikovsky’s suspenseful music was clashing throughout the hall adding the firewood to the heated scene. There was a pack of gigantic mice surrounding the mouse king and the nutcracker prince in circle, who persistently and continuously stepped forward with their feet, leaned their upper torso inward and an in reflective swing pushed on their legs to reposition themselves. All the mice doing this in unison made it seem that even if the prince managed to defeat the king, he would still be eliminated by the storming pack of mice army. The mouse king appeared much threatening as well – he was much larger than the other mice and on his head was bunches of mouse heads clumped together like a grape. In addition to this obscure appearance, it would rhythmically swing toward and back with legs stepping forward and back, with synchronized powerful swing of an arm yielding the sword it grasped firmly on its hand. The prince, being a nutcracker, would move much rigidly and stoutly, piercing its sword forward with a mighty forward push with his entire upper body and arm straightened out. As he was made out of wood, he would take each step forward and back with his legs slightly bent. It was only a matter of time until the prince stood victorious, but those short couple minutes were definitely