The fifth and final 2017 Colorado Springs Philharmonic and Oklahoma City Ballet performance of The Nutcracker took place on Sunday, November 26, 2017, at 2:00 pm at the Pikes Peak Center. This rendition featured Conductor Thomas Wilson, Oklahoma City Ballet Artistic Director Robert Mills, the Colorado Springs Children’s Chorale, and numerous student dancers from the Pikes Peak Region. Through the excellence in the music, dancing, and stage and costume design, this holiday Nutcracker performance not only captured the spirit of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s music but also conveyed the Christmas spirit as well.
The Nutcracker is a fairytale, two-act ballet that is centered around the Stahlbaum family’s Christmas Eve celebration. The plot of this ballet was an adaption by Alexandre Père of a story by E.T.A. Hoffmann with the musical score composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and choreography by Marius Petipa. Act I began with Christmas Eve festivities at the Stahlbaum home with dancing and joyous celebration with family and friends. Herr Drosselmeyer, a family friend, and his apprentice, Hans, arrived at the party, bringing gifts for everyone, including a special wooden Nutcracker for the Stahlbaum’s daughter, Clara. Clara was captivated by the gift, and after the party ended, she snuck into the living room to check on her Nutcracker, where she falls asleep. Suddenly, the living is magically transformed into a battlefield between toy soldiers and giant mice and Clara discovers that
Charles wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843. This short novel has a Christmas theme and has been popular since it was first published. This moral story is about an old man called Scrooge who hates Christmas and is mean to everyone, but he is transformed. The lessons he learns are as much for the reader to benefit from as Scrooge.
A. In Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Tchaikovsky’s main music characteristic is Russian folk music. He does like to use some elements from French, Italian, and German music.
Henrik Ibsen uses the description of the Christmas tree to match Nora’s efforts at maintaining her façade to please Helmer.
The Disney version of the story, Cinderella, illustrates a different moral than that of the original story. This story believes an ideal child should do what they are told and follow directions and in the end they will reap the rewards. In this story, Cinderella’s mother dies and her father remarries to a woman who has two daughters. While the daughters are pampered, Cinderella must work to keep the house from falling into disrepair. She befriends the animals and they help her to get ready to go to the ball by finishing her chores and making her a dress. When the evil stepsisters discover the dress they become furious because the mice used trimming from their clothing when making the dress. In revenge, the stepsisters rip the dress, leaving Cinderella out of options and out of hope. Just as Cinderella is about to give up, her fairy godmother appears and with a wave of magic creates a dress and turns a pumpkin and the mice into a horse and carriage. The only problem is that everything will turn back to what it was beforehand at midnight. Cinderella and the Prince fall in love at the ball but she must quickly leave because the
On November 25, 2017 I attended The Nutcracker ballet performance at the Eisemann Center. The dance was adapted from a story by E.T.A Hoffman with the music by Tchaikovsky. The show was a faithful adaptation of The Nutcracker with the dancers, costumes, sets, and Tchaikovsky’s music all playing an integral part in depicting the story in an entertaining way. Overall, the presentation was successful in portraying the holiday classic that is The Nutcracker, and the majestic sets and costumes along with the music allowed for sustained attention and spectacle that was still true to the narrative of The Nutcracker. The production did this by having grand, bright costumes and sets that resembled the time period of The Nutcracker and depicted the setting of the dances, the original music by Tchaikovsky which was able to produce the emotions that come with the story, and lighting techniques that showed the weather and time of day which helped show what scenes were being told throughout the performance.
The 1971 Mel Stewart film, “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”, is about a little boy named Charlie Bucket, who is very poor and wants to do something to help his family. The movie starts by showing that there is a contest going on for people to win a special tour through the factory of Wonka Chocolate Company and a lifetime supply of chocolate. There are only five special golden tickets hidden inside products from the Wonka Company. When the five people have found the tickets, there is a big gathering on the day of the tour with big crowds of people and news people too to see Mr wonka come out from his factory to greet the winners. When the children and their parents are inside the factory the children sign a thing saying they will not steal or take information or do bad things and they all go on their way for the tour. Right away, it all seems very strange with coat hooks that move and weird size doors and rooms. Inside of the factory is very much a different world. The workers are small orange men who sing songs telling about the behaviors people should not have.
Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker” and Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring “ are two of the most influential ballets to ever be recorded. Their ballets have been played and duplicated for many years. I will start this paper with a summary of each composer which will include where they are from culturally, geographically and musically. Then I talk about each ballet. Where it was written, the story behind each piece, and its reception now and its reception at the time it was published. I will also include the popularity of each ballet in other forms such as Disney. Finally, I will provide a detailed concert report of each ballet.
The ballet had many features that express the story The Nutcracker. One feature the ballet had to express the story was pantomime. Pantomime is when the dancers use body language to tell a story. Another feature the ballet had to express the story was the music. The music changed every time something joyful, suspicious, or wonder filled happened. The final feature is the costumes. The costumes help express the story by all the details. The details on the costumes come and a wide variety. Some features include squints, colors, buttons, and much more. In the book The Nutcracker, The story is expressed by dialogue and pictures, but in the ballet the story is expressed by music, costumes, and Pantomime. In the book you had to use your imagination
It is incredibly hard to take a classic, a piece known by thousands, recognizable by the first few notes of music, and change a single thing without inducing wrath. The Hard Nut by Mark Morris is a contemporary dance piece choreographed in the early 1990s. It is a piece based off of the Nutcracker, following a slightly altered story, though keeping the original music and much of the original concept. The dance focused on will be The Waltz of the Snowflakes. This dance, in particular, reflects concepts of beauty beyond gender, while also reflecting how the concepts of gender were challenged during the time period that this was originally choreographed and performed in, reflected through both the choreography and the set.
Continuing with and exploration of symbolism we see the Christmas tree becomes stripped and droopy when Nora's mood changes (obj. 3). She finds out that there has been a letter put in the letterbox that reveals her biggest lie to her husband. With the box is locked, she has no key, therefore she cannot stop the outcome of him finding out the truth. It represents the trap of Nora and the cause of her denials (obj. 3). Knowing that she has to perform the tarantella she rehearses it throughout the play and uses it to distract Torvald from finding out the truth. She also uses the dance to play the part of the doll dancing as the masters insist. The tarantella is the climax of the play (obj. 3). Nora dances with great intensity almost as if it her life depended on it. The dance brings out the turning point in Nora's character. It symbolizes the last dance a doll will perform for her master. It is after the dance is over they go back to the apartment and the letterbox is opened.
Friday December 1, 2017, I went to The Center for the Arts to watch “The Nutcracker” presented by The Dance Foundation. The presentation was directed by Ashley Miller Davis, Choreographed by DeAnn Petruschke and Ashley Miller Davis, and Costumes by Lisa Ivy and Brenda Linton. I believe the stand out actors in this presentation of “The Nutcracker” was not the main characters but The Sugar Plum Fairy which was played by Adriana Pierce and her Cavalier played by Neil Marshall. I plan to tell the entire story that was presented but my main focus will be on these two.
“The magic of Christmas is not in the presents but in His presence”- Unknown. The story A Christmas Carol is the story of an elderly man named Ebenezer Scrooge. The story takes place in London, England in 1843, in the beginning of the story Mr.Scrooge is a grumpy old man until three spirits visit him. Throughout the story Scrooge changed his outlook on life, he gained sympathy and he became more giving. In this essay I will be talking about how Scrooge's attitude changes throughout the story, how the spirits made him feel guilty through the feeling of sympathy and how he became more charitable.
On the evening of Sunday, December 16, 2012, I had the pleasure of attending a concert I’d wanted to see for quite a while. I was delighted to attend Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, performed by the Richmond Symphony Orchestra and the Richmond Ballet. The performance took place at Carpenter Theatre in Richmond Virginia. As I entered I felt a bit out of place. I’d never attended a performance quite like this one and I was a bit nervous. I took my seat to the left of the orchestra pit. I was thrilled to see how close I was. I had arranged for a seat near the orchestra so I could observe them as they played.
In Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House”, the Christmas tree is a centrally important stage property used to symbolize Nora’s duplicity, reflect the disintegration of the facade of the perfect marriage as well as the fate of the Helmer family, and mirror Nora’s self-image. The state of the Christmas tree transitions from a plain fir tree at the beginning of Act I, to a decorated Christmas tree towards the end of Act I, then finally to a dishevelled tree at the beginning of Act II. Such transition in its appearance on-stage symbolises significant changes that happens in the Helmer household over the Christmas season. The decoration of the Christmas tree symbolizes Nora’s duplicity as being both a seemingly compliant housewife, and a tactfully manipulative
The Tarantella is a fast-paced folk dance which originated from Southern Italy. Ibsen uses the dance for heavy symbolism in the A Doll House, but the dance quite ironic as well. In one part when Nora is vehemently dancing the Tarantella, Torvald comments, “My dear darling Nora, you are dancing as if your life depended on it,” to which Nora says, “So it does” (Ibsen 58). Regrettably, Torvald does not catch on to the double meaning of Nora’s statement. Torvald may not see the fuss, but to Nora the Tarantella is the last nail holding the cracking foundation of their marriage. She wants perfection and to pretend to be the fragile doll one last time before the truth is revealed to Torvald. Before her whole life is turned upside down and reality finally hits her. Therefore, Ibsen uses dramatic irony with the dance to display the inevitable consequences of Nora’s lies and false identity as this flawless, innocent