Word: ballets
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RALPH MANNHEIM'S fresh translation of E.T.A. Hoffmann's Nutcracker with its Maurice Sendak illustrations is much more than a glitzy sugar and spice Christmas yarn it's a welcome return to textual accuracy. This season the perpetually smiling pecan masher's overly familiar ballet incarnation is finally stripped away to reveal the genuine handmade article from Germany...
Sendak would have one believe that the most exciting aspect of this literary event is the story of how Kent Stowell of the Pacific Northwest Ballet convinced a reluctant Sendak to design a new production of the ballet. The familiar stage version is not Hoffmann at all, but rather a hybrid based largely upon Alexander Dumas's bland synthesis of Hoffmann's novella. Sendax became interested in the Nutcracker, when he learned that Stowell intended to crack the old Dumas chestnut with Hoffmann's stronger Nutcracker. The Seattle production was a great success. The triumphant ballet complements the publication...
...tragic assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Today, the multiracial company includes 48 dancers and sports a repertoire of more than 60 classical, modern and ethnic pieces. By forcing us to rethink and reconsider traditional stereotypes and associations, the company represents a deliberate expansion of classical ballet...
UNFORTUNATELY, THE COMPANY stressed the dramatic aspects of the story, leaving less time and space for their usual exuberant exhibition of their command of dance. Instead, this recently premiered 'Creole Giselle' offers a provocative American historical portrayal of the classic white-tutu ballet...
These two selections indicate both the company's objectives, as well as their effects. They choose both to continue the tradition of classical ballet and challenge those norms with the pioneering company's ethnicity and links to Black history and culture. Furthermore, by using modern and jazz dance as much as ballet--and not just as fringes to the main event--they break down the parameters constraining most companies...