The Nutcracker…Sweet!

So on Friday night I went The Nutcracker in Seoul at the Seoul Arts Center. It was performed by the Korea National Ballet. I was super excited about it since I love The Nutcracker. It was interesting. We were actually late to it, but we only missed a tiny part at the beginning. It started at 7:30. We didn’t get off of work until 4:30 (and Jaclyn, 5). The earliest subway we caught in Pyeongtaek was 5:33 and it takes almost 2 hours to get to the subway stop in Seoul that we needed. Plus, because it was Friday night is was super crowded. Then we had to book it from the subway stop to the Arts Center (about 10 minutes). We couldn’t take a taxi (taxshi, as it’s said here) because the traffic was too horrible. Then the place was friggin’ huge with all kinds of buildings and we had no idea which one to go into because of the combination of bad signage, us not knowing Korean, and a seemingly total lack of usher people. We finally found a lady in one building (obviously not the right one) and asked her where it was by pretending to be ballerinas and saying, “Odi?” (Where?) That was interesting.

So because we were late we were seated in a wing area, not our actual seats. But they weren’t too far from our actual seats, so it wasn’t bad. There were a lot of white people there. It was kind of weird. I have to say, it wasn’t my favorite performance of The Nutcracker. There were numerous odd things about it. Or at least odd compared to the versions I’m used to seeing. First off, Clara was kinda old. Not old old, but definitely not a child. Maybe upper teens. And the uncle looked like a wizard. He had a big wizard hat on (pointy blue with silver stars). That made me laugh. The Mouse/Rat king looked like either an action hero or a rapper. He had this big bling-y necklace on with a big star pendent. Again, humorous. But what really got me was the Nutcracker. Usually in the versions I’ve seen, at the party the Nutcracker is an actual toy. In this performance, an actual person/kid was playing him and he was dancing around and stuff. This in and of itself was not an issue. The issue was that he looked exactly like a monkey. They had a mask on him with this garish huge red smile. Seriously, I don’t know how anyone could have thought he was anything but a monkey. So when he first came out and was dancing around and stuff, I totally thought it was just another random toy the uncle was showing off with. I didn’t realize it was the Nutcracker until Klaus “broke” him and Clara started crying. Wha??? The monkey is the Nutcracker??? Huh??? So that was weird. But once he turned into a “real” Nutcracker he was a normal looking guy…no longer a monkey.

The choreography of the various “ethnic” dances disappointed me as well. First off, instead of having an Arabian Dance, they had an Indian Dance. The Arabian Dance was always my favorite, so I was saddened by this. The music was the same, obviously, but the dancers were costumed Indian/Hindu-like and they didn’t do many ballet-like moves…mostly just struck various Hindu-like poses. We joked that this must be the post 9/11 Nutcracker—get rid of the Arabs!! The Russian dance was odd because the choreography didn’t go with the music and was not Russian-looking at all. They didn’t do any of those Russian jumping moves, if you know what I mean. Maybe that’s all stereotypical, but hey, I missed it. Speaking of stereotypical, the Chinese Dance was much less stereotypical than the performances I’ve seen in the US. For example, they weren’t wearing big rice hats or prancing around with their hands together. I had wondered how they’d handle that one. Then there was the French dance. First off, I couldn’t remember there being a French dance, so I was a little confused. But then the music was super familiar so I wasn’t sure what was up. Anyway, the two dancers were French looking with powdered faces and big ol’ fake moles on their faces. But they came out with a little stuffed animal that was standing on a rolling board. I thought it was a poodle (you know, a French poodle) but I guess it was a lamb. So they danced around while wheeling this lamb around the stage. It was quite odd and a bit distracting. I finally figured out that in all the versions I’ve seen the “French” dance was the dance where there was a huge lady with kids hiding in her skirt. The Spanish dance was normal.

Also, I don’t remember the Nutcracker marrying Clara at the end. In this production, they did marry. Which makes it better that Clara was older than a child. I don’t know how the original story went, though. Maybe originally they do get married. I don’t know. So I enjoyed the performance but it wasn’t as good as I remember other productions being. Ok, I just looked up the ballet, and I guess this production was choreographed by some famous ballet guy named Yuri Grigorovich who leads Russia’s prestigious Bolshoi Ballet. I don’t know anything about ballet so this doesn’t really mean much to me. But when he came out on the stage after the performance he did get very thunderous applause. Yeah, well I don’t like your version, Yuri.