‘Tis the season to sit through another
Nutcracker. Molly, our beautiful granddaughter, danced again as she has for
several years, this year as a party guest, a snowflake, a flower, and so on.
She is a lovely and graceful dancer; I love to watch her dance. She is also an
awesomely powerful lacrosse mid-fielder with a wickedly accurate shot. I love
to watch her play. But of the two, lacrosse is harmless and engrossing
entertainment. The Nutcracker not so subtly, not so.
Don't misunderstand. Tchaikovsky's
music is glorious; the costumes and sets in a good production are beautiful and
evocative; the dancing, entrancing. It's the content I and many object to, and
should be cancelled.
It is disconcerting to hear myself
talk of cancellation – I who believe proscription of speech is wrong and speech
should only be judged appropriate or inappropriate after it has been delivered.
But if found inappropriate many times year after year and in many places, is it
not then OK to cancel it?
About The Nutcracker, of
which Tchaikovsky said “ . . . in spite of
all the sumptuousness it did turn out to be rather boring:” it is not
merely boring but also unforgivably racist. The Chinese tea dance has attracted
opprobrium for years, with New York, San Francisco, London, PNB and scores of
other companies hoping that by revising it they’d minimize racist overtones and
avoid offending Asians (Feministi, 2010; Dance magazine, 2013; New York Times,
2019, 2021, and lots more.)
But that’s not all;
there’s the sexy Arabian Coffee number with stereotypical harem-pantalooned
temptress; the good girl/bad boy stereotype; the violence; and I’m sure animal
rights folks are lurking. And over it all the Freudian acting-out of adolescent
dreams of heroic, macho princes rescuing virginal maidens.
Boredom, racism,
ethnic and gender stereotypes, chauvinism, violence, and sexual repression –
what’s not to dislike? OK, some of you will accuse me of being excessively
woke. But explain away bored.
It is time to
relegate to the music library this 19thC pean to Czar Nicholas’s
empire – for Tchaikovsky’s music is beloved – and anoint some new Christmas tale
to render in dance.
A ballet ’Twas
the Night Before Christmas, anyone?
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