The tapping is fine but the costumes, the styling and the glorification of Russia are hideous and tone-deaf. If they wanted something Eastern European, they could have invited Ukrainian performers in beautiful costumes to do the song I posted yesterday. They could have US singers of different races do half of it in English. That would be beautiful and Christmassy.
Why does everything have to be so ugly? This is torture to people with a live aesthetic sensibility.
Clarissa's Blog 
Beauty is transcendent.
The public, officially-stamped, debasement of culture means something. Not just this, but ugly public sculpture, ugly parks, ugly government buildings, the works.
If you can’t make, or even tolerate, beautiful (or even mediocre!) work, it’s a sign you’ve lost touch with the transcendent. That’s a really, really basic human thing. Doesn’t require intelligence or education or any of that, to appreciate truly beautiful work. It’s universal. We know it when we experience it. It takes effort to get to a point where the closest you can get to it is to parodize it (what we’re seeing in the video).
I wonder if there’s not also an element there of the inexorable decline of care and craftsmanship. None of the costumes fit properly. Is that a deliberate choice? Androgynous pajamas? Or is it just really hard to get good costumers these days because sewing and fitting for dancewear is complex, requires skill and technical expertise, and there are more job openings than qualified candidates? Few are willing to pay what that labor is worth?
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The costumes don’t fit the dancers and don’t fit each other. It’s a weird, poorly thought-out mish-mash with no organizing idea. The music is mangled. The theme of the work, which is very dark and disturbing is not respected. The lady with the naked butt – isn’t Christmas supposed to be a family holiday? I wouldn’t want my kid to see the butt-wiggling lady. I don’t want her to think that this is what women are.
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” If they wanted something Eastern European”
To be fair I’m pretty sure most Americans have no real idea that Nutcracker is from russia and I didn’t recognize any music from it at all (did I miss something?).
There’s talent there but also a lot of… wrong-headedness. Just doing jazz versions of some American Christmas music and letting the tapping do the work instead of the… strained costumes and strained camerwork and trying-too-hard choreography would have been a lot better.
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If you listen really really hard, there are some nutcracker phrases in the music.
But yeah.
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It is quite clearly the Nutcracker to me. I don’t think anybody with even a passing familiarity with the music would miss that?
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Dunno. My kids have a CD of the music, and listen to it often, and have also had to play bits of it in the past, so I have more than a passing familiarity. I still have to listen for it because the score here is so cluttered. I can see where anybody less familiar might miss it.
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I waa dragged to Nutcracker performances yearly as a kid. The Soviets loved it. And I wouldn’t have recognized it if I didn’t know in advance.
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Yeah, I had to think really hard to place the dude with the zinnia on his head– go back, note “nutcracker”, then listen for it, and vaguely recall a dance of flowers in there somewhere. It felt pretty random.
I only suffered through the ballet once or twice as a kid, and then only because someone I knew had got a part in it. Mostly recall being bored, as the music is the only redeeming part of it. I’m told the Soviets had a different version of the story, though– where the main character is the clean-up girl, and not Clara the daughter of the wealthy family who’s giving each other presents? Did it work out boring that way too?
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“don’t think anybody with even a passing familiarity with the music ”
Off the top of my head I only know the dance of the sugar plum fairies and the pas de deux neither of which seemed present here…
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It’s the Waltz of the Flowers.
https://www.google.com/search?q=waltz+of+the+flowers+nutcracker&client=ms-android-tmus-us-revc&sca_esv=591027850&ei=NX17ZaDsH8iB5OMP29C_qAY&oq=waltz+of+the+flowers+nutcracker&gs_lp=EhNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwIh93YWx0eiBvZiB0aGUgZmxvd2VycyBudXRjcmFja2VyMggQLhjUAhiABDIFEC4YgAQyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyCBAuGNQCGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgARIjDRQ6wlY2zNwAXgBkAEAmAFcoAH7BKoBAjEwuAEDyAEA-AEBwgIKEAAYRxjWBBiwA8ICDRAAGIAEGIoFGEMYsAPCAhYQLhiABBiKBRhDGNQCGMgDGLAD2AEBwgITEC4YgAQYigUYQxjIAxiwA9gBAcICExAuGEMYgAQYigUYyAMYsAPYAQHCAggQLhiABBjUAsICChAAGIAEGIoFGEPCAgoQLhiABBiKBRhD4gMEGAAgQYgGAZAGELoGBAgBGAg&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:11b43dc1,vid:_NWdj8PCdYE,st:0
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I’m actually most disturbed by the immobile kabuki-esque “cheerful” facial expressions in there. Extreme smile-rictus. Tetanus?
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It could only be less Tchaikovsky if it had been a Netflix presentation.
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What seems Russian about this to you? To me, this strikes as very American. It seems rag time/jazz inspired. I prefer the more classic ballet but these dancers are talented and overall, it seems joyful and energetic- (other than the rat costumes but those are ugly in every production).
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The composer and the soldier uniform. It’s as rude to put on this soldier as somebody in a KKK hood dancing to Wagner.
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Oh you are objecting to the Nutcracker altogether? That is such a classic part of Christmas for so many Americans. It’s almost inseparable from Christmas. Like Santa Claus. The Nutcracker is what keeps most ballet companies in business….Side not…did you know Tchaikovsky was part Ukrainian?
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This isn’t just any regular person. This is the wife of the President of the United States. It’s not like she’s otherwise extremely occupied so she can think about the implications of what she’s doing. There are 40 million people terrified that her husband will make the decision to abandon them and they’ll be genocided. People who are analyzing every sign. People who see “a happy Russian soldier prancing around the White House”, and… it’s really cruel. And completely unnecessary.
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Uggg. That was not fun or magical. I would not have watched to the end if I had just stumbled across that video on my own.
I wonder if it all somehow makes more sense in its proper context? I mean, they are dancing around in the White House in this and I assume they normally perform on a stage with sets and props. In any case, I’m sure the costumes would look better from the back of a large auditorium.
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This entire movement is about pathologizing the normal and normalizing the pathological.
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It’s Duke Ellington. I don’t like the costumes or the dancing, but the music is nice adaptation of the oriinal.
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It’s Duke Ellington, people. I don’t like the costumes either, or the dancing, but it’s a nice piece of Elllingtonia.
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It’s Duke Ellington.
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At least, Duke Ellington is not Russian. 🙂
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Some good news!
https://x.com/JillHicksKeeton/status/1735009232418746819
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I’m painfully envious. Good for them and let’s hope it spreads.
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