To think The NutCracker is racist

[Blueberries0112]

I don't know if it a common Christmas tradition to watch the ballot performance "The Nutcracker" in other other countries but I found it a bit too much for my liking. I feel like they can never get it right without seeming too racist.

Won't anyone think of the mice?

@MissBaskinIfYoureNasty

Oh dear! DD2 and I have been enjoying the book version of it and I was looking forward to finding a ballet to show her. Had no idea it was problematic?

It’s only problematic if you look for problems. Enjoy the show - it is enchanting and festive.

The Nutcracker is performed far more often in the USA than here, every ballet company and dance school does it every year. Some of them are different versions to the ones danced in the UK. There used to be some productions in the USA that used blackface - I believe that a number of companies have completely changed things now, and don't do it any more.

There are now far more black and mixed race ballet dancers than there used to be, so things have changed considerably in just a few years.

🙇🏼‍♀️

You can't erase history because of racisom, neoptism, marxism, Nazism etc.

You can appreciate it for what it is at a point in time, and can explain why certain parts are wrong. Do you want to knock off Les Mis, or

There'll be nothing left apart from a woke Sam Smith warbling in front of his mansion otherwise.

My son is mixed race Chinese and he danced with the Birmingham Royal Ballet in The Nutcracker at The Royal Albert Hall last year. It was not even remotely racist. Neither is the version produced by The Royal Ballet. Both of these ballet companies are very ethnically and culturally diverse.

@MissBaskinIfYoureNasty

Oh dear! DD2 and I have been enjoying the book version of it and I was looking forward to finding a ballet to show her. Had no idea it was problematic?

Don't worry - try a recent Royal Ballet version on dvd.

OK folks! New petition... what date do we choose?

What point in time to we decide was too racost to exist? We can eradicate all knowledge of anything that happened before that date and so save us from all world ills!

Give me your date and your reasonong.

Poll closes on a date yet to be identified as all inclusive, inconvenient to none!

I always thought it was a celebration of different dance customs. But on the basis that pretending to be a race that you aren't is wrong, does this mean black dancers can't dance 'white' roles either?

I’m going to assume the version we saw last Christmas was an updated (pantomime) version as there’s wasn’t anything race related that I saw just rats and chocolate mice. Uncle drosselmier (sp?) had a German accent but wasn’t derogatory.

Surely we have to view these from the time they were written? Otherwise all of history will need to be erased and the progress we have made would be lost without the yardstick to measure it by.
Also I love swan lake and am now really concerned that too will be "cancelled" as swans aren't well known for performing ballet

@Jaxhog

I always thought it was a celebration of different dance customs. But on the basis that pretending to be a race that you aren't is wrong, does this mean black dancers can't dance 'white' roles either?

Yeah, but that celebration is now either cultural ridicule or appropriation, it seems!

One of my very best memories is of a production of Nutcracker at RAH. Magical.

One of the most concerning comments in the article linked above was the idea that ballets need to be rewritten if you don't have the "correct" race to dance. In that case it meant eliminating a story line about Mediterranean slavery and repurposing it as a beauty pageant. That does start to feel a bit like rewriting history. Not that ballet is the only one doing it Glyndebourne recast the Crusades as a school netball match a couple of years ago.

If you try hard enough you can make anything racist, god help people with such twisted minds, they do any cause they espuse no favours.

@Jaxhog

I always thought it was a celebration of different dance customs. But on the basis that pretending to be a race that you aren't is wrong, does this mean black dancers can't dance 'white' roles either?

During my dd's professional ballet training, they also were taught flamenco. Should flamenco only be danced by white Spanish people? Or the swans in Swan Lake only be danced by white Russian people?

Of course not - that would be ridiculous.

Helloxchristmas has solved this! It is all a conspiracy by Sam Smith and his cabal to remove all cultural competition

@m0therofdragons

I’m going to assume the version we saw last Christmas was an updated (pantomime) version as there’s wasn’t anything race related that I saw just rats and chocolate mice. Uncle drosselmier (sp?) had a German accent but wasn’t derogatory.

German accent you say? It's cultural appropriation gone mad! Germanfishing!

@Pollynextdoor

I love the nut cracker. See it every year at the royal opera house.

I am green with jealousy, @Pollynextdoor - I have a recording of Nutcracker from the Royal Opera House, and it is my favourite version of all the ones I have seen.

I would love to see it live, at the ROH, but I live near Glasgow, so it would be a pretty major enterprise. Though I do have a December birthday, and it would make a perfect present when I reach 60.

Oh for heavens sake is there nothing the ultra-woke won't try and spoil

Should............the swans in Swan Lake only be danced by white Russian people?”

Only by swans, surely, @BeaMends.

Dodgy 'Uncle' Drosselmeyer is the one we should be keeping an eye on if you ask me.

Check out this ballet company - they are outstanding.

Ballet Black.

Oh yay, you've found something to virtue signal about. You must feel very proud.

Fucking ridiculous.

Don't be daft, BeaMends obviously the swans must be danced by swans, duh.

There'll be nothing left apart from a woke Sam Smith warbling in front of his mansion otherwise.

Shoot me now if that’s all there is to look forward to!