Note that I'm not trying to attack any dance company that regularly performs this ballet each year. After all, ballet companies perform many old works that are born out of antiquated norms for the purpose of reviving the classical art form. My criticism of The Nutcracker rests mostly in the ballet's now set-in-stone representations of other parts of the world and not with the companies that are mere vessels for such works to be performed in a modern society.
The story goes like this: a wealthy Victorian family is throwing a Christmas party. Heir Drosselmeyer gives his god-child Clara a Nutcracker. After bed, she wakes up and the Nutcracker makes her shrink down. They get attacked by mice but all the toy soldiers come alive and save them. The Nutcracker turns into a handsome prince (of course) and takes her to the Land of Sweets where characters from all over the world bring her goodies: chocolate from Spain, coffee from the Middle East, tea from China, something from Russia (never was too clear on that one), etc. Then the Sugar Plum Fairy and her boytoy dance and send Clara on her way. The end.
The most interesting aspects of the ballet are the representations of other parts of the world, particularly the "non-Western" areas such as China and the Middle East (and I use "Western" in quotes because please, the earth is round). In each version I've seen, the "Arabian" woman (usually portrayed by a non-white or "ethnic" looking woman) dons puff pants, a bra top, and bare midriff. Sometimes she wears a veil that covers her nose and mouth. If she has a partner, he wears similar pants and a vest with nothing under it, and often a hat that slightly resembles a Tagiyah except smaller (and therefore lampooned and comical). The music is subtle, quiet, slow, and sensual, echoing the exotic dreams early "Western" explorers generally harbored about this culture they knew very little about. Given how Middle Eastern culture has shifted to become a place we associate with women covered far too much for our "Western" tastes, we see this representation as generally harmless. However, given how the modern Middle East was shaped by "Western" imperialists and their assumptions about Arabian sensuality based on dress, The Nutcracker's representation of an Arab woman may be far more problematic than we'd like to admit.
Our clings to Orientalism is obvious in the "Chinese" variation. Lampooning many different Asian traditions, this minute-long variation is an audience favorite. I've seen many different versions: solo male, solo female, small corps of dancers, etc. At Ruth Mitchell, they came out of a big cardboard teapot wearing funny hats and kimono-like tops. Atlanta Festival Ballet used to have the soloist popping comically out of a goofy box. The Georgia Ballet had four women in costumes that resembled Indian Kurta more than anything else, and throughout the variation a dragon bounced around center stage while two young girls dressed as Geisha (Japanese) flirtatiously twirled umbrellas. The music is high-pitched and fast, and regardless of the company or performers, the variation generally contains similar choreographic
elements: bourees, small steps and fast jumps, and of course the strange fascination with the arms and hands. I've never quite been able to figure this one out, but nearly every Chinese variation has involved the dancer holding her/his arms straight out, forearms bent upwards, fists clinched with one or two fingers sticking straight up. The variation is comic, fast, and the dancers are usually small and sometimes acrobatic. In other words, the Chinese are small, funny, always entertaining, and, well, not like us!Simply stated, such lampoons of "far away lands" maintain a certain feeling of superiority for the "West" and its traditions. The "Western" cultures highlighted The Nutcracker tend to be subdued and not nearly as, well, exotic. With the exception of the "spicy" Spanish dancers, there aren't really representations of "Western" cultures that need too much analyzing. In fact, with the exception of Spanish and Russian, there aren't any other cultures represented at all... unless you want to claim the Flowers came from England and Mother Ginger is German or something like that. To be sure, Nutcracker's most memorable variations are the ones that comically/mysteriously represent "non-Western" cultures, and in the interest of preserving the classical tradition, modern ballet companies have made very few changes to these variations, unless of course there's some po-diddly company in south Georgia that changed its Arabian variation post-9/11 to "Freedom Dance" where Uncle Sam gives Clara a burger and some freedumb fries (and being from Georgia, I can say with confidence that such a change would not surprise me at all).
That's not to say certain companies are not more complicit than others in revitalizing these Orientalist traditions or, as is common with many dance companies, outright racism in their casting. I remember seeing Nutcracker at Ruth Mitchell as a youngster. The part of Arabian was always played by one of the more "exotic" dancers. That is, a non-white woman. The thing was, it never really was a woman of Arab decent. Arabian was usually an African American woman, or sometimes an Indian woman, or a woman of mixed race. ("Well what else were we to cast her as? She can't be a SNOWflake!")
