What the Rockettes and ‘The Hard Nut’ teach us about the meaning of life
|
Version 0 of 1. NEW YORK — So much feels out of synch with the season. That mid-December weather that was more like spring seemed like yet another ill omen for a stumbling human race. With a daily load of bad news, more burdens and less time, the task of making spirits bright can at times be far beyond one’s capabilities. But there’s another way to look at things. We could take a cue from the Rockettes, who know more than a little about brightness, as well as collective survival. (They’ve been around since 1933.) What they deliver in the famous precision dancing of their annual “Christmas Spectacular,” through Jan. 3 at Radio City Music Hall, is the sustaining power of sisterhood. Put more broadly, their art, their mesmerizing energy and, most important, their joy springs from a sense of community and fellow-feeling. It’s a philosophical point that these 36 women offer, whether in their reindeer suits, toy-soldier uniforms or ruffles. For so many of us, self-promotion has become a habit if not a mandate. But the Rockettes remind us of the old-fashioned value of paying attention to others. A Rockette’s art is connecting with the group without drawing attention to herself. A dancer doesn’t get to that line without weeks of grueling rehearsals that heighten her empathy, the ability to sense and respond to those around her instantly, without looking. “We call it ‘feeling the line,’ ” said Sarah Lin Johnson, a Rockette in her ninth season. Tall, bright-eyed and still wearing her crystal-studded three-inch heels and sparkly purple chorus-girl costume, she spoke with me backstage after a recent 9 a.m. show. It was a Sunday, and she had four more shows to perform. “You’re thinking of the choreography but you’re also feeling the energy of the girls around you,” Johnson said, stretching her arms around invisible girlfriends. “You have to side-eye and have that sense of togetherness to get the extreme precision.” Even to the point of breathing together. Rockettes exhale a collective sigh when they hit their synchronized poses. The Rockettes are all about the group over the individual. Just as they dazzle us with their well-toned legs and eye-high kicks, they also make plain the strength that comes from gathering together in mutual support. Watching them is exhilarating. The chills start when a full orchestra rises from the pit, and as it lowers you see the dancers’ reindeer antlers silhouetted upstage, like the bayonet tips of an advancing regiment. There are other excitements, too. A 3D film puts you on a dive-bombing flying sleigh that must have Chuck Yeager at the controls. Live camels and variously cooperative sheep join in a biblical pageant. Drone-driven snowglobes hover over the audience members’ heads. But the Rockettes are the prized component, the orchid in the garden, and for good reason. That line of women stretching across the vast Radio City stage, glamorous yet outer-directed, minutely attuned to one another while beaming at us as though we’re the nicest bunch of people they’ve ever seen — it can make tears spring from your eyes. Theirs is a spectacle of openheartedness. In a different form, this communal spirit is a hallmark of another dance production, in Brooklyn, presented by a troupe that is a world away from the formality of the Rockettes but shares the emphasis on fellowship. It’s “The Hard Nut,” a campy and poetic homage to “The Nutcracker” with a slightly different storyline, created by Mark Morris in 1991. The Mark Morris Dance Group is performing it at the Brooklyn Academy of Music through Dec. 20, the first East Coast showing of this production in five years. Like the Christmas Spectacular, “The Hard Nut” is retro-inspired. It takes place in the 1970s, with a comic-book look based on the off-kilter perspective of Charles Burns, the D.C.-born creator of such teen-horror graphic novels as “Black Hole” and “Blood Club.” The decor for the Stahlbaums’ Christmas party includes a white aluminum tree, a deluxe television console and the prominent positioning of a cocktail cart. The characters are superbly detailed, and masculinity and femininity are easily transferable. Mrs. Stahlbaum, portrayed with gallant faded grandeur by John Heginbotham, is desperate for her happy pills and the booze to wash them down. As Dr. Stahlbaum, Morris is benignly oblivious. Their eldest daughter is a miniskirted tartlet who entangles herself with many male guests. Little brother Fritz is played by June Omura, a former company member with the outbursts and intensity of a 10-year-old boy. In the second act, the dance of the Mirlitons features a foursome of French pseudo-sophisticates who prance about with distinct hostility. One man carries a baguette, the other a whip, and they all dance on pointe. But the consolations of communal grace are felt here, too. The dancers pay attention to one another in meaningful ways. After the party and the battle scene (fought by frazzled G.I. Joes and flirtatious rats), the toymaker Drosselmeier strolls pensively through the Snow scene. The snowflakes turn and watch him, as they should: Billy Smith, in the Drosselmeier role, has a lifted, elegant stride, touched with drama. His character’s bearing ties him in with the splendor of nature, as the weather itself pauses to take note of him. Later, Mrs. Stahlbaum has a similar moment. Her younger daughter, Marie, declares her love for Drosselmeier’s nephew, and to mark this coming of age, Mrs. Stahlbaum starts up a flower dance. We’d had an earlier glimpse of her artistic soul, as she spun into a little solo before her party, but here is a full-scale vision of her feminine, creative energies. Around her swirl darling animated blossoms, embodied before our eyes by the barefoot dancers, who shape-shift from individual droopy fuschias to strings of garlanded blooms and, all holding hands, a single unfolding rose. Danced by a man, Mrs. Stahlbaum demonstrates the nurturing quality we all possess, the compassion that drives us struggling mortals to connect with one another and find comfort. After this, the G.I. Joes, drunken party guests, slutty sister and other characters from the ballet return to help coax Marie and her young man into each other’s arms. A dream of community acceptance is realized onstage, with love as the outcome. The next morning, as I spoke with Sarah Lin Johnson, the Rockette, she echoed the sentiment of “The Hard Nut’s” finale. “One of our mantras is ‘Together we’re better,’” she said. “That’s true in life in general.” “Radio City Christmas Spectacular” continues through Jan. 3 at Radio City Music Hall. www.radiocitychristmas.com. “The Hard Nut” closes Dec. 20 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. 718-636-4100 or www.BAM.org. |