Alberta Ballet's The Nutcracker Study Guide for Teachers, Study Guides, Projects, Research of Dance

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THE NUTCRACKER

BY

ALBERTA BALLET

STUDY GUIDE FOR TEACHERS

NAC 2018-2019 DANCE SEASON

Cathy Levy, Executive Producer, Dance

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Matinee Program and Credits

Theatre Etiquette

About the NAC 5

Nutcracker Story and Cast of Characters 6

Did you know? 9

Artistic Biographies Choreographers and Composer

National Arts Centre Orchestra 12

About Ballet 14

Ballet Training 17

Basic Ballet Positions 18

Ballet Terms 19

Watching and Appreciating Dance 20

Student Activity Section

Word Search

Activity Worksheet

Activity Suggestions for Younger Students

Quiz

Answers to Quiz

Activity Suggestions for Older Students

Bibliography of Resources

Internet Links

THEATRE ETIQUETTE

For your students to have the best experience possible, we have prepared a small outline of what is expected of them as audience members. As a teacher bringing your students to a performance at the NAC, please keep in mind that you are responsible for the behaviour of your students.

Being an audience member is as essential to the ballet performance as the dancers themselves. What helps to make a show a success is in part how the audience reacts to it, whether through applause, laughter or surprise. Discuss proper audience etiquette with students before the performance. Arrive approximately half an hour before show time to get settled in to enjoy the show.

AUDIENCE ROLE ACTIVITY CHECKLIST

Children should be encouraged to :

 Freely react to the performance within reason (please no yelling). Dancers love to hear applause for something done well, or something you enjoyed seeing. There is no right or wrong time to show your appreciation for what you see on stage.

 Clap at the end of a dance (when there is a pause in the music) if you feel like showing appreciation.

 Watch in a quiet concentrated way. This supports the dancers so they can do their best work on stage.

 Enjoy the music and look at the sets and costumes.

 Consider that constructive criticism is always appreciated more than purely negative criticism.

 Remember, to turn off cell phones and no recording devices are allowed.

Children should not:

X Move about in the seats or get up to leave during a performance (except in an emergency situation).

X Eat, drink, speak aloud, or otherwise cause a disturbance to those around you (these things are not only a distraction to other audience members, but also to the performers on stage, which can be dangerous for them.)

CANADA’S NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE

Created by the Parliament of Canada as a Centennial project during the 1960s, the National Arts Centre raised its curtains for the first time in 1969.

Today the NAC collaborates with artists and arts organizations across Canada to help create a national stage for the performing arts, and acts as a catalyst for performance, creation and learning across the country.

A home for Canada’s most creative artists, the NAC strives to be artistically adventurous in each of its programming streams — the NAC Orchestra, Dance, English Theatre, French Theatre and NAC Presents.

The NAC’s National Creation Fund invests up to $3 million of privately raised funds every year in 15 to 20 ambitious new works by Canadian artists and arts organizations from across Canada. The NAC is at the forefront of youth and educational activities, offering artist training, programming, and national programs to support children, youth, teachers and emerging artists in communities across Canada.

The NAC is also a pioneer in new media, showcasing the performing arts across the country through the Kipnes Lantern, the largest transparent LED installation in North America; using technology to teach students and young artists around the globe; creating top-rated podcasts; and providing a wide range of NAC Orchestra concerts on demand. The NAC is the only bilingual, multidisciplinary performing arts centre in Canada, and one of the largest in the world.

The NAC is home to four different performance spaces, each with its own unique characteristics. Nutcracker will be performed in Southam Hall, a 1884-seat theatre.

The party ends and the guests depart, the parents taking their weary children with them. Drosselmeyer also appears to leave the party. Klara looks around searching frantically for her nutcracker. But it is nowhere to be seen and Babushka packs Nikolai and Klara off to bed.

Later that night, Klara returns downstairs to the parlour to search for her nutcracker. The town hall clock strikes midnight and at once she is surrounded by mice. Suddenly, Drosselmeyer appears and sends the mice to sleep. He explains to Klara that it was actually he who was being portrayed in the play earlier that evening and it was he who had built the mousetrap that had angered the Rat Tsar. The Rat Tsar, in revenge, had transformed his nephew, Karl, into a nutcracker, the very nutcracker that Klara was now holding!

With Klara’s promise to love the nutcracker, Drosselmeyer employs his magic, causing the room to grow and themselves to shrink. The nutcracker now reappears, life-size to the now tiny Klara and Drosselmeyer. An army of soldiers stream out of the fort to engage in a battle with the cossack rats that have gathered on the other side of the parlour. With the nutcracker leading the soldiers, a fierce battle ensues and eventually the Rat Tsar himself appears. With his powerful magic, he attempts to attack Drosselmeyer, but the nutcracker intervenes to save his uncle.

Klara remembers the play that Drosselmeyer had presented in the parlour that evening and how the ballerina defeated the Rat Tsar by hitting him on the head with her shoe. She strikes the Rat Tsar on the head, distracting him long enough for the nutcracker to attack him with his own scepter.

The Rat Tsar is mortally wounded and the Nutcracker collapses in pain at the feet of Klara and Drosselmeyer. Drosselmeyer realizes that his plans, and his magic, are still not enough to transform his nephew.

Klara and Drosselmeyer sense that their surroundings are changing and as Klara seeks help, she encounters wolves that she thinks are there to devour her precious nutcracker. However the wolves are the attendants of the Snow Tsarina who appears in her sleigh. She instructs Drosselmeyer to stand the nutcracker up and with a wave of her hand, casts a spell that transforms the nutcracker back into Karl. It takes a moment or two for Karl to realize that he is human again. Once he does, he embraces Drosselmeyer and Klara, and thanks the Snow Tsarina for her life-restoring spell.

The Snow Tsarina summons her Snow Princesses and as Klara and Karl frolic in the snow, she guides them towards a mysterious palace far away in the distance.

Alberta Ballet in Nutcracker Photo: Gerard Yunker

ACT II

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Spanish Dancers Arabian Dancers Chinese Dancers Russian Dancers The Sugar Plum Fairy Her Cavalier Flowers and Flower Cavaliers Mice Soldiers Rats Palace Page Girls Palace Page Boys

The Snow Tsarina leads the sleigh to the gates of the Palace of the Sugar Plum Fairy. There they are greeted by the Palace Pages and are introduced to the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier. The Sugar Plum Fairy introduces guests from all over the world and one by one they dance for Klara and Karl in celebration. There are dancers from Spain, Arabia, China and Russia. Klara and Karl dance and are then entertained by the Palace Pages and the Waltz of the Flowers. The celebrations continue with the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier dancing for their honoured guests, concluding in a rousing finale.

EPILOGUE

The next morning, Klara exits the house. She has just woken up from an amazing dream and is not quite sure what is real anymore. Down the street, Drosselmeyer and a young man who seems strangely familiar, appear. Drosselmeyer introduces his nephew, Karl to her. Karl, in turn, gives her a gift. After they depart, she unwraps the gift. It is a Nutcracker and Klara begins to wonder whether it was all a dream after all.

Alberta Ballet in Nutcracker Photo : Gerard Yunker

BIOGRAPHIES

Edmund Stripe, Choreographer Alberta Ballet’s The Nutcracker

Now in his 13th season with the Alberta Ballet and 2nd^ season as Artistic Director of The School of Alberta Ballet, Edmund Stripe has previously been Ballet Master with West Australian Ballet and Singapore Dance Theatre. Born in Enfield, North London, he trained at the Royal Ballet School, where his distinguished teachers included Nancy Kilgour (former senior pedagogue at the School of Alberta Ballet). As a dancer, he was a soloist with Ballet Gulbenkian (Portugal) and principal dancer with London City Ballet. From 1987-1997, Mr. Stripe was principal dancer with West Australian Ballet and was appointed Ballet Master there in 1998, before joining Singapore Dance Theatre in 2000. He has assisted in the mounting and re-creation of works by such noted choreographers as Jiri Kylian, Nacho Duato, George Balanchine, Agnes de Mille, and Christopher Wheeldon. An award-winning choreographer, Mr. Stripe has created over 30 major works for many international companies. He has created three critically acclaimed works for Alberta Ballet, Unquiet Light , Swelter , and the hugely popular Alice in Wonderland.

Marius Petipa, First Choreographer of The Nutcracker Source: The National Arts Centre’s www.ArtsAlive.ca

Marius Petipa, the “father of classical ballet,” was born in Marseilles, France, in 1819. He became the pre- eminent choreographer of Imperial Russia in the 19th Century. He received his early training from his ballet- master father and was a principal dancer in France, Belgium, and Spain before joining the Imperial Theatre in St. Petersburg in 1847. There he created several ballets, including The Pharaoh’s Daughter, which led to his appointment as chief choreographer in 1869. By his retirement in 1903, he had produced more than 60 ballets for the imperial theatres in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Petipa was able to combine entertainment with artistry, creating works that have remained popular over time, including La Bayadère (1877), The Sleeping Beauty (1890), The Nutcracker (1892) and Swan Lake (1895). (Lev Ivanov assisted Petipa in creating these last two ballets.)

Peter Tchaikovsky , Composer Source: The National Arts Centre’s www.ArtsAlive.ca

Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky was born in Russia in 1840. He loved and created great music all his life. Music was a big part of Peter Tchaikovsky's schoolwork. His class often went to plays and operas together. He sang in the school choir and took piano lessons. Tchaikovsky was born in Russia where music was not considered a proper profession. It was only encouraged as a pastime for young ladies from wealthy families. The only Russian music that was really heard were the folk songs of the peasants and the choral singing in the church services. At first there weren't many schools that even offered training for Russian musicians. That all changed during Tchaikovsky's lifetime.

Peter Tchaikovsky became a full-time music student when he was 22 years old. He enrolled in the Russian Musical Society. It was like going to university. When he graduated, he moved to Moscow to become a professor at the Music Conservatory there. Peter Tchaikovsky composed operas, ballets, orchestral music, fantasy overtures, chamber music, piano music and vocal music as well. Tchaikovsky is famous for using Russian folk themes in many of his works.

Here is a list of some of Tchaikovsky's compositions you may know or want to listen to: Romeo and Juliet Swan Lake The Maid of Orleans Queen of Spades Piano Concerto No. The Nutcracker Suite The 1812 Overture

When Tchaikovsky was 51, he left Russia to do a very successful music tour in North America. He even came to see the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. In 1893, two years after that North American tour, Peter died. His funeral was held in St. Petersburg. Huge numbers of people attended Tchaikovsky's funeral. Everyone wanted to show their respect for a great musician. Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky was buried in a little Russian village that he loved.

ABOUT BALLET

ballet – (noun) an artistic dance that usually tells a story or expresses a mood, performed by either a soloist or a group of dancers in a theatre, concert hall, etc.

balletic – (adjective) of or having to do with the ballet

balletomane – (noun) a person who is enthusiastic about ballet

The word ballet refers to a specific dance technique that has evolved over the last 350 years. Its roots lie in the royal courts of the 16th century. Ballet involves a combination of movement, music and design where emotions and stories are translated through precise body movement and facial expressions.

A Short History of Ballet People have always danced. The first dances were part of religious and community ceremonies, but by the time of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, dancing had also become a form of entertainment. In the Middle Ages, the church in Europe claimed that dancing was sinful, but when the Renaissance arrived in the 1400s, dancing had become popular once again. It is in the European courts of the 16th and 17th centuries that the true origins of ballet lie.

The First Ballet In 16th century France and Italy, royalty competed to have the most splendid court. Monarchs would search for and employ the best poets, musicians, and artists. At this time, dancing became increasingly theatrical. This form of entertainment, also called the ballet de court (court ballet), featured elaborate scenery and lavish costumes, plus a series of processions, poetic speeches, music and dancing. The first known ballet, Le Ballet Comique was performed in 1581 at the wedding of the Queen of France’s sister.

Alberta Ballet in Sleeping Beauty

The Sun King In the 17th century, the popularity and development of ballet can be attributed to King Louis XIV of France. He took dancing very seriously and trained daily with his dance master, Beauchamp. One of his famous roles was the Rising Sun and this led him to become known as the “Sun King.” King Louis also set up the Académie Royale de Danse (Royal Academy of Dance) in 1661, where for the first time steps were structurally codified and recorded by Beauchamp. These are the same steps that have been handed down through centuries, and which now form the basis of today’s classical ballet style.

The First Professional Dancers At first, ballets were performed at the Royal Court, but in 1669 King Louis opened the first opera house in Paris. Ballet was first viewed publicly in the theatre as part of the opera. The first opera featuring ballet, entitled Pomone , included dances created by Beauchamp. Women participated in ballets at court, but were not seen in the theatre until 1681. Soon, as the number of performances increased, courtiers who danced for a hobby gave way to professional dancers who trained longer and harder. The physical movement of the first professional dancers was severely hindered by their lavish and weighty costumes and headpieces. They also wore dancing shoes with tiny heels and pointed toes, which made it rather difficult to dance.

Revealing Feet and Ankles Early in the 18th century, the ballerina Marie Camargo shocked the audiences by shortening her skirts – to just above the ankle. She did this to be freer in her movements and to allow the audience to see her intricate footwork and complex jumps, which often rivalled those of the men. At this time, female dancers also began to dominate the stage over their male counterparts. Ballet companies were now being set up all over France to train dancers for the opera. The first official ballet company (a collection of dancers who train professionally) was based at the Paris Opera and opened in 1713.

The Pointe Shoe By 1830, ballet as a theatrical art truly came into its own. Influenced by the Romantic Movement, which was sweeping the world of art, music, literature and philosophy, ballet took on a whole new look. The ballerina reigned supreme. Female dancers now wore calf- length, white bell-shaped tulle skirts. To enhance the image of the ballerina as light and elusive, the pointe shoe was introduced, enabling women to dance on the tips of their toes.

BALLET TRAINING

The career of a dancer is relatively short and it is not unusual to spend more years training than dancing professionally. The movements demanded of the human body in ballet are of a very specific nature, requiring great precision and care. As a result, the physique must be prepared for this future at a young age. A student aspiring to be a classical ballet dancer must undergo much preliminary work in order to become accustomed to the demands that will be imposed upon the body when dancing the many hours required of a professional dancer. The professional training period usually consists of at least eight or nine years of intensive, precise work. Ideally, girls and boys should begin their professional training at the age of nine. Training is a very progressive process. The young professional student begins with daily classes, practicing the basic ballet positions and movements, learning body placement, correct carriage, balance and artistry. As the student progresses, time spent in classes each week increases, as does the difficulty and extensiveness of the skills taught. As well as the daily class in classical technique, students are required to receive instruction in variation (solo) work, pointe (dancing on the toes), pas de deux (a dance for two), character (ethnic), jazz and modern dance.

Prior to the introduction of pointe work, a number of criteria must be considered. These include the amount of previous training, a student’s strength and ability, as well as age as it relates to the bone development in the dancer’s feet. Pas de deux and repertoire (the collection of different ballets that a dance company performs) are introduced only when the student has adequate strength, ability and training. Students who graduate to a professional ballet company usually begin dancing as a member of the corps de ballet (ensemble). After a few years, corps de ballet members who demonstrate growth in artistry, technical ability, musicality and ability to communicate with the audience may be promoted to the rank of soloist or second soloist. Finally, the highest achievement in the company, the position of principal dancer or ballerina, is attainable by only a few gifted dancers.

BASIC BALLET POSITIONS

Source: Connexions® http://cnx.org by Alex Volschenk

Every new step you will learn will make use of the basic positions. All dancers, even the greatest, use exactly these positions every day.

Positions of the Feet

FIRST POSITION: turn your feet out to the side with your heels touching – turn your whole leg out at the hip, not just the foot.

SECOND POSITION: turn your toes out on the same line as first position – stand with feet apart – the space between your heels should be about the length of one of your feet – place the whole of both feet on the floor – don’t roll forwards and put too much weight on your big toes.

THIRD POSITION: cross one foot halfway in front of the other – your weight should be balanced evenly on both feet.

FOURTH POSITION: place one foot exactly in front of the other with some space between them.

FIFTH POSITION: your feet should be turned out, fully crossed and touching each other firmly.

WATCHING AND APPRECIATING DANCE

CURRICULUM CONNECTION – Reflecting, Responding and Analysing

Attending Dance Matinees at the NAC, and using questions and activities here and in Student Activity Section, are intended to develop students’ competency in applying The Critical Analysis Process for all grades, in The Arts (Ontario) Curriculum Grades 1-12.

A ballet is a choreographic composition interpreted by the dancers. Each dancer tells a story in movement and pantomime. There are no words spoken in a ballet. Watch the show and look for the choreography, the movement, gestures and facial expressions of each dancer and how they work in relationship to each other. In dance there are basic elements that are always present in this live art form, where the body is the dancer’s instrument of expression. Try to recognize the elements of dance such as the placement of the body, whether the body is moving through space or on the spot, type and quality of the movement, the timing and musicality, how space is used, the energy and the relationship between the dancers. Each person watching may have different interpretations about what they saw and how they felt. All are valid. Relax, breathe deeply and open yourself to the spirit of dance.

During the show, watch for:

The dancer’s movements, such as the dance technique used of jumps, pirouettes, and ballet positions of the feet, as well as the emotions and facial expressions used.

How the dancers use the space on stage.

Your real impressions of the piece during the show, for example: excitement, curiosity, frustration, surprise, sadness, humour etc.

The combination of sequences or enchaînements and shapes on stage.

The relationship between the choreography, the music, the props, costumes and set.

STUDENT ACTIVITY

SECTION