Nutcracker blues

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Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • November 22, 2014 at 11:28 pm #6888

    jamie220
    Participant

    First, let me say I love ballet. For the past several years, ive been doing the same thing in nutcracker, chinese and flowers. i dont want to sound ungrateful, but it just isn’t fun to look forward when i keep doing the same thing year and year. at least the spring shows change every year so there is something else to try, but every christmas is the same. am I complaining too much??

    November 23, 2014 at 10:05 am #6889

    georginaballet14
    Participant

    Professionals often deal with this same issue every year. The Nutcracker is a huge money maker for many professional companies and its often thrown together in a matter of 2-3 weeks because so many people have done the ballet before and probably even the same part before.

    Assuming you’re at a school, you have to try to look at why that may be the case. Do certain levels do certain divertissments? Are other students constantly repeating the same parts? If so, that may be a problem because students need, and should want, to be challenged to get better.

    It never hurts to have a discussion with your teacher. Keep in mind, this doesn’t mean going in to his or her office and complaining or crying. But if you try to have a conversation that has back and forth, it can be quite constructive. Sadly, some teachers/schools try to keep stress as low as possible and just find it easy to continually cast students year and year in the same parts. Hopefully this isn’t the case for you!

    November 24, 2014 at 8:44 pm #6892

    jamie220
    Participant

    some of the girls get new parts, but most of us have the same parts year and year. Its not unless someone graduates or leaves that other people get new parts tho.

    November 30, 2014 at 9:17 am #6894

    ghsballet
    Participant

    Hmm, that’s tricky. It sounds like your teacher may be going with whats familiar year and year. It isn’t uncommon to repeat a role a few times though. The best idea is to try to talk to her after class one day so you can try to understand why it’s happening. There may be a good reason!

    February 16, 2015 at 10:20 pm #7122

    ArabellaAOB
    Participant

    I found a great video about this by former NYCB dancer, Kathryn Morgan. She suggests that for each night/show you come up for a story or theme for your character. Not only will it give you something new, it will help your acting. For example if you’re a snowflake, you can gather the other snowflakes and you could each pick a princess or dessert. Or if you’re a soldier make up a story of how you came to fight for the Nutcracker. Just get creative. Maybe it’ll help for next year.

    September 19, 2015 at 7:12 pm #7385

    ABTgirl05
    Participant

    Have you tried giving your character a spark of excitement or personality? Obviously you don’t want to stick out to much but it brings happiness to you, and an excellent show for the audience. I hope this helps you! :)

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