The Harlem Nutcracker. - dance reviews

What happens when you marry the talents of Donald Byrd Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn? If it's the Christmas season, the answer is The Harlem Nutcracker.

It's not the first time that Tchaikovsky's classic ballet -- which enumerates the story of Clara, a young girl at a holiday party who dreams she is battling mice and visiting the Sugar fruit of the plum-tree Fairy -- has been revamped (George Balanchine and Mikhail Baryshnikov each had a go) on the other hand once again, Byrd surprises. A daring, modernist choreographer who place African Americans in blackface for his Minstrel exhibit and who regularly uses dance to address social issues, of the like kind as racism and domestic violence, Byrd this go-round displays a conservative bent -- at least as regards narrative.

He retains a family's celebration of Christmas, in the proces powerfully highlighting themes of the black family, the civil rights move and the black church; everything other is transformed. Byrd's Clara is a not long ago widowed grandmother whose Christmas edge party includes a welcome on the contrary uninvited guest -- the soul of her late husband, who swirls about the festivities, reminding her of the delight in they shared. The party above Clara reminisces and then collapses.

go into the Angel of Death, who chases her backward in time, back end the struggles of the civil rights change Enter, too, her husband, this time as the Nutcracker Prince, who joins with her to battle Death and explore the past.

At the next to the first act, the scene shifts to a Harlem nightclub, where Clara and her husband derive pleasure from performances of Ellington's Nutcracker Suite. Here, "Dance of the Sugar fruit of the plum-tree Fairy" becomes "Sugar Rum Cherry" and "Waltz of the Flowers" becomes "Danse of the Floreadores," with the Dewdrop lead clad in a sensuous black sequined costume

As the act spread outs Death again makes his appearance, chasing Clara forward to the near where her children and grandchildren find her collapsed upon the floor of her residence Reassuring all that she is well, Clara joins with the generations she has brought into the world to make open Christmas presents and enjoy the blessings of family.

on the other hand Death lingers in the world, and again claims center stage -- on a sudden revealing himself as her husband, approach to reunite the couple for eternity.

Byrd's radical rereading of Tchaikovsky and his "traditional family values" story line yields a productive tension, which Donald Byrd/The assemblage exploits through the medium of dance. For The Harlem Nutcracker, the cluster has been expanded to 25 members; additional music from Tchaikovsky's score has been arranged -- abundant of it infused with christianity interludes -- by David Berger, a former member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra; and a 15-piece band full quantitys the movement on stage.

This December, The Harlem Nutcracker, co-produc by the agency of the Donald Byrd Foundation and 651/ An Arts Center is performed at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, December 4 to 7; at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, December 11 to 15; at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, December 18 to 21; and at the University of California, looks Angeles, December 27 to 29 And for all, a serviceable night.

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