Nutcracker

Left: The fountain outside Lincoln Center.

Since returning to the US in 2nd grade, I have seen George Balanchine's Nutcracker by the NYCB company every Christmas. That's 14 times. I can pick out the most minute changes they make each year (this year, the little girls at the dinner party got red corsages, all the other years, they've been green with little colored flowers).

Originally a story by Russian author E.T.A. Hoffmann, Nußknacker und Mausekönig (1816), it was turned into a Russian Ballet with score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. How very interesting. Now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense that Russians are good at ballet. They have to spend more of their time indoors b/c of the snow, they have to keep warm b/c of the cold by working out, and they historically are very poor, hence lots of starved ballerinas to choose from.

It is family tradition to go out for dinner and see the ballet, and none of us get truly into the Christmas mood until we've seen a crazed Dr. Drossemier, the pom-pom's quiver on the balenerina's hands in the snow scene, watched the chocolate do their Spanish dance thing, and rated the coffee's abs for the year. Then we're good to go.

This year, I had an especially hard time focusing on the Sugar Plum fairy because her fairyman, or what ever you call male fairies, had a very large erm... package. Honestly, as the music played I was making up naughty & very funny lyrics in my head (some of them even rhymed!), very hard to concentrate. The picture to the right doesn't give him justice.

My favorite was Dewdrop and the Flowers, because I like they're longer tutu's with so many shades of pink. Actually, my fav are the two lead Flowers, because they get to wear purple. Very cool.

Prior to the show, we went to Shun Lee Cafe. We've tried Shun Lee Palace, but seeing that the fam rarely does Dim Sum (never in fact), we thought it'd be fun. It was. Lots of vegi & crab dumplings for me! And those sesame balls are to die for. Every light was a paper mache cast of an animal with whtie xmass lights inside. To the right is a python hanging down into the room.

Please Note: I did not take any of these dance pictures myself, all ripped from ballerina websites. Without sources. My profs would be so disappointed.