The ballet itself was very well done. It definitely had an urban feel to it; the mannerisms, the attitude and some of the situations all had an urban tone to them. There were times when they overlaid a hip hop beat on the Nutcracker classical piece and danced hip hop in a ballet-ish way. Interesting and entertaining.
There were a few parts that really had us laughing in our seats so we decided to re-enact them once the ballet was over. I'll describe the scenes here so that when you see the videos, we don't look like complete fools.
Scene 1 - Antonio Banderas look alike with a beer gut and a cape!
Original:
- One of the characters in the play was a magician with a big cape and a big belly to match. He looked a little like Antonio Banderas just not as good looking. He wasn't at all in the physically fit condition of a dancer but he definitely knew how to work his cape; he kept running around the stage fluttering the cape.
Re-enactment:
- Cast: Angie (Antonio); Meg (little girl)
Original:
- In one of the scenes there was a party of rats that were fighting against a party of nutcracker dolls. It was one of the scenes where there was hip hop music in the back ground. At one point a gigantic rat (the leader of the group, I presume) entered into the scene and started going crazy. After a mock fight with one of the dolls, he finally got stabbed with a sword. However, instead of dropping to the ground and dying, he somehow seemed to get a sudden burst of energy that allowed him to prance around the stage before he finally died.
- Angie (nutcracker doll); Magna (cat - should have been a rat but for some reason we kept thinking he was a cat when we were doing the re-enactment...oh well)
Original:
- This was actually a very beautiful dance. The scene opened with a few background dancers doing some tribal dancing which was followed by a very beautiful dance between the lead male and female dancers. The female dancer had a veil over her face for quite some time while the male dancer was lifting her around. It was a very soft and sensual dance. Our version was nothing of the sort.
- Meg (female veiled dancer); Magna (blind-folded back up dancer and lifter)
Original:
- A solo dance for one guy with a bunch of ribbons that he would pull across the stage. Very pretty and also very flamboyant.
- Magna (flamboyant soloist who is in love with ribbons); Meg (ribbon end); Angie (ribbon end)