By akademiotoelektronik, 03/10/2022

Nutcracker, deemed racist, survive the era of "cancel culture?"

As the Christmas holidays approach, we watch the same films over and over - Empress Sissi and Santa Claus is a scumbag, among others -, we play the same plays, we dance the same ballets. Nutcracker in mind. Except at the Staatsballett in Berlin, where Piotr Ilitch Tchaikovsky's work does not appear on the program. And for good reason: the acting director of the institution, Christiane Theobald, judges the spectacle racist.

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“We have to ask ourselves if elements of the creation era are problematic,” explained Theobald, who considers that production contains ethnic stereotypes. In Act II of the ballet, in the "kingdom of delights", several nationalities are presented through typical dishes and choreographies: Spanish dance (chocolate), Arabic dance (coffee), Chinese dance (tea ) and Russian dance (Trepak). It is the second and the third which are thus called into question, the Arab dance representing in particular a dancer surrounded by ladies from his harem.

“Obsolete and discriminatory practices”

The initiative has caused a stir in Germany. It aroused the enthusiasm of public radio BR-Klassik, which specifies that it is not the work of Tchaikovsky which is in question but the choreography of Marius Petipa. A Jesuit reasoning insofar as the said choreography dates from the creation of the ballet in 1892. Conversely, the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung questions the respect due to the public: "According to a podcast from the Staatsballett, the public is not still ready to fully understand what he sees on stage. […] To what extent does the science of dance consider the public of dance as stupid or even racist?”, can we read in the columns of the newspaper.

Christiane Theobald's will also outraged Chinese-Canadian violinist Zhang Zhang: "Those who claim that The Nutcracker is racist towards the Chinese are ignorant and arrogant: Chinese companies regularly present it to Chinese audiences, the real act racist is the banning of this ballet in our name”, she protested.

The Berlin Staatsballett's decision is part of the institution's commitment to review its repertoire and bring to light "obsolete and discriminatory practices". This desire was clearly expressed when the black French dancer Chloé Anaïs Lopes Gomes denounced the racism allegedly shown by her ballet mistress against her: “The day after my audition [au Staatsballett, NDLR], says the ballerina, the ballet mistress told one of my fellow dancers that she thought it was a mistake to hire me, that a black woman was ruining the aesthetic. This same woman spent the next two years discriminating against me.”

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Consultation of the communities concerned

Since the revelations of the dancer, the Berlin company has undertaken to pay her financial compensation of 16,000 euros and to extend her contract by one year, while this was due to end in June 2021. A series of anti-discrimination measures have also been taken, including the re-examination of the repertoire in order to open eyes “to obsolete and discriminatory interpretations, to see and reassess traditions in a new light and with a different consciousness”, described the institution in a press release.

Berliners who are passionate about dance will be able to console themselves with Don Quixote, according to the choreography of the same Marius Petipa, implicated for his Nutcracker, and whose bicentenary we are celebrating this year. The show is not, however, free of such problems. A dance of “gitanos”, present in the production, is the subject of discussion with the representatives of the Sinti and Roma communities in order to obtain their blessing.

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In November, other companies also became entangled in reorganizations of The Nutcracker to eliminate the "cartoonish elements" of Arabic dance and Chinese dance, such as the Scottish Ballet and the Royal Ballet, two of the UK's four flag carriers, reports The Daily Mail. In the original version of the ballet, two children were blacked out in the second act, prompting cries of frenzy as early as 2015.

“In an ongoing process of discussion with company members and guests, The Royal Ballet strives each season to create an inclusive environment for its performers and audiences,” the institution said. Which decided to remove the presence of the three ballerinas in Arabic dance, favoring a male / female duo in order to “create an inclusive environment for artists and the public”.

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At Scottish Ballet, it was decided in early November to remove the contentious material after a review revealed the “proliferation of racial stereotyping” in some scenes. In 2020, the Scottish institution made an act of contrition, considering that its fifty years of history "include obsolete and racist artistic content". In an article published on the company's website, entitled "Black Lives Matter: How Scottish Ballet is tackling anti-racism in ballet", the troupe flagellated themselves all the more that "by examining [their] own history, by understanding and accepting the way Scottish Ballet has been part of and benefited from institutional and systemic racism, [they hope] to encourage others to do the same”.

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