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Post by buckmana on Dec 21, 2017 1:05:31 GMT -5
Release date: November 2, 2018.
The movie is based on the Nutcracker ballet.
I am curious as to how much they are reinterpreting the plot for this version. I looked up some reviews and so far, there is no mention of the Nutcracker or the Mouse King/Queen. As far as I can tell, Clara will be the lead heroic role.
I wondered if they were still planning to have some ballet scenes. According to her IMDB bio, Mackenzie Foy (Clara) is trained in ballet, so it might be possible she was cast specifically because she already has the talent. She's also a black belt in TaeKwonDo, so I am curious if we'll see that skill used as well.
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Post by merprincess on Dec 25, 2017 21:31:40 GMT -5
I saw this as well! Lots of mixed thoughts from me, having danced in the Nutcracker ballet with a pro company for several years as a kid. I don't like how over-produced the music sounds, I think the Tchaikovsky score can carry the dramatic weight of whatever story they're trying to tell just fine on its own without needing a darker, over-the-top edge. I was never a really big fan of the Tim Burton Alice films, and I didn't really love the live action Beauty and the Beast adaptation, and those two combined is the type of vibe that this trailer is giving me. The colors are just so dark and uninteresting to me. It's advertised as a darker side to the classic story, but there's a way to make something dark without it having to be downright dismal. The original version of the story (not from the ballet, but what the ballet is based on) is PLENTY dark enough and full of disturbing yet fantastical elements that are certainly worthy of a film adaptation, but I don't think that's the direction in which this film is going. The costuming is wonderful so far, but I really don't like that everything looks so fake because of how the CGI being used is not seamlessly integrated into the set design. I will give it a chance because it's the Nutcracker and it holds a special place in my heart (the roles I played over the several years I was in it: friend of Clara, party guest, rat, toy soldier, jester puppet, page boy, reed flute/mirliton, a child of Madame Ginger, and a few others here and there). But so far, it hasn't really swept me off my feet or anything. In all honesty, my favorite film adaptation of this story is the CGI animated Barbie in the Nutcracker. Looking back on it, it can be really cheesy, the animation looks dated now, and it doesn't really follow the Nutcracker plot, but it has beautiful motion-capture dancing performed by professional dancers, retains portions of the original Tchaikovsky music in its score, has a really visually pleasing color palette, and some great voice acting too. I hope the character Clara in this version doesn't have one or two default emotions or reactions, as Clara goes through a lot in the original story and the ballet (she actually defeats the Mouse King by hitting him with her slipper). She has to be a strong actress as well as a strong dancer (unless the adaptation has no dancing from Clara). I do hope we get to see her dance!
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Post by buckmana on Dec 26, 2017 22:23:01 GMT -5
The only ballet I can definitively see is at 1:10 and 1:20 in the trailer. I'm still undecided if the dance at 1:04 is ballet, it's too short for me to tell. The dancing at 0:08 looks like regular ballroom dancing.
Judging from the scenes at 1:10 and 1:20, it looks like Clara is just watching the ballet performance, I'm not certain if she is actually participating as a performer/dancer.
Feel free to correct me if I am mistaken, but I always equated ballet to leaping and/or jumping high, usually as a solo performer, but also possible as a duet, in which one partner lifts the other off the ground. From my perspective, if both feet are on the ground, then it's just regular dancing.
I'm now having a recollection of how they altered the trailers for the CGI Ballerina movie, that they emphasised the gadget invention sideplot to make it seem like it was the main plot because they didn't think the audience would like a movie that was primarily about ballet dancing. Might they be doing the same trick here, selectively choosing the action scenes instead of the dance scenes? For the record, I purchased the Ballerina movie because I wanted to see the ballet dancing.
I vaguely remember a story principle that states you can write a dark story, but you also have to give the audience hope, otherwise you just make them depressed. Based on what you said, I am wondering if Disney's live action films are being written to emphasise the dark and dismal themes.
It's interesting to learn you played so many roles in the Nutcracker. Were there a lot of non-lead roles in the stage/dance version?
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Post by merprincess on Dec 27, 2017 2:03:21 GMT -5
The only ballet I can definitively see is at 1:10 and 1:20 in the trailer. I'm still undecided if the dance at 1:04 is ballet, it's too short for me to tell. The dancing at 0:08 looks like regular ballroom dancing. Judging from the scenes at 1:10 and 1:20, it looks like Clara is just watching the ballet performance, I'm not certain if she is actually participating as a performer/dancer. Feel free to correct me if I am mistaken, but I always equated ballet to leaping and/or jumping high, usually as a solo performer, but also possible as a duet, in which one partner lifts the other off the ground. From my perspective, if both feet are on the ground, then it's just regular dancing. I'm now having a recollection of how they altered the trailers for the CGI Ballerina movie, that they emphasised the gadget invention sideplot to make it seem like it was the main plot because they didn't think the audience would like a movie that was primarily about ballet dancing. Might they be doing the same trick here, selectively choosing the action scenes instead of the dance scenes? For the record, I purchased the Ballerina movie because I wanted to see the ballet dancing. I vaguely remember a story principle that states you can write a dark story, but you also have to give the audience hope, otherwise you just make them depressed. Based on what you said, I am wondering if Disney's live action films are being written to emphasise the dark and dismal themes. It's interesting to learn you played so many roles in the Nutcracker. Were there a lot of non-lead roles in the stage/dance version? Ballet is a highly technical sort of dance based on French vocabulary dating way back to the Italian Renaissance with several styles therein. The dance moves once can do in ballet are not just limited to being up in the air, a lot of it involves arm positions (port de bras), positions of the body and feet (first through fifth positions), pointing and flexing of the foot, turning out the feet, alignment, turns, posture, and other sorts of fancy footwork. Here's a clip of the Sugar Plum Fairy's dance from the Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker to give you a feel for what classical ballet is like: You can click around from there to see related videos that showcase other scenes from The Nutcracker. Within that single production, lots of styles of ballet are employed. There's some partner dancing, more traditional folk dancing (especially with the Russian Dancers and the other dancers in the themed divertissements in Act 2), character dancing, intense leaps, turns, dancing made to look like animals, masquerade style dancing, dancing made to look as light as snow falling or flower petals blooming, and much more. It's a highly imaginative work of art, if there's any production going on near you (especially at this time of year!) I highly suggest you check it out! Not every production of The Nutcracker is staged the same way, heck in many version Clara is actually named Marie or Masha. Several characters and dancers are changed, omitted, and other characters are added from version to version. The Sugar Plum Fairy is always a staple of every production though (I think some productions may call her a Sugar Plum Princess, but originally she's a fairy). I'd say the majority of roles in the Nutcracker are non-leads. The leads would be Clara, Drosselmeyer, The Nutcracker, Rat King (in some productions is called the Mouse King, depends from production to production), The Sugar Plum Fairy (+ her prince/Cavalier). Other lead dancers include the lead Flower (Rose), lead Snowflake (or Snow Queen, and her male counterpart). There may also be a a lead Soldier, a lead Rat Lieutenant, lead Russian dancer, lead Arabian dancer, lead Spanish dancer, lead Chinese dancer. Pretty much every divertissement (the dances from different countries, usually having nothing to do with the plot but are beautifully done and have very memorable music) had a lead dancer or pair of lead dancers now that I think of it. Sometimes among the children dancers there's a lead puppet (in ours there was a German Doll), lead little Mouse, lead Angel, lead Friends of Clara, a lead Reed Flute, etc. Our production, as with most, had a mix of children dancers and professional dancers. Clara is usually played by one of the older children, the Sugar Plum Fairy is always a professional ballerina (the highest billed name in the program, pretty much the most elite and exclusive role of the show, often played by a guest dancer of another company out of state or a residential professional). The younger children played the soldiers, mice, rats, puppets, angels, and child party guests. Drosselmeyer was a veteran dancer as well, and the Nutcracker Prince was either an older boy dancer or young professional male dancer (he also played Harlequin I think on his off nights). Rat King and Madame Ginger (same dancer played both) were professionals as well. The Rose and Snow Queen were also professionals, as were most of the lead dancers. The adult party guests and Clara's parents were pros too I believe. The Maids, Snowflakes, Flowers, and basically all the Act 2 dancers (minus the page boys and Mme Ginger children), were a mix of the oldest children dancers (the teens) and the youngest professional dancers. We had a ballet school and professional company combined in our organization, and it took the efforts of the entire company and ballet school to put on this production. It was HUGE. As kids, we often didn't play every show and had alternates, because there were so many of us. By my final year though because I had so many roles, I ended up playing every show, even the few we did for schools taking field trips to the city to see us perform (in which case we had to send a written note to school from ballet allowing us to be absent for two days because we were dancing during the school day for other school children. I think one year my school went on the field trip and got to see my younger sister and I perform!). Here's a photo from our production in 2008 where I played a friend of Clara. I'm in the center in a blue dress and ringlet curls cradling a doll. Drosselmeyer is to the right (I noticed that Disney's Drosselmeyer, Morgan Freeman, also wears an eyepatch like ours did!) fixing up the Nutcracker after Clara's brother Fritz broke him, upsetting Clara. You can clearly see the mix of children and adults, ballet students and professional working dancers, in our production right here. Other named characters that had featured roles would be the Rathheimer family (not sure how to spell their name. They were often played by the Rat King and a female dancer who had lead roles in Act 2) who act very nasty towards Clara's family and pretty much everyone in the party scene, Madame Ginger (a drag role, usually a male on stilts or sat upon the soldier of another male dancer, and he's dressed as a woman in a giant hoop skirt in which her children pop out of and do a little dance), Clara's father, Clara's mother, and Clara's mischievous brother Fritz who breaks her Nutcracker during the party, plus the Harlequin and Columbine puppets that perform at the party. The characters we had besides the main ones would be party guests and their children, maids, toy puppets, toy soldiers, mice, rats, horses, angels, snowflakes, members of the court of the Sugar Plum Fairy, ladies in waiting, page boys, the divertissement dancers (Spanish, Arabian, Chinese, Russian), reed flutes/marzipan shepherdesses/mirlitons, Madame/Mother Ginger and her children, and Flowers. Oh and we also had a camel for the Arabian dancer scene, it was a puppet and got a lot of laughs from the audience as he could be very silly! We also had a towering clock in the Overture scene that would lean over from side to side and had a little face with eyes that would blink and dart around. I think we had an owl too that was atop the clock in the transition to the war scene in Act 1, the owl is implied to be a form that Drosselmeyer takes. Drosselmeyer is Clara's uncle who is a toymaker and a bit of an eccentric, he's the one who gives Clara the Nutcracker at her family's Christmas party. Basically the story is that after this wonderful Christmas party (which takes up most of Act 1 and features lots of fantastical toys that dance, all made by Drosselmeyer), Clara is so tired after dancing about with her friends and all the excitement that was receiving this gift of the Nutcracker that she ends up falling asleep on furniture in the living room. She's then awoken by little mice (played in our version by our littlest dancers, aged 4-6 generally), and then the rats (aged 8-9). Drosselmeyer appears in owl form and then in his normal form and basically guides Clara through this experience of being shrunken down to the size of the toys she received at the party, and she's introduced to her Nutcracker who now appears to be the same size she is. The Nutcracker encounters the Rat King and the soldier army is assembled, defeating the rat army and the Rat King (who Clara defeats with a throw of her slipper). The rest of the ballet is sort of a reward for defeating the Rat King, who it's implied the Nutcracker had been trying to defeat for a long time. The Nutcracker becomes human and leads Clara to the Sugar Plum Fairy so she can be congratulated and hailed for her valiant efforts. Clara and the Nutcracker danse a pas de deux (duet partner dance between two skilled dancers) accompanied by tons of little angels. A flurry of Snowflakes end the Act as Clara and the Nutcracker move onward towards the Kingdom of Sweets where Act 2 begins. There's court dancers, divertissements from all sorts of countries, all the other sorts of Act 2 dancers I mentioned earlier (Madame Ginger, mirlitons, Flowers, etc). None of the plot is really furthered at this point, it's really all for show, but showcases some magnificent dancing and costumes. The Sugar Plum Fairy greets Clara and The Nutcracker, she does a solo dance, as does her Cavalier, they do a duet together. There's this implied romance budding between Clara and the Nutcracker prince, who share a duet earlier right after the war scene amidst a swarm of little Angels lighting their way towards the Snowflakes and onward to the Kingdom of Sweets where the Sugar Plum Fairy lives. It's then time for Clara to leave, guided by Drosselmeyer, and she returns back to the very same piece of furniture she had taken a nap on earlier in the show. It's ambiguous whether or not all the events she encountered were a dream or not, and I really like it best when it's played that way! In some versions, there's another key character in Drosselmeyer's nephew, who Clara takes a liking to a bit at the party and who looks mysteriously like her Nutcracker Prince as a human (they're played by the same dancer). She encounters the nephew after returning home and they share a moment of "maybe it wasn't a dream after all". It's a very sweet show, unlike most ballets where there's some element of tragedy or despair it's nice to have something light and fun to escape to during the holiday season. The darker moments would definitely be the war scene. I remember as a kid my first role was as a Rat and even back then at the age of 9, the Rat King kinda freaked me out! He had a mask with beady red eyes that lit up, gloves that had snarly rat fingers on them, a sinister grin, and a whip he would crack. Also, Clara's downsizing can be played darker too as she has no clue what's going on or why she's shrunk to toy size all of a sudden and is swept up in a war with her beloved Nutcracker and his troop of toy soldiers vs a nasty Rat King and his minions. All in all, I'd say it's a wonderful production and I'm glad to have spent a good portion of my childhood performing in it!
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Post by buckmana on Dec 27, 2017 14:11:20 GMT -5
Was there some kind of toe cap on those ballet slippers? It looks like it was reinforced in some way.
What role does the Sugar Plum Fairy actually play in the production? The only notes I could find state that the performance piece is at the end of the production and that's it's a highly sought after role. I am assuming she's the traditional Fairy Godmother character. I thought the main lead role was always Clara.
According to the schedule of my nearest theatre, there's a production of the Nutcracker at the end of April 2018, performed by Moscow Ballet La Classique. Still trying to work out if La Classique is the staging style, since the announcement references it later seperately.
From the photo, which one is Fritz? I see two possible candidates, one in a bright blue vest and another in a subdued blue vest.
Is the Nutcracker an actual character played by a performer? In the picture above, there's just a model which I assume is him. The story notes I read referenced him being cursed by the Mouse Queen at the beginning of the story and he appears at the end after the curse is broken by Clara. I don't think that's the ballet version, it may be the book/story. It mentions the curse made his head fairly large, so I am wondering if the performer for that role wears a prosthetic head or just the hat and beard.
I wonder how the Rat King mask worked. I assume there had to be a battery pack somewhere to power the lights. Could the performer actually see out of the mask or did the lights block his field of vision?
Where does the musical accompaniment come from? I assume a larger production might have a full orchestra, but a smaller production might not have that luxury.
Your response is quite impressive, I hadn't expected a short essay. Given the length of it, I can see why this show is important to you.
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Post by merprincess on Dec 27, 2017 16:38:39 GMT -5
Was there some kind of toe cap on those ballet slippers? It looks like it was reinforced in some way. What role does the Sugar Plum Fairy actually play in the production? The only notes I could find state that the performance piece is at the end of the production and that's it's a highly sought after role. I am assuming she's the traditional Fairy Godmother character. I thought the main lead role was always Clara. According to the schedule of my nearest theatre, there's a production of the Nutcracker at the end of April 2018, performed by Moscow Ballet La Classique. Still trying to work out if La Classique is the staging style, since the announcement references it later seperately. From the photo, which one is Fritz? I see two possible candidates, one in a bright blue vest and another in a subdued blue vest. Is the Nutcracker an actual character played by a performer? In the picture above, there's just a model which I assume is him. The story notes I read referenced him being cursed by the Mouse Queen at the beginning of the story and he appears at the end after the curse is broken by Clara. I don't think that's the ballet version, it may be the book/story. It mentions the curse made his head fairly large, so I am wondering if the performer for that role wears a prosthetic head or just the hat and beard. I wonder how the Rat King mask worked. I assume there had to be a battery pack somewhere to power the lights. Could the performer actually see out of the mask or did the lights block his field of vision? Where does the musical accompaniment come from? I assume a larger production might have a full orchestra, but a smaller production might not have that luxury. Your response is quite impressive, I hadn't expected a short essay. Given the length of it, I can see why this show is important to you. Yup, Clara is the lead role. Basically the audience gets to go on this journey with her and she might be the most physically demanding role amongst the children (and maybe the adults too) because she's constantly onstage doing something and rarely takes a break from the action, and that can be a lot for a kid. She's played by one of the older children, usually in her early teens or so. Sugar Plum is the lead prima ballerina role, more of a specialty role rather than having a lot to do in the plot because she doesn't appear until Act 2 and her dances are at the very end of the act. She's more of a benevolent ruler than a fairy godmother but sometimes she has that sort of ability. The highest paid dancer is usually Sugar Plum because it is technically the most difficult part to dance in the entire production and must be given to a very skilled and agile professional dancer, oftentimes a guest dancer from another company. There are essentially two different types of shoes that ballet dancers wear: flat ballet slippers and pointe shoes. Regular ballet slippers are the kind that are lightweight and made of leather or canvas, and have flexible thin soles. These are worn by both men and women. Pointe shoes are normally only worn by female ballet dancers; male dancers may wear them for unorthodox roles such as the Ugly Stepsisters in Cinderella, or Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and other sorts of exceptions. Those are the kind you see the Sugar Plum Fairy wear in the clip. Most if not all the professional female dancers in our production wore those shoes, as did some of the older girls (including Clara). Pointe shoes are special shoes worn by ballerinas made with a wide flat front end, or box, so that the ballerina can stand on the tips of her toes. In normal flat ballet shoes, that kind of footwork isn't possible because the shoe will not support the feet properly. The feet are protected with toe tape and lamb's wool, but it takes a while to get used to dancing with them and looking at your pointe shoes as an extension of your own feet. At first, they will feel clunky and unnatural, but with time and training they will become comfortably worn out enough to feel more lightweight and flexible. Girls will usually start en pointe between the ages of 10 and 13. I started at age 10, I never got to wear them in the Nutcracker but I did train for an understudy role as the reed flutes when I was 12 in which I would've worn them (had I actually gotten to go on...the life of an understudy!). Starting pointe too early may be bad for the feet of the dancer, and could be possibly career-ending before it even properly begins. The bones and growth plates in the feet are usually not fully hardened and developed before that age. Serious foot deformities can result from starting pointe too early, even if the student is strong and skillful. Dance teachers' societies give their members information and advice on this subject. Awesome that a production will be in town near you in the near future! Moscow Ballet puts on an excellent show. La Classique refers to that they're performing The Classic Nutcracker, which is what our company did as well. It's a distinction that is given to classical ballet stagings, since The Nutcracker has been restaged in other dance genres besides classical ballet too (circus, hip hop, tap, stage play, there may be a musical too but I don't think it was much of a success or is done very often). Fritz actually is given a stern talking-to and is pulled by the ear by his father during this scene, he's off center either on the far corner of stage left or right and isn't in the shot. The Nutcracker starts out as an actual toy, which Drosselmeyer is shown here fixing. As Clara's Dream and Transformation begins, Clara undergoes being shrunk down to toy size and The Nutcracker appears to transform to her size. He starts out as a character with a masked head in the shape of a Nutcracker head, kind of like a Disney fur character in that it has very low visibility so it's a hard role to dance at that stage. After the war scene, he transforms into human form and the masked head is taken off to reveal the Nutcracker Prince. The Rat King had low visibility as well, I think the lights were outside the mask (little LED lights that had a button somewhere on the mask itself). When the characters with low visibility are learning the show, in rehearsals they have to wear their masks so they can adjust to learning the movement with a low field of vision so that the transition onstage is more seamless. I had a mask when I was a rat, ours had more visibility but still it wasn't the simplest thing to get the hang of right away, especially for it being my first role ever in the Nutcracker. Our production started with a full live orchestra and boy's choir (for the Snow scene only, they left after Act 1 ended), but because of budget cuts as time wore on, and after I left the company, they started using a recording through the sound system. I much prefer having a live orchestra, even though you run the risk of mistakes happening (I have SO many stories about mishaps from The Nutcracker, but all include a graceful recovery so that's all that matters!).
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Post by buckmana on Dec 27, 2017 20:53:49 GMT -5
Are there any exercises that can be done to harden the skin tissue and/or plates to accomodate for the extra physical demands? I don't remember what it was (most likely firewalking), but there was a reference to the practitioners always walking barefoot on hardened surfaces to build up extra natural armor on the soles of their feet. They've been running a promo for the Next Step a lot (it looks like a fictional show about a dance company) and when they're rehearsing, it's always barefoot. It doesn't look like ballet, but they are jumping and leaping about a fair bit, so it might share some of the disciplines.
Is it common for an understudy to take on the role or are they always kept waiting in the wings and never get their time in the spotlight? I think I remember reading somewhere that for less important showings, the understudy may get to perform at least once publicly, just so they get the experience of doing a live performance for real.
I do remember an occasion about a small theatrical production based around a story about immigrating to Australia and the lead actor was suddenly taken ill, so the director had to take on his role and play his part. For the remainder of the performance, they had to explain why a 6 foot tall adult was playing the role of a small teenager, because the audience was fairly confused! I only saw the first performance, with the original lead actor and the story was told to me later by the play's author.
I am curious, what kind of performance style is circus? Did they have to write original songs for the Nutcracker musical?
I wonder if the Nutcracker prop toy is designed to come apart and be reassembled easier. In the notes I read, it says his jaw is broken off because Fritz tries to use him to crack a larger then normal nut. If that scene had to be performed many times, it would make sense to use a model that could be "broken" with ease.
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Post by merprincess on Dec 28, 2017 13:03:00 GMT -5
Are there any exercises that can be done to harden the skin tissue and/or plates to accomodate for the extra physical demands? I don't remember what it was (most likely firewalking), but there was a reference to the practitioners always walking barefoot on hardened surfaces to build up extra natural armor on the soles of their feet. They've been running a promo for the Next Step a lot (it looks like a fictional show about a dance company) and when they're rehearsing, it's always barefoot. It doesn't look like ballet, but they are jumping and leaping about a fair bit, so it might share some of the disciplines. Is it common for an understudy to take on the role or are they always kept waiting in the wings and never get their time in the spotlight? I think I remember reading somewhere that for less important showings, the understudy may get to perform at least once publicly, just so they get the experience of doing a live performance for real. I do remember an occasion about a small theatrical production based around a story about immigrating to Australia and the lead actor was suddenly taken ill, so the director had to take on his role and play his part. For the remainder of the performance, they had to explain why a 6 foot tall adult was playing the role of a small teenager, because the audience was fairly confused! I only saw the first performance, with the original lead actor and the story was told to me later by the play's author. I am curious, what kind of performance style is circus? Did they have to write original songs for the Nutcracker musical? I wonder if the Nutcracker prop toy is designed to come apart and be reassembled easier. In the notes I read, it says his jaw is broken off because Fritz tries to use him to crack a larger then normal nut. If that scene had to be performed many times, it would make sense to use a model that could be "broken" with ease. With time and practice, the dancers that need to dance pointe will have the right skills to be able to do so with ease. Calluses develop, the muscles grow stronger, all through regular use in class and rehearsals. It's not something all dancers will get to do. Some just don't have muscles strong enough to support themselves en pointe. My understudy experience wasn't normal. Generally, when understudies are cast, they usually are cast so they get to go on at least one night for the experience. My role as an understudy reed flute was more of a Swing than an Understudy, in that I had to learn every Reed Flute's blocking and staging. I learned the dance from maybe 10 different perspectives and was cast as a precautionary in case someone fell ill or was injured, so I never got to go on. I did a Google Search and found loads of productions of The Nutcracker with a circus twist! Check it out here: www.google.com/search?q=nutcracker+circus&oq=nutcracker+circus&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l2.2177j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8I think the Nutcracker musical actually put words to the Tchaikovsky musical score. Don't think it ever went to Broadway, I'm sure some community theatres have put it on, I don't know much else about it. Our Nutcracker prop was just implied to be broken (you hear a big crack noise in the orchestra, and the dancers all act as if it has just broken). Our audience isn't sitting so close it's not like they'll actually see how exactly it broke, some things in ballet don't need too much specificity and can be sorta pantomimed. Some productions will have a broken prop Nutcracker and a normal one (when I was in the play version of A Christmas Story, we had a broken leg lamp and a normal leg lamp). When Drosselmeyer fixes him up, he puts a cloth as a sling for his arm, and when the Nutcracker is life-size later in the show, he first appears wearing the cloth sling and then with a flourish, he whips it off and gives it back to Clara.
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Post by buckmana on Dec 29, 2017 5:37:32 GMT -5
There was a scene in the Ballerina movie where Camille is doing strength training exercises with a leg press weight machine. Given the statement about muscles, I would assume anyone who intends to be a pointe dancer will need to do some serious working out. This is the video I selected as an example of Circus Nutcracker: From casual observation, it looks like it's done in a round stage (circus ring?) and has brighter costumes. I can't tell if it's an actual circus ring because of the curtains. The floor seems to be removable, since later in the video, 4 seams appear that weren't there at the start. This was the only video I could find of a Nutcracker musical: I'm surprised there were not more examples, it does look like the musical version is not common. I did find this link as well, it's got some song samples at the end of the page. I wonder, what musical instrument can be used to sound like wood cracking? The notes on the upcoming local performance of the Nutcracker ballet stated it was set to gas lighting. I am curious as how that effect might be done on stage, since I doubt genuine flame gas lamps would be permitted in the theatre. It might be a bit tricky to get a dull yellow light bulb that flickers.
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Post by merprincess on Aug 10, 2018 23:03:01 GMT -5
Trailer #2 just dropped! I think my favorite thing is hearing this reimagining of the original Tchaikovsky musical score! And so cool to see professional ballerina and superstar Misty Copeland dancing in this trailer!
I really hope this ends up being a film I enjoy. I might be in the minority here, but I'm not a big fan of the Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland (I love a lot of his films, but that reimagining just didn't really do it for me. I think I liked it more at the time than I do right now) and I'm worried that this film will end up being too dark and gritty to even resemble the original story, much like I thought the newer Alice in Wonderland to be. But I have hope in this! So long as it captures the pure joy and delight that The Nutcracker has brought me and continues to bring so many of us, I'm sure it'll be something I'll like!
What are your thoughts?
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Post by buckmana on Aug 11, 2018 4:12:32 GMT -5
I'm still undecided about the level of divergence from the source material and if that's a reason to avoid this movie. Mostly because alll of the other films that didn't adhere closely to the source plot ended up being disappointing and I have am wary of adding another one to that list.
What the heck was that text about Malificient? Unless I am missing something really obvious, she's not in this movie!!!!
@mermaidlara If it's a minority opinion that Tim Burton's version of Wonderland, then it's one we both share. Which is a shame, because he's good with original stories, but maybe adapting isn't what he's best at.
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Post by merprincess on Aug 11, 2018 11:41:05 GMT -5
buckmana I agree! Also the beginning I think was just showcasing the other live-action adaptations the Disney studio has made- "The studio that brought you Beauty and the Beast and Maleficent" - it almost looked like she was like an extra-billed role in the trailer 😂 And yes, totally agree about Burton. He's got wildly imaginative creativity when it comes to his own stories and worlds, but I feel like they don't translate well into some of the things he's adapted (because I really did like his Batman, after all!). I wonder how Dumbo will turn out...
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Post by yougottaloveariel on Aug 11, 2018 11:47:28 GMT -5
Saw the preview in theater recently Do not think Timothy or the crowsis in it instead two children NOT sure WHAT TO MAKE of a remake of my favorite Disney film
(did see a pink elephant)
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