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What Would Your Nutcracker Be in Taiwan?
By YEH Ming-hwa
Every dancer remembers their first Nutcracker. For some, it was "Spanish Hot Chocolate," and for others, it was being the second "Snowflake" from the left.
In 1995, I attended the dance program at Lingya Junior High School. There was a comic book store nearby that sold imported ballet videotapes from abroad. In those pre-YouTube days, I would spend my pocket money there. That was my first Nutcracker: a videotape of the Bolshoi Theatre's ballet, where I was the "audience" in front of the screen. The story is set during a Christmas filled with hope. The protagonist Clara receives a beloved gift from her godfather—a nutcracker doll. After everyone falls asleep, the nutcracker transforms into a prince, and together they battle the mouse army, defeat the Mouse King, and embark on a fantastical journey through the Snow Kingdom and the Land of Sweets. In the end, amidst all the celebration and joy, Clara wakes up, realizing it was all a dream.
However, The Nutcracker actually originates from the whimsical German writer E. T. A. HOFFMANN's 1816 story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. It was later adapted and simplified by French author Alexandre DUMAS in 1844, becoming the widely accepted version The Story of a Nutcracker, a tale of a war between the Nutcracker and the mice. This more family-friendly adaptation resembles a typical fairy tale, which is the version most classical ballet companies perform today. To be honest, I was not particularly fond of The Nutcracker back then. I found the story disjointed, and the performances felt overly simplified and commercialized.
In 1998, I moved to Taipei to study in the seven-year integrated program at Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA). During class, I saw Mark MORRIS's The Hard Nut (1991), an astonishing reinterpretation of The Nutcracker. The first half featured Marie preparing for Christmas at home, while the second half delved into the backstory—how the Nutcracker came to be, his fight against the Mouse King, and the search for the hard nut to break Princess Pirlipat’s curse. This is where the iconic national dances from the story come in. Mark MORRIS once said, beauty lies in the nuances of interpretation, new perspectives exist in the present, and adaptations reshape classics for modern audiences. It was in this adaptation that I saw endless possibilities in a timeless classic.
In 2003, for TNUA's 20th anniversary, under President CHIU Kun-liang's leadership, Dance School professor ZHANG Xiao-xiong created a modern ballet, Butterfly Valley: The MIT Nutcracker, which premiered at the National Theater, where I played Clara. Both the story and the choreography were new, so although I was the principal dancer, my body carried no traces of classical ballet.
Perhaps this non-classical approach to learning The Nutcracker freed me from much of the baggage when I began creating my own version in 2023. While I am familiar with the story and the music, my interactions with The Nutcracker have always been personal and imaginative. My creation, Into the Fantasy of the Nutcracker, tells the story of personal growth, woven from "courage" and "imagination." It reflects universal truths, the kind we often hear in fairy tales. Ballet, much like fairy tales, is both fantastical and grounded in real emotion. That's why I believe The Nutcracker is not just a holiday performance for foreigners or a dance form dominated by Westerners. Ballet entered Taiwan in the 1940s, and even now, its development here remains imperfect. For me and many Taiwanese pioneers in ballet, beyond its foreign roots, ballet is a craft, like a chisel aiming to carve out perfection. It has survived since the 15th century because it represents a path of growth and transformation—one that I can bring to life through my imagination.
So, what would your first Nutcracker be in Taiwan? This Christmas, come and watch us tell our own stories, dancing in our own way.
1. Mark Morris (born August 29, 1956), the American choreography master, is known as the "Mozart of the dance world." He is an American dancer, choreographer, and opera director. He is one of the few contemporary artists in the dance world who is highly proficient in classical music and skillfully combines music and dance in his work.
2. Marie and Clara are both names used for the young female protagonist in the ballet The Nutcracker. Marie comes from the original German fairy tale "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" and was also used in Alexandre Dumas' French adaptation The Story of a Nutcracker.
Program
2024/12/21(Sat)19:30、12/22(Sun)14:30
►The Ballet Concert - Into the Fantasy of Nutcracker II
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