Sexy Coffee and Racist Tea: Weird and Troubling Nutcracker Productions

Once upon a time six years ago, there was a very tiny toy soldier bravely marching into battle under the direction of her Nutcracker General to fight off the Mouse hordes. 

Several promotions later, that child soldier has grown into an Officer, dancing her first role en pointe in our local university's production of The Nutcracker. But just between us, the Mice really have the more righteous cause. So don't tell the Nutcracker General, but his Officer will be spending half her time secretly as a Mouse, menacing that brat Clara and bravely fighting her sometimes-comrades, the soldiers. 

I think the Mice might have a real chance to win this year!

It's time, then, for my third-favorite holiday of the year: Nutcracker season! 

Here's a Fun Holiday Game For You: Find the Weirdest and Most Troubling Nutcracker Productions

If I was still working on a PhD (if only PhD programs could be twenty years long, because it took at least fifteen years before I thought of my first original research idea that would have made a good thesis, ahem. And now I get good thesis ideas on the daily!), I would 100% be writing my thesis on regional Nutcracker productions as cultural artifacts that reveal and complicate our society's understanding of gender, sexuality, and race, as well as the male gaze when directed at female-presenting adolescents. 

Particularly that last one, ahem. I thought our local university's production was a little heavy on the child predator grooming a future victim vibes, and then I watched literally any other Nutcracker ever choreographed. Most of the productions I've seen have been choreographed by men, and they seem to have a very hard time visualizing a relationship between a male and female, even one with a fifty-year age gap where the female is supposed to be, like, twelve, that's not somehow gross. 

Other Nutcracker cliches to look out for include how heteronormative and cisgender are the children's casting, costumes, props and choreography; is the "Arabian Coffee" dance meant to be "sexy" or not; and how racist does the "Chinese tea" dance present? Our local university's production is pretty racist; it was only a very few years ago that they stopped putting a Fu Manchu mustache on the male lead, recently enough that I still worry every year that it might show up again.

Here's an interesting mini-documentary about how Ballet West addressed racism in the tea dance a few years ago:

Joffrey Ballet now also does a dragon dance, and a nearby university's production invites a local martial arts school to do some sweet moves onstage during that number. 

Every November, then, in the lead-up to The Nutcracker, it's my personal mission to find the weirdest and/or most troubling productions. Partly, I just think it's interesting to see how different choreographers handle the exact same music and same basic plot. Partly, it's just me processing my sour grapes--like, sure, they make my kid dance in pants and ugly wigs every single year even when wearing that pretty party dress and having her hair in curls was her one dream and they 100% gave her height-related body dysmorphia for a while when she finally caught on that it was always the shortest girl who scored Clara, but hey, at least nobody's in blackface in OUR production! But partly, I also like to see how our various societal tropes are expressed in this one cultural commonality. You know, who's doing something different on purpose, and why? Who thought they were doing something different but it's just an even more overt expression of that same cliche? Who's tapped into a way to empower and include artists and audience, and who's actively fighting against equity and diversity?

Dutch National Ballet: The Nutcracker and the Mouse King

Many years ago during Nutcracker season, we found a Nutcracker production on YouTube that has, to date, the most bonkers plot twist imaginable: the Mice WIN the battle against the Nutcracker and take all of the child soldiers captive, including Clara's own brother, Fritz, who was commanding the toy soldier army. We were all, like, "Okay, that was weird," and moved onto the Snow Scene, after which Act 1 ends with Drosselmeyer leading Clara and the Nutcracker Prince into... his film projector, I think? There, for some reason, the Mouse King and his army appear again and this time the Nutcracker defeats him and now all the Divertissements dance while Clara and the Prince act cute and Drosselmeyer bops in and out occasionally like a matchmaking Gollum.

So we're just happily watching the Divertissements when Arabian begins with a guy cracking a whip, and then onto the stage stumble enslaved people wearing ragged clothing and chains. The male lead starts his dance, but then one of the enslaved men tries to escape and is dragged back by one leg and starts to dance this weirdly homoerotic S&M pas de deux with the Arabian lead and we all realize--OMG, that's FRITZ!!! Fritz has been sold into slavery to the Arabian dancer! He's got makeup bruises and his clothes are ripped and he's in manacles and now he's rolling around on the floor while the Arabian dancer thrusts over him and it is WILD. 

Every year since, we've tried to find this specific Nutcracker, but never ran across it again. But a couple of nights ago, in a completely hysterical fit of insomnia, I was all, "This is my mission. I will not rest until I have found this fever dream of a Nutcracker." I Googled various search terms involving Nutcracker, Fritz, and "abducted," "enslaved," and "kidnapped," etc. And finally, I cracked it! Welcome, Friends, to the Dutch National Ballet's production of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, choreographed by Toer van Schayk and Wayne Eagling. That YouTube version we watched absolutely was a bootleg of a 2011 filmed and streaming version (if your state university library has a Medici.tv subscription like mine does, you can watch it there), but at least right now you can also watch the 2021 production here. 

Also notable about this production: there's real ice skating in the Prologue and Apotheosis, Fritz tries to spy on his sister while she's changing clothes, and they skip Mother Ginger entirely.

And a random fun fact: after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Bolshoi Ballet's prima ballerina denounced the war, fled Russia, and now dances with the Dutch National Ballet.

Mariinsky Ballet: The Nutcracker

This is a fun one to watch, even before it gets super weird at the end, because the Mariinsky Ballet in St. Petersburg is famous for holding the very first production of The Nutcracker in 1892. Fun fact: audiences HATED IT! They thought, in particular, that it was so stupid to have children dancing in a professional production. Especially funny considering that child dancers are now The Nutcracker's biggest draw. The Mariinsky must have learned its lesson, because even though there are a few children's roles in this production, even Act I Masha and Fritz are played by full-grown adults acting like children. I love when they age Masha up for Act II so that she can do some proper dancing, but otherwise, full-grown adults acting alongside children while pretending to be their same age is a little Adam Sandler for my tastes.

This is the production choreographed in 2001 by Mikhail Chemiakin. At least right now, there's a 2007 production of Mariinsky Ballet's The Nutcracker available on YouTube:

Its portrayal starts off very comic and kid-friendly, with lots of funny noses and giant props and some pratfalls in Act I, and a low-key Voldemort-looking Drosselmeyer who obviously seethes with jealousy every time Masha and the Nutcracker Prince make goo-goo eyes at each other. Drosselmeyer also seems to maybe be in some kind of charge of the mice, who don't look very mouse-like and I really hope they're not actually caricatures of Jewish people. 

To get to the actual BONKERS part of the production, though, you have to hang on until the absolute last seconds of the performance, when Drosselmeyer raises a curtain to reveal that many of the characters are actually the treats in his candy shop. Masha and the Nutcracker Prince, who'd just finished up a joyful and romantic dance right before the curtain closed, are now revealed as the candy toppers on a giant wedding cake.

And y'all, crawling all over the cake and actively eating it as the curtain finally closes ARE THE MICE. THEY ARE LITERALLY GOING TO EAT MASHA AND THE PRINCE. 

My guess is that Drosselmeyer got fed up and figured hell, if he can't have Masha, might as well feed her to the mice.

Also notable about this production: the Arabian female lead is dressed in a skin-tight snakesuit and accompanied by snake puppets, and the poor Nutcracker Prince has to keep his horrifying Nutcracker mask on for an ungodly long time. There's also a DVD of a different Mariinsky Ballet Nutcracker production, originally choreographed by Vasily Vainonen in 1934, that's more wholesome than weird. Syd and I saw this in the theatre with her ballet buddies one year, and it's adorable.

New/Adventures: Nutcracker!

So, were you thinking that it might actually be easier in the long run just to traumatize your children with a terrifying Nutcracker production as young as possible so that they don't ask for expensive ballet lessons? 

Well, have I got the Nutcracker for you! 

Instead of casting children, let's cast adults who make big, childish movements and huge facial expressions in an uncanny valley version of childhood.

Instead of setting the scene in a wealthy household hosting an opulent Christmas party for all their rich friends, let's have Act I take place in an orphanage with a co-ed dormitory full of miserable adult-children. The grown men acting like little boys will also wear nightshirts that expose their legs to the upper thigh.

Instead of giving the kids dolls and drums and a random nutcracker, let's give them creepy shit like a ventriloquist's dummy and a working pistol. Fritz will literally shoot an orphan with the pistol, and the dummy will come to terrifying life just before the orphans revolt and one of them saws the head off of the headmaster, who is dressed in leather and wields some kind of stick... a riding crop, maybe?

Welcome to New/Adventure's Nutcracker!, choreographed in 1992 by Michael Bourne. It's not for children! 

Again, we watched this production several years ago on YouTube, in what must have been an excellent year for Nutcracker bootlegs, but right this second it's also available via a bootleg on Vimeo. 

If you don't watch the production with your kids, it's got some interesting moments that make it pretty fun. I can't completely figure out if it's Clara's little orphan buddy or the ventriloquist dummy who eventually is reincarnated as the Prince, but regardless, he's reincarnated shirtless, and their pas de deux would be charming and low-key sexy if the full-grown adult playing Clara didn't have to keep making those weird little kid faces and gestures. The overture to Act II that's normally danced by very little children playing angels or trees is danced by adults with wings wearing pajamas. Maybe they're dead orphans? It's also fun seeing how much sexual innuendo and camp and just plain bizarreness they can work into all of the Divertissements. 

In the end, Clara wakes back up in her orphanage, but who's hiding in her bed? Why, it's that hunky Prince again! 

Also notable about this production: Clara gets to dance blissfully with a whole troop of shirtless dudes, and she looks like she's having a fabulous time. The Arabian and Chinese dances aren't at all racist. And the Russian dance is, I think, a gay football theme?

Okay, I thought that I was going to monologue about all of my weird Nutcracker finds all in one place, but I actually have to go put a certain Mouse's hair up in milkmaid braids and then change into my black clothes for backstage and then drive her to campus for her stage rehearsal and then go chaperone the Party Scene children during dress rehearsal while my Mouse fights a battle and then check all the Party Scene kids back out to their parents and then collect my hopefully victorious Mouse and then drive us home and then eat Pizza Rolls in bed while watching hockey and then fall asleep without washing my face, so let's talk about weird Nutcrackers again later, okay?

And if you write your PhD thesis on the subject, send me a copy!

When in Michigan, You Must Take a Flying Leap Down a Sand Dune

 

We thought we were probably lost. There were lots of little roads between Traverse City and Sleeping Bear Dunes. Lots of turns onto unlabeled streets, lots of winding country roads, lots of farms and vineyards and orchards full of cherry trees. And when you type a national park into your GPS, you're never quite sure what part of the park it's actually going to take you to. Will you arrive safely at the visitor center, or at a fire tower fifty miles away? The main entrance gate, or the post office where the park gets its mail?

Since we didn't know what to expect, and weren't quite sure where we were going, then, it was even more magical to be driving down yet another little road and suddenly see, to our left, the largest wall of sand I've ever imagined.

It was huge. Incongruously huge. Game of Thrones The Wall huge. Absolutely impossible, except that there it was.

Obviously, we had to climb it!

Okay, climbing a giant sand dune was a little bit like slogging through hell below our feet. But above us?

Only sky.

And look at that view from the top of the climb!

We lounged in place for a while, me recovering my resting heart rate, and the kids playing in the biggest and best sandbox in the Midwest:

Can you imagine living around here and having small children? I'd have taken my two here every single day!

When we'd originally set off, my words had been something like "OMG look at that giant dune let's climb it!" But after deciding that maybe I wasn't having a heart attack, after all, I started to look around me and realized--we weren't at the top at ALL! There was a whole other HIGHER dune just ahead!

We must climb it!

Notice in these photos the concession to Mom's fragility embodied in Will having taken over the Mom Day Pack. Now, Will was the Keeper of Water and Snacks and First Aid Kit and Sunscreen and Bug Spray, and Mom just had to get her own butt up that last dune, the distant figures of her children literally running up that mountain of sand egging her on:

But what did I see when I finally reached the top?

Omg. Another, higher dune.

Must. Climb. It.

And from the top of THAT dune?

Nope. I give up.

Later, when we finally found the visitor center and picked up park maps, I'd learn that the trail we were on was something like three miles round-trip, a distance that we were not prepared to hike with zero prep. If I had this trip to do again I'd have us pack lunches and make a day of just this Dunes Trail, but for three people with just a water bottle each, not even all of us wearing shoes, this was our turn-around point.

Now, to enjoy the lovely walk back!

Although most of us ran most of the way:

And there may have even been some leaping involved!

You probably can't tell, ahem, but the leaping was my favorite part. 

After sandwiches eaten in the delightful air conditioning of the car, I decided it was time to figure out exactly what we were supposed to be doing and seeing in Sleeping Bear, not to mention pay our entrance fee, so Google Maps kindly agreed to direct us to the visitor center. 

Twenty-five dollars later, I had a nice, big fold-out map of Sleeping Bear Dunes to peruse while the kids worked through their Junior Ranger books:

After that, my Junior Rangers and I took the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. The kids weren't super impressed with most of the stops--I mean, not after a whole morning playing on the marvelous and mind-bending Dune Climb!--but this stop was worth it all:

Despite the dire warnings--

Is that exhausted climber... vomiting?!?

--people really were walking all the way down this dune--

--and then crawling back up. The kids and I hiked to an overlook where we joined a vocal community of observers of these intrepid adventurers, rooting for our favorites, discussing what we'd do differently were we in their places (god forbid!), offering advice and criticisms, and cheering every time someone finally finished their long crawl back to the top:

Oh, and we also admired the view, of course:

I had anticipated that Sleeping Bear Dunes would be fun and pleasant, but I was shocked at HOW fun it was, and just how unspeakably beautiful. I'd happily spend weeks back there, rolling down dunes and crawling back up them and lying like a lizard in the warm sand and admiring the clear, blue water. 

And at the end of every day, I'd do like I did on this day and drive my kids back down those windy country roads, past cherry orchards and vineyards, to buy ourselves ice cream from Moomers. 

I'm pretty sure the cow who made my chocolate caramel nut ice cream is in this photo!

And here's my ice cream, in a chocolate-dipped waffle cone:

Will had a banana split:

And Syd had a worms and dirt sundae:

As Will's time as a child in my home grows very short, I often think with longing about her younger years, when I so often felt overwhelmed and disconnected. I fantasize about time traveling back to our old house by the park and ringing the doorbell, and when an exhausted, bored me comes to the door, I put her to bed with a book and a snack, and I spend the day playing with a very small Willow and Sydney. I drink in their tiny selves, and I enjoy every single second with them. I memorize again all their little features and gestures, and I don't look away for a moment.

My big kids spend their days mostly going about their own business. They have schoolwork and jobs, friends and hobbies, and I am no longer the planet they orbit around; they are no longer my ever-present shadows. I'm not exhausted and overwhelmed by them anymore (or rather, I'm mostly not...), these independent, capable kids that can now mow the lawn and do the laundry and read to themselves and even help me drive the eight hours from Traverse City, Michigan, back to our home. But I miss them, so much, now that I have the space to miss them, and I'm going to miss them so much more when one of them lives in Ohio. And because I miss them in the day-to-day, I cherish these trips with them even more. Mind you, half of them griped most of the time, and both of them griped some of the time. I thought about bailing on the whole adventure more than once, and when that happened only the fact that I wouldn't get any refund on that super expensive cottage kept me on the road. 

But sometimes, every now and then, both kids would be smiling at once. Both kids would be having a marvelous time running down a dune, or sitting at the top of a hill talking to each other about how slow and sad my hiking is, or eating a dish of ice cream the size of their heads. We would be looking at something beautiful together, and they'd be saying how beautiful it is, in the next breath mocking some hapless soul trying to crawl back up a sand mountain so he didn't have to pay $3,000 for the air rescue. I cherished those precious moments with my grown-up Willow and my nearly-grown Sydney. I drank in their funny, clever, quirky selves, and I enjoyed every single second with them. I memorized all over again their changing features and their familiar gestures.

And I did not look away for a moment.

Day 1: Presque Isle Lighthouses

Day 2: Mackinac City

Day 3: Searching for Petoskey Stones

When in Michigan, You Must Bicycle around Mackinac Island

After leaving the Presque Isle Lighthouses, the kids and I continued up the coast to Mackinaw City. On the way, Syd introduced us to her current favorite podcast:

You apparently have to choose your episodes of this somewhat carefully if you want to be able to continue looking your mother in the face afterwards ("They're filthier when they've got a guest," Syd explained), but I have thought about one bit in the "Would You Rather" episode, the bit in which the guys are trying to figure out if they'd rather be lizards or women and one guy goes off on an absolute rant about how the lizard he used to have lived like a freaking king and maybe thought he was God, probably once an hour since Syd streamed it for me, and every time laughed exactly as hard as I did the first time I heard it. I even tried pulling it up for Matt, but his lack of appreciation makes me feel like it might be one of those inside jokes/group hallucinogenic experiences that you can only fully get if you're on a homeschool road trip.

Speaking of experiences that bring you closer together through nothing but the shared misery of living through it...

You guys, have you ever seen a midge? Because OMG. Back at Presque Isle, we'd noticed a couple of these weird, oddly large insects that buzzed us like mosquitos. They didn't bite, but they did leave a horrifyingly large, fatty stain wherever you swatted them, and we soon figured out to brush them off our clothes if we didn't want to live our lives liberally splashed with midge guts. 

Maybe the spiders were saving us from midges, because when we got to our motel, right on the water and with this beautiful view of the Mackinac Bridge--

--absolute swarms of midges greeted us. We quick-walked with our stuff, mouths firmly closed, to the door of our room, took turns brushing each other off, then opened the door and bolted inside and shut the door behind us. Midges battered themselves against the closed door and windows, and whenever we stepped back outside, they rose up from the white walkway and steps and flew in our faces. \

The motel management left a little box of Hershey's Kisses on the motel bed, next to a typed letter asking us not to smash midges against the walls and ceiling.

The kids had had enough of the day's double hell of constant family time plus midges (not to mention spiders), so they retreated into their screens and flatly refused to come walk on the beach and look at the beautiful views of the Mackinac Bridge with me. 

Their loss, because there were hardly any midges on the beach!

AND there was another lighthouse!

Later, though, Will had successfully put the midges out of her mind enough to agree to come with me to check out the Headlands International Dark Sky Park. Astronomy is one of my favorite hobbies, and I am forever trying to visit a real Dark Sky Park, forever seeking out the skyscape of a childhood spent lying out in the front yard, marveling at the Milky Way and Orion and every satellite and shooting star. 

In the past few years, I actually have visited a few Dark Sky Parks, but the thing is that whenever I go, IT IS ALWAYS CLOUDY! 

Sooo... welcome to sunset at Headlands:

Sigh.

Sunset over the Mackinac Bridge is super pretty, though!

The next morning, we ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast and packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, and strolled over to the ferry dock, where we arrived in time to catch one of the special ferries that detours UNDER the Mackinac Bridge!

Another lighthouse! Here's the Round Island Passage Light:

Look how fun my Life360 report from that trip is!

My big plans for Mackinac Island were renting bicycles and eating fudge. The end. 

Step One: Bicycles was a go!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by JF (@craft_knife)

We were 100% the only bicyclists on the island wearing helmets. I do NOT care, though--last winter, Will's pediatrician advised her to wear a helmet while SLEDDING, that's how dangerous head injuries are to those precious, growing brains!

Bicycles turned out to also be the best way to get away from the crowds, the one Mackinac Island tradition that both kids were immediately over the second we stepped off the ferry.

So instead of walking nose-to-butt up and down the main street with all the other tourists, we got to spend a couple of remarkably peaceful hours riding around a remarkably beautiful wonderland:

Will said that she could have happily ridden around the island a second time, it was that fun. 

Step two of the plan: fudge!

I would be very curious to know how fudge became such a quintessential experience, because for the rest of the trip the kids and I played a game entitled Count the Fudge Shops, but nevertheless we took the challenge of Mackinac Island Fudge very seriously, visiting exactly every fudge shop on the island before coming back to the winner, Joann's Fudge. There, Will settled in to ask the assistant for sample after sample, and Syd occupied herself dithering over saltwater taffy varieties:

So, here's a completely embarrassing thing that absolutely haunted us for our entire trip: when Will settled on the college she'll be attending, I obviously had everyone pick out some swag. Because you gotta rep your school, right?!?

The hoodies and zippered sweatshirts that we picked out happened to arrive right before we left for Michigan, so when each person looked at my packing list and saw that I said to pack a sweatshirt or hoodie, each person obviously reached for the nearest sweatshirt or hoodie at hand and packed that one. 

And then it was constantly chilly on the water, so we all put them on. And realized at that moment that we all matched.

Syd's isn't so bad, because you have to really look at her sweatshirt before you see the school seal on it. Will and I, though? Our hoodies both have the name of her college SUPER big on them--ugh, they're so dorky, but I was really excited when I picked mine out, okay? And wearing basically matching billboards meant that so many people came up and spoke to us, and it. Was. Awful.

But when Will bought her fudge and Syd's toffee, she told the cashier that they were a school group--see? Matching school swag!--and she got a 10% discount.

Moral of the story: yes, I probably would gladly suffer that embarrassment again just to save a buck-fifty on tourist candy.

We took our tourist candy back to the shore and settled in for a comfy while (I am LOVING this book series!):

She knocked them down when she was done, because rock stacking does not follow Leave No Trace principles. 

Eventually, though, we temporarily shelved our sugar and headed back to the mainland:

In this photo, Syd is glaring jealously at the OTHER ferry line's ferry, which she thinks looks a lot cooler than our ferry.

No detour under the bridge on the way back, but we did get a nice view of the island:

That evening, after peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner, I was finally able to tempt both kids into a walk out and about with me. We explored the touristy street of downtown Mackinaw City (so much fudge!), then took one last walk on the less-midgey beach at sunset:

Now they've both seen five lighthouses and are well on their way to earning that Lighthouses of Michigan badge!

We made it back to our room with hardly any midge corpse stains on our clothes, that's how good we were getting at midge-dodging!

Day 1: Presque Isle Lighthouses