Studying and analyzing the nutcracker on the basis of music, stage design and choreography

Ever since people started to live in communities, they use music to and dance to express themselves. Mankind?s evolution is reflected on their ability to dance and produce music. Primitive sounds and acts of the Stone Age have passed through a continuous evolution over the centuries and the progress reached its peak in the embodiment of masterpieces like The Nutcracker.The progress of dancing started in the Ancient times with the Greek tragedies and continued in Renaissance. The common folk dance was refined and evaluated by art; and turned into a way to socialize. As a result it attracted the attention of aristocracy. It is well known fact that the beginning of artistic dance started with its introduction into courts. As a result, the ballet of the present day has its roots in courtly dances. With female dancers? first appearance on stage at the end of eighteenth century and at the beginning of nineteenth century, ballet has gained more popularity and rapidly spread to all Europe and Russia.At the premiere, The Nutcracker has its share of approvals and disapprovals and even some of the authorities openly acknowledged their disappointment. The critics disapproved the appearance of little children instead of professional dancers and claimed that the professional dancers can not perform justly because of the little actors? existence on stage. According to them the stark difference between the real life atmosphere of the first scene and the magical, dreamy atmosphere of the second scene was too much disturbing even to the point of distraction. For the first eleven shows, The Nutcracker was performed together with the opera, Iolanthe ; It is believed that, this was one of the main reasons for the disapproval of the critics.Despite all these discouraging elements, The Nutcracker is reinterpreted and performed by the dancers of the Russian Imperial Theater. In 1954 George Balanchine accomplished to produce a new aspect to The Nutcracker with the changes he made in the decorations and the costumes. Furthermore, the spread of television enforced the spread of this version of The Nutcracker to millions of audiences. Today The Nutcracker has established its place as a Christmas classic which epitomizes the Christmas spirit and is a ?must? to perform ant to watch.