A nutcracker nation: an exclusive excerpt from Jennifer Fisher's new book looks at how a Russian ballet became an American holiday institution.

EVERY CHRISTMAS," a critic once wrote, we are all "one more Nutcracker closer to death." This quotation, attributed to critic Richard Buckle, has always been a favorite of mine, because it's funny, it's true, and it masks a deeper meaning, just like The Nutcracker itself. Long a synonym for "obligatory whimsy each December" The Nutcracker is the ballet we love to hate--love for its classical heritage and Tchaikovsky score; hate because it sometimes seems like an inescapable cliche in a world that craves constant innovation. But by labeling the ballet a signpost on life's journey, Buckle inadvertently placed it in the saint category as many other ineluctable and sometimes-feared rituals and rites of passage, the ones that dot everyday life and give it meaning: birthday parties, bar and bat mitzvahs, graduations, marriages, funerals, Christmas dinners ... and, in North America at least, The Nutcracker, regular as clockwork, performed anywhere someone has ballet shoes, a Tchaikovsky CD, and a dream. Sometimes the dream is just to survive financially, so traditionally powerful is the ballet's earning potential. But calling attention to the popularity and inevitability of The Nutcracker acknowledges the fact that it matters, like other "performances" that mark a certain time of year as special by echoing revered themes and values.

Still, The Nutcracker is "just a ballet," isn't it? That too. More specifically, it's a classical ballet that premiered in 1892 at the imperial Maryinsky Theater of St. Petersburg in Russia, and has undergone untold alterations on its travels since then. Based ever so loosely on a long short story by E. T. A. Hoffmann, The Nutcracker enjoyed limited success in Russia, but it has been taken to heart by North Americans--and altered at will, sometimes resulting in a virtual change of citizenship for the good-natured Nutcracker. Never married to the month of December back home, it's a Christmastime phenomenon in the United States and Canada--the annual Nutcracker, praised for its money-making potential and popularity with audiences and young dancers.

Its very availability is what brought The Nutcracker into my life, first as a young performer, then as a dance scholar who wanted to figure out what this phenomenon meant to people who put it on and to those who buy tickets. When I first decided to study it, I found myself face-to-face with the ballet's checkered reputation, its trivialization by major critics, and the assumption that the annual Nutcracker was simply a fad that had gotten out of hand because of the public's questionable taste. But my conviction that the ballet was in some way a ritual--a meaningful yearly activity for dancers and audiences alike--was strengthened by the general reaction to my project. People who knew the ballet even slightly would get a keen look in their eyes and say things like, "The Nutcracker as a ritual, yes, hmmmm, that's true--God knows we do it religiously; explain that." "People are fanatical about it," someone else would say. "Why that ballet and why so often? How did it latch on to the Christmas season so securely?" Dancers wanted to know why they wore their toes down to the same tunes every year; artistic directors wanted to know why people thought they owned the ballet and were opinionated about its every aspect; parents wanted to know why their children were desperate to progress from mouse to snowflake, from bon-bon to flower soloist. And everyone wanted to know why, when they ostensibly disdained the cliches of The Nutcracker, they got tears in their eyes every time miniature angels tripped onstage or the Sugar Plum Fairy leaped into her cavalier's arms to all those wonderfully overwrought crescendos in the grand pas de deux.

SENSITIVE CRITICS made intelligent guesses about why The Nutcracker appealed to North Americans. Dance anthropologist Cynthia Jean Cohen Bull had pointed out the fact that ballet should be studied in relation to its social, institutional, and cultural contexts, just as one would approach the dance forms of Ghana or Bali. Previously, ballet was considered a "universal" art form, too removed from ethnic or even sociocultural roots to fit into anthropological studies--with the notable exception of Joann Kealiinohomoku's enlightening but neglected essay "An Anthropologist Looks at Ballet as a Form of Ethnic Dance." I resolved to pioneer the field of "Nutcracker ethnography" and, like Bull, who used her personal ballet experiences as a starting point, began by thinking about the ways the ballet had surfaced in my own life.

In the early 1990s, when I moved from Toronto to attend graduate school in a dusty, sprawling town in Southern California, I thought of myself as a stranger in a strange land. Although Canada is a lot like the United States, Canadians prize their slim but significant differences from the juggernaut to the south. I felt there would be multiple culture shocks ahead. For one thing, I was uneasy about being transplanted front a major urban center to an outpost of Los Angeles, too far into the desert to feature a decent bookstore or cafe, much less a major dance company. But an odd thing happened straight off the freeway ramp, as I drove along downtown streets, deserted on a Sunday; I saw a sign that said Riverside Ballet Arts.

On a whim, I stopped in front of the studio, not thinking anyone would be there; then, when I found the door open, I started up a long flight of stairs without knowing what I would do when I got to the top. But something made the experience familiar, and not only because this staircase resembled that of so many other second-floor studios. It was because I heard the march from The Nutcracker, and I saw a fleet of children and adolescents dressed in pink tights and black leotards with numbers safety-pinned onto them. Dance bags were scattered around, as were a clutch of parents, filling out cards or reading books. These were Nutcracker auditions, unmistakably--last year's little mice hoping to be party, guests, last year's waltzing flowers hoping to be the Arabian soloist.

I STOPPED TO read a schedule, which told when potential party children would be seen, when girls on pointe were to audition, when adult party guests should come (no experience necessary). I looked around and felt pretty much at home. This new territory couldn't be that foreign after all, I thought--they spoke Nutcracker here, and I knew all about The Nutcracker. That December, I went to see what the local version was like, and eventually I started asking myself exactly why people did these local productions at all and what difference it made in their lives. I needed to do fieldwork among "my people"--participants in ballet's only yearly ritual performance, including dancers, artistic directors, volunteers, parents, backstage staff, teachers, students, and audience members. My previous experience in the ballet world, as a dancer and critic, would contribute--I was a partial insider and had been in the field nearly all my life--as would the many friends, colleagues, and strangers I had involved in Nutcracker conversations over the years, and the many rehearsals I had attended.

With ballet, as with most Western theatrical art forms, a big distinction is usually made between amateur and professional companies, but I suspected that at Nutcracker time they had more in common than not. The quality and spirit of each company varies, but everyone involved in the phenomenon is joined together by the Tchaikovsky score, the holiday theme, and the ballet's history. I talked to people who had all levels of involvement and called them "Nutcracker participants," who gather together in "Nutcracker communities," temporary or semi-permanent groups that included performers, producers, crew's, and audience members.

I went forth with notebook and tape recorder to focus on two ballet companies, one professional and one amateur. They were miles apart both geographically and where resources were concerned, but I thought they both represented many aspects of the traditional Nutcracker movement throughout North America. Both productions relied heavily on young performers from the companies' related schools, which were organized along the lines of a traditional ballet conservatory. In each location there was a community of devoted balletgoers, with plenty of attitudes and opinions about the ever-recurring Nutcracker.

People who talked to me were generally very open and intrigued by my project, although somewhat puzzled about why I was hanging around for so long, watching and asking about so many aspects of their experience. They were used to encountering two kinds of Nutcracker writers: the critic who assessed performances, and the "human interest" reporter who wanted to know how many hours children rehearsed and how much snow actually fell during the first act. I, on the other hand, asked things like, "Does it matter that The Nutcracker is ballet?" (yes, usually it did), and, "Would you come to see it if it were in July?" (well, no, it just wouldn't seem right). Gradually, people got used to my presence and my questions. I heard a lot about people's attitudes toward The Nutcracker and started thinking about the number of things that had influenced them.

I've never tired of studying The Nutcracker because at close range it's always fascinating in its infinite variety. Nor am I alone among professionals in having a high tolerance. An orchestra conductor once told me that no one is bored in the pit because Tchaikovsky was at the height of his orchestrating powers when he composed the score, and each player has something engaging to do. Admittedly, this doesn't prevent musicians from having some occasional fun in the pit after several weeks of performances--a few claimed they had switched paris toward the end of a run.

It's true that professional dancers complain about having to do endless performances of the same ballet, but, as every aficionado knows, a Nutcracker cast is never really the same from day to day; it's a living thing, with people constantly moving through the ranks, children just catching on and infusing the process with edgy enthusiasm, and audiences buoying everyone's spirits on a good day and challenging the dancers on a particularly silent night.

THE IMMIGRANT Nutcracker didn't come in a cargo hold, but via dancers who had performed the ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia. Once in North America, it took up residence in communities across the United States and Canada and melted into the culture of each as new choreographers and companies made it welcome. So many Nutcrackers!

Just how many Nutcrackers did author Jennifer Fisher see? Easily hundreds, says Fisher, and fifteen to twenty more videotaped versions. "I sampled a lot--not always staying for the whole thing listened to stories of what goes on backstage and all around the productions. People who had never been interviewed participated: volunteers from ballet boutiques, fathers and mothers backstage. In many places it's a woman's world--competent, skilled women keep it going every year.

"I talked with Mark Morris about The Hard Nut, which is filled with humor. I talked with Darci Kistler about the making of the Barbie Nutcracker video. The Barbie people changed the story to make Clara very independent. That Barbie Nutcracker is proof that the ballet has become iconic."

But Fisher determined that her book would show in-depth case studies of one professional company and one amateur company that performed The Nutcracker every year.

"All told I sat through dozens of rehearsals of the amateur company, the Loudon Ballet in Virginia. And I chose National Ballet of Canada in Toronto because it had just mounted a new production choreographed by James Kudelka. It turns out that when you don't keep the core elements of The Nutcracker, people aren't satisfied. All versions strive for great dancing, but no matter how it is changed or executed, people will love it if it has the right feeling."--K.C. PATRICK

CENTER STAGE AT LAST--NUTCRACKER NATION'S AUTHOR, JENNIFER FISHER, ENJOYS ONE MORE NUTCRACKER REHEARSAL WITH THIS YEAR'S CAST OF INLAND PACIFIC BALLET'S NUTCRACKER.

AN EMIGRE FROM ABROAD A few years ago, as I sat in the audience of my local Nutcracker a young woman in front of me turned to her companions and said, "You know, Tchaikovsky really hated this ballet." Her husband and the couple with them looked at her blankly and said, "Oh," and "No kidding," clearly not sure what this meant in terms of their own willingness to pay for tickets and dress up to see the ballet. I wanted to jump into the conversation and fill in the fine points surrounding reports of Tchaikovsky's diapprobation--he was depressed about a lot of things when he bad-mouthed the ballet, I wanted to tell them, and it wasn't even a ballet yet, he was just having trouble getting started with the music. I wanted to tell them that Tchaikovsky actually liked the finished score and that he would surely appreciate its status now and the way it keeps sustaining the hundreds of Nutcrackers that dominate the season. I wanted to tell them that the first Nutcracker, which was the only one Tchaikovsky knew, back in 1892, was fraught with the birthing pains--no one could have completely loved it--but now there were more excellent versions than you could shake a wand at. I wanted to tell them that the production they were about to see, and the Inland Pacific Ballet, was charming, well danced, and did the taped Tchaikovsky proud. But I refrained. [] I refrained not only because I knew that a dance history lecture from a stranger goes over well but because I suspected that these facts wouldn't matter to them anyway. For whatever reasons (and there may have been many), they had decided to come to a Nutcracker matinee and they were ready to enjoy it. Sure enough, when I talked to them afterward they said they had liked the ballet enormously, without a second thought for the composer's opinion, or indeed for the pronouncements of any Nutcracker naysayers--those many critics who object to perceived deficiencies of the ballet, or the fact that it pops up more often than toast every Christmas.... Sure enough, afterward the young couples said they loved the music, the customers, the ballerina, and the striving young dancers. They were pleased to have such a nice way to celebrate the season--and they thought they'd come every year to The Nutcracker and bring their own children, when they had them. After all, it was "culture," it was fun, and it was in their own backyard. The fact that the ballet came from Russia made the whole thing "historical" in some vague way, but that history had little to do with their lives [] In fact, the whole idea that Tchaikovsky was an original Nut-basher fits into a mythology that is particularly relevant here--that The Nutcracker is an underdog, a newcomer who found a new life. IT was then that I started thinking of The Nutcracker as an immigrant. Maybe the ballet was not appreciated in its native land, but once it landed in the egalitarian land of the free, it got another chance.

Jennifer Fisher teaches at several southern California universities, and frequently reviews dance. This excerpt of NUTCRACKER NATION: HOW AN OLD WORLD BALLET BECAME A CHRISTMAS TRADITION IN THE NEW WORLD is printed with permission of Yale University Press, 2003: New Haven, CT. ISBN: 0-300-09746-8. yalebooks.com