During the holidays, I like to get in the christmas spirit by doing the same thing everyone else does. One day might be spent decorating the house, making christmas cards, or baking something. The Nutcracker is a christmas show, its December, and I found out the Saroyan Theatre had tickets available.

So I went. Normally, I don’t listen to classical music or watch people dance to music with no words. In the past I have known people who listen exclusively to classical music, or are dancers and thats their thing. But its hard for me personally to get into it….something about the lack of lyrics I guess. For me, I think the reason for going is mainly to be able to say I went. The ability to tell a friend I went to the ballet on Sunday, sounds cool to me. Another thing people do is walk Christmas Tree Lane, or build snowmen. Its something people do during the holiday season. I think thats part of my reason for wanting to go, because its something I can tell my friends and family I went to.

Inside, a table was set up with different shapes and sizes of nutcrackers available for purchase. A  mini bakery sat just outside the doors to the auditorium, with Hot chocolate and freshly baked cookies for sale. People on the way to their seats were drawn in by the sweet aroma of the sugary goodies. However, I did not know that none of these were allowed inside the theater. With the show about to start, everyone tried to eat really fast and get to their seats before the curtain opened.

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The no snacks allowed inside rule surprised me, as I attended another show at the Saroyan very recently where everyone brought some kind of food to snack on. Then again, it was 42nd Street, and the dance scenes and songs performed were loud and energetic. They probably allowed food inside so the people would eat and get as much energy as the performers. But there was no food allowed inside for the ballet, possibly so those watching would pay attention rather than their focus being solely on a snack.

The curtain came up to a lovely christmas gathering, with great scarlet curtains swooping down, and children in fancy attire skipping around as their parents watched with admiration.

Two things especially caught my attention: The costumes, and the faces. There is a scene were Clara and the nutcracker have to sit in the background for a long time and just smile. For maybe a second you would see one of them maybe smile a little less and then all of a sudden they would look back up and be the happiest person alive.

I think that would be pretty hard, the dancing definitely, but having to sit for a long time while the focus is somewhere else, but you are still expected to be  in character. The amount of characters also caught my attention. When people came out I kept thinking they were the same dancers from the last scene but in different costumes. However, when it came time for all the performers to come out at the end, everyone was in their original costume. Lots of dancers doing their own specific things.

All in all the hard work done by the dancers could be seen in their performance, and I look forward to hopefully going back to watch next year.

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