The Nutcracker Problem

Western dance, like any other aspect of society, is saturated with an Orientalist mindset. Specifically, I'm talking about ballet in this post because it is a highly elitist art form that I have had the privilege to participate in. Many of the ballet pieces that are held in such high esteem by the dance world and its supporters are justified by the idea of 'preserving the art.' Centuries of dance teachers have perpetuated the myth that these stories are acceptable since they are old, and I'll admit that I myself have been a part of quite a few dances that I now look at with regret due to their fetishization of Asian cultures.

One key example of Orientalism in dance is the Nutcracker - what I'm assuming is the most recognizable ballet to dancers and non-dancers alike. The Nutcracker revolves around Clara or Marie, a young girl whose new toy Nutcracker from her godfather Drosselmeyer comes to life as the handsome Nutcracker prince. These aspects of the plot seem fairly innocuous, but Clara/Marie and the Prince end up in the Land of Sweets afterwards, where they encounter many dancers representing various foods and drinks from specific ethnicities. These include roles known as "Chinese Tea" and "Arabian Coffee."

Obviously, there are numerous issues with these roles. To start, Arabian Coffee and Chinese Tea are frequently played by white dancers, and the costumes are often designers' vague attempts at referencing an 'Arabian' or 'Chinese' aesthetic. The parts also play right into stereotypes of people from these areas. While Coffee is slow, seductive, and mysterious, the Tea dancers perform pointed bows with uncannily huge smiles and deferential tilts of the head.

Arabian Coffee and Chinese Tea are just two duets, but they demonstrate in a few short minutes the deep problems of an Orientalist mindset. These roles exemplify the ways that two Asian groups can become distorted, exaggerated, and oversimplified if portrayed through an indifferent European lens. Unfortunately, there are MANY similar roles within other ballets, as well as in other forms of dance that are more recent.

Ultimately, roles like these are the result of larger questions - Who controls the dominant narrative within a work of art or culture? Who is the subject, and who is the audience? The Nutcracker is a ballet created by and for Europeans, centering around the narrative of a young, white girl who gets to experience a brief, fantastic taste (after all, it is the Land of Sweets) of the world before returning to the safety of her own bed. The nonwhite characters in this ballet are objectified as food items, stripped of any real historical significance and both metaphorically and literally served to Clara/Marie and the audience as a whole. Merely limited glimmers of another world, these parts serve as a metaphor for the ways that white people tend to view Asia in real life. Within dance, film, and other sources of media, anti-Asian racism is too often sold under the guise of intrigue or exoticism without understanding.