WSC Biweekly Bulletin December 1st -15th

The theme for this Bulletin is A December. December 18th is Nutcracker Day: Suite, first performed in 1892, has become the most popular December . Also, December 1st is Ballerina Alicia Markova’s birthday. She was born December 1, 1920. She is famously remembered for her role as the Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker. If you’ve seen The Nutcracker ballet in North America or Europe, there’s a good chance it is the version choreographed by . Balanchine grew up in St. Petersburg, Russia, where The Nutcracker was originally staged. Adapting The Nutcracker of his boyhood into a performance for New York audiences was one of Balanchine’s greatest goals and accomplishments.

National Days for More Inspiration:

December 1- Beginning of Bingo’s Birthday Month, A Dancing Day, Day, Day of Giving- #, Day With(out) Art Day, Eat a Red Apple Day, Pie Day, Rosa Parks Day, World Trick Shot Day December 2- Rockefeller Center Lighting (tentative date), Fritters Day, Mutt Day, Package Protection Day, Special Education Day December 3- Roof Over Your Head Day, International Day of Persons with Disabilities December 4- Naughty or Nice Day (Santa’s List Day), Homemade Gifts Day, Cookie Day, Dice Day, Faux Fur Day, Sock Day December 5- International Ninja Day, International Volunteer Day, Walt Disney Day, “Tutti-Frutti” Day, Rhubarb Vodka Day, Sacher Torte Day, Skywarn Recognition Day December 6- Week Begins, Gazpacho Day, Day, Miners’ Day, Pawnbrokers Day, St. Nicholas Day, Tree Poetry Day, Easy Breezy Cookie Day December 7- Cotton Candy Day, Deck the Halls Day, Illinois Day, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, One Billion Dollar Day, Everyone is Included Day, Last Man on the Moon Day, Drive Safely Day December 8- Brownie Day, Candy Man Day, TV Milestone Day, Pretend to Be a Time Traveler Day December 9- Pastry Day, Weary Willie, History of Christmas Symbols Day, Day December 10- Chanukah Begins, Dewey Decimal System Day, Human Rights Day, Lager Day, Nobel Prize Day, December 11- App Day, Noodle Ring Day, Salesperson Day, International Mountain Day December 12- Dozen Day, Golf Tee Day, Breath Mint Day, Ambrosia Day, Ding-a-ling Day, House Day, Day, Wreaths Across America Day December 13- Cocoa Day, Day of the Horse, National Guard Birthday, Pick a Pathologist Pal Day, Violin Day December 14- Christmas Count Begins, Tilt-A-Whirl Day, Alabama Day, Bouillabaisse Day, Monkey Day December 15- Travel Tales Tuesday, A Day, Eiffel Tower Day, Trivial Pursuit Day, Bill of Rights Day, Cat Herders Day, Cupcake/Lemon Cupcake Day, Wear Your Pearls Day

The Senior Center Will Provide the Supplies: • A pre-made graham cracker house • Icing • Candy & Decorations

-Pick up supplies the week of December 13th - Cost = $5.00 Photo Submission Due by December 21st 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners determined December 22nd

***Please note we will need at least 8 people to sign up in order to hold this contest. *** Sign Up By December 8th (call or email)

Biweekly Recipe: Cranberry Cheese Pie with a Nutty Crumb Topping

(https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/cranberry-cheese-crumb-pie/) Ingredients: 1 refrigerated pie crust 8 oz cream cheese, softened 1 can (14oz) sweetened condensed milk, ¼ cup lemon juice For the Cranberry Layer: 1 can (14oz) whole- , 2 TBSP cornstarch, 1 TBSP brown sugar For the Crumb Topping: ½ cup , ¼ cup packed brown sugar, ½ Tsp ground cinnamon, ¼ cup cold butter, cubed, ¾ cup chopped pecans Directions:

• Preheat oven to 375°. Unroll the crust into a 9-in. pie plate; flute edge. In a small , beat cream cheese, milk and lemon juice until smooth. Spread evenly into crust. • In a small bowl, mix cranberry layer ingredients; spoon over cream cheese mixture. For topping, in another bowl, mix flour, brown sugar and cinnamon; cut in butter until crumbly. Stir in pecans. Sprinkle over cranberry layer. • Bake 45-55 minutes or until crust and topping are golden brown. Cover edge loosely with foil during the last 10 minutes if needed to prevent overbrowning. Remove foil. Cool 1 hour on a wire rack; refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving. ______Themed History: Balanchine’s Ballet: The Nutcracker ©ActivityConnection.com – Balanchine’s Ballet: The Nutcracker From St. Petersburg to New York George Balanchine, the influential modern ballet choreographer, emigrated from St. Petersburg, Russia, to New York in 1924. For the next 40 years, Balanchine longingly remembered watching and performing The Nutcracker ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre. The Mariinsky, built in 1860, stands in the center of St. Petersburg.

It’s easy to imagine a young Balanchine being awed by the Mariinsky’s lavish halls and intricate cupolas. It’s considered one of the world’s great theaters, along with the Sydney Opera House and Covent Garden. When The Nutcracker debuted at the Mariinsky in 1892, it was not a success. Despite the many talents involved in the production, audiences were not charmed by seeing kids on stage alongside professional dancers. It took many more years for audiences to accept and enjoy the holiday spectacle.

The After founding the New York City Ballet, Balanchine staged his first Nutcracker in New York in 1954. , the barrier-breaking Native American ballerina, danced the lead role of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Although Tallchief’s performance and the ballet were praised by critics, Balanchine was unsatisfied with the production. It wasn’t until the New York City Ballet Company received a grant from the Ford Foundation and an invitation to move into Lincoln Center that Balanchine could fully realize his dream of a Nutcracker production worthy of his childhood memories. He wanted to recreate a lavish Russian Christmas spectacle. If you have seen The Nutcracker in North America or Europe, it is likely the Balanchine version. Ballet companies that put on his Nutcracker must adhere to guidelines specified by the Balanchine Foundation, which is why the productions are so similar.

The Tree In 1964, The New York City Ballet Company was invited to stage The Nutcracker in one of the newly built theaters in Manhattan’s Lincoln Center. Using grant money, George Balanchine made it his first order of business to construct a trapdoor and area under the stage to hold the 41-foot Christmas tree. This tree was central to Balanchine’s vision of his Nutcracker. He often told people, “It [The Nutcracker] is the tree.” When the curtain opens on The Nutcracker, it’s , and we’re at the house of a young girl named Marie and her parents. The family holds a party with platters of fruits and sweets, a 12-foot Christmas tree, and a special guest, Marie’s mysterious gypsy-like godfather, Drosselmeyer. After the party, Marie falls asleep holding a precious gift from her godfather: a nutcracker. Suddenly Marie awakens to the shuffling sound of giant rats. The Christmas tree dramatically quadruples in size. Marie’s bed begins to swirl. The nutcracker takes the form of a human boy, Fritz, who fights off the rat army, crowns Marie, and walks her through an enchanted-looking evergreen forest. Snow begins to fall. To symbolize this, Balanchine had stagehands tossing the paper snow from a balcony above the stage. Ballerinas dancing the “Waltz of the Snowflakes” appear and perform a mesmerizing dance while avoiding slipping on the snow. This is just as tricky as it sounds; Nutcracker dancers say this is one of the many hazards of the show. The curtain closes on Act I. When Marie and Fritz reappear in Act II, they are in the gloriously colorful Land of Sweets.

The Sugar Plum Fairy Greeting Marie and Fritz is the Sugar Plum Fairy, who presides over the Land of Sweets. The Sugar Plum Fairy is one of the strangest starring roles in popular ballet. She dances only twice, and not until the second act. The music for her final dance begins with melancholy string chords and ends with intense horns. It isn’t sweet or light as the audience expects. The Sugar Plum Fairy seems to represent Marie’s idea of a grown woman. So, while the Sugar Plum Fairy is lovely and talented, she is also like a trapped doll in a sexless, stunted netherworld. The Land of Sweets is fantastic, but you wouldn’t want to live there all the time—just like you wouldn’t want it to be Christmas every day. Marie is too young to imagine the complexities of an adult female, so there is a note of tragedy in the Sugar Plum Fairy’s limitations. In many ways, The Nutcracker is a children’s ballet, but there are plenty of layers to keep adults interested

The Dancers Behind the Magic The Sugar Plum Fairy is a challenging role for ballerinas. They must balance her appeal with her complexity. Balanchine, who was known for working intensively with ballerinas/muses, coached many famous dancers for the Sugar Plum Fairy role. Allegra Kent and Darci Kistler are two of the most memorable. Allegra Kent Balanchine’s 1964 Nutcracker extravaganza featured Allegra Kent as the Sugar Plum Fairy. (She received excellent reviews.) Kent was 26 and had just returned to dancing after the birth of her first child. Kent was born in Santa Monica, California, and joined the New York City Ballet when she was 15. She quickly became a Balanchine muse, and he began creating lead parts for her when she was just 17. Her Sugar Plum Fairy is mature, confident, and commanding. Darci Kistler If you had to choose one dancer to personify the Sugar Plum Fairy, Darci Kistler is an excellent choice. Like Allegra Kent, Kistler was born in California. In 1982, she became the New York City Ballet Company’s youngest principal dancer ever at age 17. She worked with Balanchine personally for the three years before his death. Some consider her Balanchine’s “last ballerina.” Kistler danced the Sugar Plum Fairy often over the years, and in 1993 she starred in a filmed version of the ballet. Kistler’s Sugar Plum Fairy is youthful and exuberant but also technically perfect. Kistler was able to evoke the almost doll-like quality of the Sugar Plum Fairy—hitting challenging poses and then holding them a beat longer than seems possible. Kistler projects warmth, which can get lost in the role’s mechanics

The Joys and Hazards of The Nutcracker Oregon Ballet Theater dancers admit that the twice-daily performances of Balanchine’s The Nutcracker during the holiday season have some dull moments. The beginning party scene, for example, requires a lot of standing on stage but not much dancing for the adults. Dancers say that they sometimes joke around and try to make each other laugh during the party scene. Other occupational hazards are going weeks without washing their hair—dirty hair is easier to style. And while working with 100 kids brings joy to the production, occasionally it results in tripping over a misplaced backpack. While Balanchine was best-known for his seriousness and discipline, The Nutcracker brought out a different side of the choreographer. He insisted that kids be a part of the production. Balanchine often gave important adult roles, like the Sugar Plum Fairy, to up-and-coming, rather than established, ballerinas. He felt that this freshness and sense of possibility kept the production from becoming stale. The Nutcracker was meant as a to children, the audience, and the dancers.

Tips to Tell Whether You’re Seeing Balanchine’s Nutcracker For many of us, we may have seen multiple versions of The Nutcracker, but Balanchine’s is at once very different from and very similar to the original Russian version. Here are some clues to determine that you are watching Balanchine’s version, even if you aren’t a ballet expert.

• It’s Marie, not Clara, and the part is played by a young girl, not an adult dancer. Marie does not dance en pointe, while Clara does. • All children’s parts are played by children. • This is not a love story. Marie and Fritz may have a childhood crush on each other, but nothing more. Likewise, the Sugar Plum Fairy is “escorted” by her cavalier, but no romantic feelings transpire between them. • During the portion of the ballet where the tree grows and Marie and Fritz are transported to the Land of Sweets, there is no dancing. The focus is on the setting and the music. • The Sugar Plum Fairy appears only in Act II. Drosselmeyer appears only in Act I. The two never meet. • Coffee (the Arabian dance) is danced by a female soloist either in soft ballet shoes or barefoot, not en pointe. • Marie and Fritz leave the Land of Sweets together. Marie is not woken up from a dream.

The Nutcracker Fun Facts

• About 50 pounds of paper snow falls at each performance of The Nutcracker. • Each costume has 144 bells sewn onto it. • Counting the dancers (including the kids), orchestra, and stage crew, about 250 people are involved in a production of The Nutcracker.

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Westbrook Senior Center Contact Information

Phone: 860-399-2029

Email: [email protected] & [email protected]

Address: 866 Boston Post Rd. Attn. Senior Center Westbrook, CT 06498

Website: www.westbrookct.us

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