David Brodsky

Review of The Joffrey Ballet

The Joffrey Ballet's Nutcracker was a complete dis...

The Joffrey Ballet's Nutcracker was a complete disappointment!
Mediocre performance, primitive costumes, PowerPoint like backdrops.
The most disappointing was a new concept. The Nutcracker, a beautiful fairytale many-many generations of children of the world grew up with, from the beginning was crudely converted to the socially correct and Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist like environment. Absolutely ridiculous idea to tight The Nutcracker with The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) which was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World. It feels like an infomercial for the Chicago Office of Tourism (no offense). The tasteless substitution of the Tchaikovsky's Russian Dance with a cheap western saloon dancers and cowboy lasso-guns bang bangs demo performed on a Russian motive, left me speechless.
Dear creatives, please don't ruin the genius magic created by Tchaikovsky an Marius Petipa! Just come up with your own original ideas.