The Nutcracker by Marco Goecke

Set to Tchaikovsky’s score, Goecke harnesses his associative narrative style and absurdist movements to tell the original story of Clara who, one Christmas, receives a doll – the Nutcracker – from her mysterious godfather Drosselmeyer and, at night, enters a world of living toys.
Goecke’s ‘ballet noir’ is like a dark mystery that gradually eases into the audience’s minds. In a Goecke choreography, it is always impossible to tell dream from reality.


For 12 years and over.

One of today’s greatest dance innovators, resident Scapino choreographer, Marco Goecke made a wonderful and contemporary re-working of the old ballet classic ‘The Nutcracker’ by Tchaikovsky and Petipa. A traditional mainstay of the Scapino dance calendar, Goecke’s version of the ballet saw its return to Rotterdam stage after an absence of fifteen years.

Marco Goecke cleverly manoeuvres his quirky ‘signature’ style to closely follow the original tale by German romantic E.T.A. Hoffman, who discloses the mysterious depths of the adolescence of the girl Clara. Goecke displays his dance wizardry in the evocation of a shadowy fairytale realm where childish innocence and fantasy spill over into the fears surfacing from the depths of the subconscious.

The elements that hallmark Marco Goecke pieces – the brooding atmosphere, playful, inventive choreography and the dancers’ nervous and virtuoso movements all feature in The Nutcracker. Goecke immerses the piece in his own world, as it were, critically distilling its essence and discovering that the two are remarkably alike.

Playing:
Tuesday 1 December 2009 to Wednesday 27 January 2010 in The Netherlands