Review - Nutcracker Rouge: Sweet Awakening

New Yorkers looking to make the yuletide a little decadent this year would be well-advised to drop the kiddies off at Mr. Balanchine's ballet over at Lincoln Center and hop a train to Brooklyn for the always-enticing theatre/dance troupe Company XIV's elegantly erotic Nutcracker Rouge.

Conceived, directed and choreographed by artistic director Austin McCormick, and billed as "A Baroque Burlesque Confection," the intimate evening is a tasty variation of Tchaikovsky's ballet, iced with Charles Perrault's version of Little Red Riding Hood (popular in French salon culture as a cautionary fairy tale warning young ladies of sexually predatory men) and sprinkled with the music of Vivaldi and Ellington.

The atmospheric evening begins as you enter the glass-walled lobby looking out at a nondescript block of Bond Street. Guests are invited to mingle as they help themselves from a banquet table of wine, brandy, cookies and fruit. Before we're seated, a prologue has the gregarious Jeff Takacs (who penned the text) join the festivities as the toymaker Drosselmeyer, introducing us to his life-sized dancing dolls. Laura Careless exudes soft curious sensuality as his adult goddaughter, Marie-Claire, who he endeavors to take to the Kingdom of the Sweets, where not only will she delight in the joys of sugary sensations ("Child, when you put your tongue on the hot center of the just-baked Macaroon, your body and spirit fill and rise and you travel all the way through desire and into a kind of perfect and lovely defeat.") but will perhaps be wed to the Nutcracker Prince (David Martinez).

While it's best to place yourself at the front of the action during this part, as the audience is standing in a crowd on one level - limiting the view for those in the back - the site lines are fine once we are seated for the ballet proper; a series of dances by various ensembles, pairs and soloists that vary in style from dance hall to classical to fetishy. There's a jazzy trio of Cherry Truffles (Mina Lawton, Marla Phelan and Delphina Parenti), an athletically undulating pair of Licorice Boys (Michael Hodge and Sean Gannon), clad in black leather thongs and a flamenco-dancing, strip-teasing morstle of chocolate (Marisol Cabrera).

The display inspires a sexual awakening in Marie-Claire, who explores her own delicious qualities as she pole-dances to Tchaikovsky's most familiar theme. And while there are episodes involving domination, sex toys and both hetero- and homoeroticism, there is no bawdiness or excessive glitz, as McCormick moves the material along with smooth sensual textures. Zane Pihlstrom's sets and costumes (from powdered-wig heads to spike heels and platform toes) combine the opulence of the French Baroque era with contemporary minimalist touches that heighten the piece's intimate feel. The production is gorgeous to look at and is a delight for any of the senses that may require extra stimulation this holiday season.

Photo Credit: Corey Tatarczuk: Top: Laura Careless; Bottom: David Martinez, Michael Hodge, Laura Careless and Jeff Takacs.

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