AUDIENCE REVIEW: "The Hard Nut" by Mark Morris Dance Group
Company:
Mark Morris Dance Group
Performance Date:
Dec 15th 2018
Freeform Review:
I have been a fan of The Nutcracker since childhood and appreciate parody as an art form. I really wanted to like this show, but it was terrible. The dancers were clearly talented and that was what made it so hard to watch. The plot lacked cohesion. The humor was based on brief moments of awkward gyrating by teenage girl dancers that felt borderline inappropriate. Overall, it felt like really good dancers purposefully dancing bad at an attempt to be funny which was in fact, not funny at all. I also found the lack of diversity of the dancers concerning, and most egregious, the only black main character was cast as the maid. Unacceptable, and if a purposeful attempt at social commentary, poorly executed. I’m shocked that this show receives good reviews and has so many people willing to pay to see it. I think because it is Mark Morris... the audience just blindly accepts the performance as something worth watching.
Author:
Anonymous
Photo Credit:
Photo from BAM
