PNB's Nutcracker: The ever increasing athleticism of ballet

I had never felt inclined to watch an entire version of the Nutcracker ballet, until last December, when I happened upon a Pacific Northwest Ballet GIF animation on tumblr, and decided to source a copy of PNB's 1986 movie version, choreographed and designed by Kent Stowell and Maurice Sendak. And what a wonderful production it is. The Peacock divertissement alone, as danced by Maia Rosal, made it worth watching.

Leah Merchant's arabesque in the GIF of the modern version is stunning. One must comment however, that it does lose the context of the move representing a bird preening it's tail feathers. It is now a show piece, offering the dancer a chance to show off her technical prowess. That's not meant as a criticism by any means, but as an observation of the increasing athleticism of ballet.

I once had a blog post sketched out, which documented the increasing heights of leg extensions and the evolution of the arabesque through the centuries, and ended in a humerous envisioning of what obtuse angles the leg would take in the not too distant future.

notes:
http://oioiiooixiii.tumblr.com/post/69584518064
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091658/
http://www.pnb.org/Artists/Corps/LeahMerchant.aspx