Balanchine's Sugar Plum Pas

[Chronus24]

I have suddenly been given the charge of teaching the Sugar Plum pas to our studio's student company. Of course, I am VERY excited about this! One question though. Our studio always hires in NYCB people to do the Sugar pas, and thusly they always do the Balanchine version. Before I "hit the DVDs", I'm curious to know if there is an official "alternative" to the part where the girl balances in arabesque on the moving tile for venues that are not equipped to do that part? Just thought I'd ask :-P

[MJ]

I have suddenly been given the charge of teaching the Sugar Plum pas to our studio's student company. Of course, I am VERY excited about this! One question though. Our studio always hires in NYCB people to do the Sugar pas, and thusly they always do the Balanchine version. Before I "hit the DVDs", I'm curious to know if there is an official "alternative" to the part where the girl balances in arabesque on the moving tile for venues that are not equipped to do that part? Just thought I'd ask :-P

 

I do not believe there is an alternative, it is a very famous piece of Mr. B's Choreo. It is easy to perform in almost any theater:

 

A small circular piece of Marley is placed on the floor, with connective wire or rope heading out to both left and right wings. Two stagehands pull and keep tension on the rope. the rope is painted to match the Marley.

 

I've never seen a rehearsal, I assume the stagehands come over to the studio.

[Mel Johnson]

Before the (re-) introduction of the reika (that's the Russian name for the little wagon), the SPF went up right, the cavalier down left, and she simply bourréed across the stage to him. That was the NYCB standard from 1954 until Balanchine re-introduced the "magical effect" from the 1890 Ivanov choreography. I never much cared for it, as it seemed like a waste of perfectly good "big music".

[Chronus24]

ah, cool! And yeah, I concur with Mel that it's kinda an odd part in the choreo...I watched several years of my studio's nut pas and (thankfully) they all seem to do the same thing: something like a partnered renverse'...not too complicated at 'tal :-D wewt!