REVIEW: “NUTCRACKER” AT THE COMMONWEALTH INSTITUTE, 21.11.85 – 1.12.85

“Welfare State International and National Performing Arts Company of Tanzania invite you to Nutcracker, A Village Party”: Thus the advance notices of “Nutcracker” were headed.

We were intrigued and readily accepted an invitation to attend. On reading the programme we found that “Welfare State International” was not such an awesome body as might be imagined but “a highly innovative celebratory theatre company from Northern England”. The National Performing Arts Company of Tanzania were from the Bagamoyo College of Arts, whose musical ability we had already experienced in the record “Tanzania Yetu”.

These two companies had collaborated to produce “Nutcracker” based upon the themes of “The Human Story” exhibition at the Commonwealth Institute until 23 February 1986. “This collaboration” states Prakash Deswani, Acting Arts Director, “has appropriately ended up as a party. It is deliberately small-scale, an intimate celebration of fundamental forms of human expression and communal enjoyment – music, storytelling, dancing, laughter, the sharing of food and drink.” However, we found that the theme was so basic to human life that its importance was far from “small-scale”.

As we entered the theatre the impression was of a brightly lit village hall. We were welcomed by Sue Gill and shown to one of the small tables set round the floor. Long lanterns hung from the ceiling, gaily painted with contrasting emblems on the natural African scene and the highly developed Western scene, such as giraffes and skyscrapers, palm trees and jet planes. The stage was filled with an incongruous assembly of instruments: saxophone, trumpets, trombone, fiddle, guitar, double bass, melodeon, accordion, marimbas, cowbells, a large African xylophone and various drums and percussion instruments. We wondered if we would suffer musical indigestion!

When we were seated with drinks, strolling musicians began to play and a very large white chicken ran in and industriously began pecking everywhere at imaginary crumbs. This certainly reminded us of the peripatetic chicken in the villages of Tanzania.

The performance consisted of a series of British and Tanzanian dances in which the audience participated at will; some purely musical items by the performers, and, in between, pantomime-like “moral dance tales”.

The first tale began with the entry of Olduvai Gorge, a ten-foot high dignified lady in brown and black, wearing a boat cradle on her head (the Cradle of Mankind). Seated on a birth stool and attended by comic medical people, she gives birth to Nutcracker. Thousands of years are danced through as Nutcracker-child develops. The ancestors give him a toy skeleton wearing a clown’s hat. He is delighted to find points of resemblance with himself in it and dances movingly. The audience is made to realise that life and death are confronting each other, albeit light-heartedly.

Nutcracker’s evolution involves the discovery of fire, tools and the wheel which he plays with joyfully. Then a death culture figure, a gross old man draped in black with an ugly white head, pushes on a Heath Robinson contraption of wires and lights to music of jarring Western harmonies. He produces attractive but dangerous implements and weapons which he introduces to Nutcracker, who now has a companion. Only then do their expressions alter and they no longer look like happy children. At the end of the scene three young women appear, seize the weapons, throw them away and chase the corrupt old man off. This reminded us that women are often peace-makers.

In the next tale there is a lot of chaotic fun as the crazy wheel of fortune turns but in spite of the presence of death, it terminates for Nutcracker in a joyful, hardly serious wedding ceremony.

There follows a more serious tale emphasising the destructive effect of some technology today on the natural world, in particular life in the sea. This has been experienced in both Tanzania and Cumbria where Welfare State are based. In Tanzania some fishermen are dynamiting the reefs indiscriminately, destroying the natural harbours and causing
sharks to enter. In Cumbria, people do not eat local fish because they fear nuclear pollution in the sea. The dance of the four fisher women was beautiful. Wearing blue tie-dye dresses they swing white fishing nets to the music of marimbas and their own ululation, while a swishing sound like the sound of the sea is made by percussion instruments. Then a sinister “Michelin Man”, about 12 feet tall on stilts, strides in and flings a poisonous fish into their nets. The women repulse this and cleanse the area with large lanterns made from Tanzanian fish traps while a sparkling wholesome fish darts around.

In the last tale Nutcracker and his wife, wearing their skull heads, are sleeping in the Olduvai Gorge. A nightmare brass band from civilisation enters followed by two men wearing tank-like contraptions, who steal their skull heads but then fight each other and die. (Are they the Superpowers?) Soon a skeleton baby is born to Nutcracker and his wife. They joyfully show the baby to the audience as proof of the continuing cycle of life and death. Finally Olduvai Gorge re-enters and stoops to receive the baby in the cradle on her head. This last gesture emphasises the importance of our ties with Mother Earth.

Looking back at the music as a whole, we found that we had not had musical indigestion! The fusion of Tanzanian and British traditional music, with jazz and rock and pure drumming, was amazingly successful, often magical and heartwarming. Between the tales our charming hosts persuaded most of us to join in the dance. The Tanzanian Tango with cowbells and drums was a great success, and the Tanzanians joined in our dances with ease.

We were most impressed by the talented versatility of all the performers. Sue Gill, dance caller, also played the saxophone and demonstrated a talent for understanding Tanzanian dance movements. John Mponda who played Nutcracker, was totally convincing, using his skill as an acrobat, a dancer of distinction, and a mime artist, to draw us close to the ancestors and so much that we have in common.

Shirin Spencer and Christine Lawrence