What do these men have in common? They’re both “wise guides” on a hero’s journey from darkness into light.

MISSOURI ARTS COUNCIL ▪ DECEMBER 2015

Star Wars and Nutcracker: the Force of Myth by Barbara MacRobie AUTHOR’S NOTE: This story is adapted from an article I wrote for the Fall 2000 quarterly newsletter of Dance St. Louis (while I was their public relations manager). Given the stellar event that’s taking place this December, we at the Missouri Arts Council thought it would be fun to revisit the timeless themes that unite the epic space opera saga and the classic ballet that receives dozens of professional and studio productions all over Missouri every holiday season. What makes The Nutcracker so enduringly popular? Is it the beauty of the dancers in an elegant production? Tchaikovsky’s music? The nostalgic old-fashioned Christmas in the first act? The family tradition of going to the show? Certainly all of these. But Adam Pinsker, executive director of Dance St. Louis (and my boss) from 1984 to 1993, always insisted that Nutcracker’s appeal goes even deeper. “Nutcracker is a solstice drama!” he would thunder whenever the subject came up. Adam always maintained that at the core of the ballet lay a mythic contest between light and darkness that was one of the most deep-rooted themes of human existence. He’d go on to say that stories of this contest were especially meaningful at the winter solstice, when the night is longest before the sun begins to return. He’d point out that the solstice had always been a time for great celebrations of light, like the Roman Saturnalia, Jewish Hanukkah, and Christian Christmas.

Costume design for Drosselmeier by Holly Hynes for the new production by Kansas City Ballet of The Nutcracker, choreographed by Artistic Director

Devon Carney, running December 5-24, 2015

Screenshot of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

© & ™ Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

When I first heard Adam link the solstice mystery to Nutcracker, I thought he was wildly stretching things. But after I spent more than five hours (instigated by my young sons) in the exhibit Star Wars: The Magic of Myth at Chicago’s Field Museum, I realized he was dead on. Created by the Smithsonian Institution, The Magic of Myth shows how at the core of Star Wars (especially the first film, now called Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope) lie not only a conflict between good and evil but also the archetype of the Hero’s Journey. Star Wars mastermind George Lucas was profoundly influenced by the scholar Joseph Campbell, who especially in his 1949 book The Hero With a Thousand Faces pinpointed the common elements in hero stories around the world. “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder,” Campbell wrote. “Fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won.” Star Wars shares these elements with world stories such as Gilgamesh, Jason and the Argonauts, and King Arthur. The mythic underpinnings are an essential part of the hold that Lucas’ saga has on people’s imaginations. And they’re also at the center of Nutcracker. Even though the men who in 1892 created the original Nutcracker at the Russian Imperial Ballet (composer Tchaikovksy, choreographer Marius Petipa, and producer Ivan Vsevolojsky, who based their scenario on a short story by E.T.A. Hoffman) certainly hadn’t read Campbell or done their own study of comparative mythology, they were drawing on the archetype. One of Campbell’s crucial points is that the themes of the hero’s journey are so hard-wired into the human soul that they occur over and over again, in all kinds of places, often most powerfully when evoked unconsciously. The archetypal elements in Nutcracker can be easy to miss, though, because they’re done with a light touch. The Mouse King is the “dragon” that must be destroyed, but when it comes to power and evil, he’s no match for the planet-pulverizing Death Star. Also, certain stages of the journey take up an unusual length of time in Nutcracker. The celebration in which the victorious hero is hailed by the society he or she has saved is the last five minutes of the two-hour Star Wars. The celebration in Nutcracker when the Sugar Plum Fairy and her court hail hero Clara for saving the Nutcracker Prince is the entire second act. But just look at Nutcracker’s patterns of physical light and darkness. The story opens in cheerful candlelight at a Christmas Eve party at Clara’s home. When the party is over and everyone else has gone to sleep, Clara comes back to check on her precious toy nutcracker just as the clock strikes midnight. In this darkest hour, everything changes. The furniture moves around by itself, the Christmas tree grows to an enormous height, and sinister rodents invade the room. After Clara defeats the forces of evil, the light begins to return with the soft beams of the moon when, together with the transformed Nutcracker Prince she has rescued, Clara enters the enchanted Land of Snow. The second act takes place bathed in a warm glow in the celestial Kingdom of Sweets.

Clara, hero of The Nutcracker, Saint Louis Ballet, running December 17-23, 2015 – photo by Zyg Mulnik

Once you start looking for mythic elements in Nutcracker, you find them everywhere. For instance, the snow forest has echoes of the “sacred grove” often encountered by ancient heroes. Of course it doesn’t hurt the ballet’s appeal that along with some of Tchaikovsky’s best music, productions feature magical stage effects, exquisite choreography, and virtuosic dancing—just like it doesn’t hurt Star Wars to have John Williams’ score, pathbreaking effects, awesome space battles, and charismatic acting. But when you’re watching a performance of Nutcracker, you can enjoy the idea that you’re not merely attending a holiday show, but are also participating in the retelling of a story that goes back to the dawn of human consciousness. It’s a story that, as Smithsonian curator Mary Henderson says, “opens our hearts to the dimension of mystery in our lives, and gives us some guidance on our own hero’s journey.”

A Hero’s Triumph

The mythic paradigms in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope come from Mary Henderson, curator of The Magic of Myth and author of the exhibit’s companion book. The Nutcracker ideas are mine. (I took the specifics from the 2000 production by Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. Details will vary from production to production, but the essentials remain the same.)

More steps in the journey

▪ Read interviews with Nutcracker directors throughout Missouri In our December 2013 story, Nutcrackers—and More—Spin Holiday Fantasies Into Dance. ▪ Experience Star Wars: The Magic of Myth in the Smithsonian’s online version of the exhibit and the companion book by Mary Henderson. ▪ Explore the Star Wars universe at the official website. Images of Kansas City Ballet and Saint Louis Ballet are courtesy of the companies. Image of Obi-Wan Kenobi is used according to our understanding of Fair Use per the U.S. Copyright Law.

Star Wars and Nutcracker: the Force of Myth was created in 2000 for Dance St. Louis and revised in December 2015 for the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency and division of the Department of Economic Development. The Council provides grants to nonprofit organizations that meet our strategic goals of increasing participation in the arts in Missouri, growing Missouri’s economy using the arts, and strengthening Missouri education through the arts. Contact moarts@ded.mo.gov.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Please feel free to share and distribute. Attribution: Courtesy of the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency.

Connect with us! Like us on Facebook for fun with the arts all over Missouri.

Sign up for our monthly e-newsletter, Art Starts Here, for updates and tips on the arts industry. Explore our website, missouriartscouncil.org, for grants information and cultural resources.