Music triggers memories, some sweeter than others. For most people, the Tchaikovsky score of "The I Nutcracker Suite" evokes warm images of holidays and loved ones, of dressing up and attending a performance of the ballet, of being entertained and delighted. The giddiness, the excitement and the swirls of color it evokes seem to echo the holiday's many indulgences. But as someone who had to hear the two acts every day—sometimes twice a day if there was a matinee— for weeks on end, year after year, I've come to dread the cloying Suite. I danced in George Balanchine's "The Nutcracker" for 14 years, first as a child and then as an adult. At some point during those 700 performances, I stopped hearing the same music that everyone in the audience heard. After I'd had to churn out charm regardless of injury, illness or holiday blues, the sounds of "The Nutcracker" just stopped giving me the happies.
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