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Comedy central.

Article Excerpt
EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL AT THE BALLET, A CHORUS LINE TELLS US--BUT WE KNEW THAT ALREADY. THE FAIREST GIRL WITH THE BEST TECHNIQUE LANDS THE HANDSOME PRINCE, OR WINDS UP AS THE SOLOIST IN THE "WALTZ OF THE FLOWERS." BUT SOME OF US ARE NOT THE FAIREST. WE STARTED TRAINING TOO LATE, OR WE'RE TOO TALL, TOO STIFF, OR TOO CLUMSY. IN BALLET TERMS, WE'RE LOSERS.

So when New York choreographer David Parker offered up his "'Waltz of the Flowers' for people who hate nature," a high point of his 2004 NutCracked, we dance dorks were delighted. This version features an allergic girl who's always sneezing and whose condition completely disrupts the perfect patterns we expect. We breathed, through our own Kleenex, a sigh of relief.

Coming up with funny choreography is hard. It has everything to do with timing and control. Certain movements and situations are by their very nature funny, like big men pretending to be ballerinas. (As critic Arlene Croce once put it, a heavy thing trying to become light is automatically funnier than a light thing trying to be heavy.) Bending is funnier than breaking. Witness the wonderful physical comedy of Bill Irwin. He transforms himself from an ordinary-sized person into a dwarf in two seconds flat, and squeezes himself into a trunk.

Living humans pretending to be anything else--animals, stone statues, vegetables, washing machines--are likely...

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