Onstage, a nineteenth-century German girl waits for her first encounter with the Middle East, which will come courtesy of Tchaikovsky and the many years of choreographic evolution that have preceded the current version of The Nutcracker in which she is performing. The girl's name is Clara (or sometimes Marie), and she has come to a fantasy land, where a lively Spanish dance has been given in her honor. Now, there is softer, slower music with a steady, insistent rhythm and a snaking melody carried by an English horn. Dancers glide onto the stage wearing gauzy harem pants and jeweled headdresses, their faces impassive, their gait deliberate and stately. Who are they? Clara's face seems to ask, and what will they do? Certainly it will be like nothing she has ever seen before because they are dressed like people from far away, a hot climate perhaps, where no one moves quickly and different customs prevail. There is a woman who walks like a princess, with a cool, internal gaze and limbs that stretch out imperially. A consort picks her up and swirls her arched figure around as if she were in need of a breeze. Then they stand side by side, pausing as if transfixed by a greater power, their hands drifting above them with palms facing the sky. When they disappear, Clara stares after them, wondering, no doubt, where they came from and what on earth that was all about.