Nutcracker & Beyond

By Rhee Gold and Theresa Grenier

Unleash your imagination and you're on your way to making holiday magic.

Ever wonder what other studios do for their holiday-season shows? These days, the Nutcracker isn’t the only show in town. Across the country, studios are branching off from the traditional and venturing into new and original territory. Although Nutcracker—and variations of it—remains the popular choice, with a little imagination, anything goes! You can put a twist on that holiday favorite or do something entirely different. Read on to see what creative minds around the country are producing.

Studio Collaboration

What makes South Tulsa [OK] Children’s Ballet’s Nutcracker stand out is that it is a collaboration by dancers, choreographers, and teachers from more than 17 schools in the Tulsa area. In fact, performances of A Children’s Nutcracker have done so well that the group is considering adding a fourth performance.

This Nutcracker has an enormous cast: 150 to 165 dancers per performance, with roughly 400 children participating in the three shows. Lead roles—Clara, Fritz, the Sugar Plum Fairy, and the Dew Drop Fairy—and the smaller parts like the doll, butterflies, and party-scene maids are performed by different dancers in each show. Drosselmeyer, the Snow Queen, Mother Ginger, and the Arabian, Chinese, and Russian dancers, however, are single cast.

In order to accommodate the large numbers of dancers who want to be in the show, new roles augment the traditional roster of characters. The Chinese and Arabian divertissements include “babies” (roles for 8- to 10-year-olds); in other scenes baby mice, butterflies (in the Waltz of the Flowers), and boy soldiers ages 6 to 13 swell the ranks. 

The production and interstudio collaboration was the vision of Pamela Farry, owner and director of Dance Pointe in Tulsa. “She has the most diversified job as she oversees the entire production— costumes, stage schedule, lighting, and choreography for most of the children’s roles, as well as opening up her studio for all rehearsals,” says Donna Collins, a member of the board of directors and the owner and director of Fun Times Dance & Gymnastics.

Collins has been involved since day one. “The first year was the toughest,” she says. “We sent a letter to every studio owner in our city and in adjacent towns, too. In the beginning, a few studio owners were reluctant,” apparently fearful of losing students to other studios. For the first two years, says Collins, “[we] felt like we walked on eggshells.” Three years later most of those fears have subsided and the production has ample support from the schools that participate.

Farry is joined by choreographers Sandy and Matthew Bridwell of The Dance Academy at TJCC [Tulsa Jewish Community Center]. In addition, several other instructors choreograph certain roles or assist with rehearsals, and a few studio owners learn the choreography so they can coach their students and volunteer backstage.

Parent volunteers are a big part of this collaborative success. They are involved in fund-raising, parades, creating informational handouts, and supervising student check-in and check-out at all rehearsals and performances. “These men and women have been amazing,” Collins says. “They are the true unsung heroes.”

A payoff from this collaborative effort has been the group’s ability to award dance-education scholarships (funded by revenues in excess of expenses) to one student from each participating school. But that’s changing, and for the better. “Next season we hope to offer one scholarship per every five students participating,” Collins says.

For this group, the holiday season is about bringing dance educators together in a spirit of teamwork, and that’s proven to be a good thing for the entire dance community.

Modern Nutcracker

Terrie Legein has found a way to turn Nutcracker into something new and exciting. By setting it in a contemporary time period and incorporating different dance styles into it, the owner of Legein Dance Academy in Coventry, RI, has modernized the classic ballet.

The performance incorporates jazz, tap, theater dance, modern dance, and ballet, set to music that has been updated to today’s style. Although some of the choreography may stay similar from year to year (for ease in scheduling), the styles change to give each show a different feeling from the previous year’s performances. Legein finds that many people return each year to see how she has changed the story line.

Over the years, Clara’s family holiday party has become a teenage gathering with the opening numbers done in jazz style with modern-dress costumes; Drosselmeyer has become Uncle D., a magician whose life-size, performing toys have included a doll in a tutu and combat boots. The Prince has arrived in imaginative ways, including on a furniture dolly, a scooter, and inside a bigger-than-lifesize Cracker Jacks box, and the Sugar Plum Fairy and her court have performed a modern dance in a mist of dry ice. In one performance, the Russian variation became a Rockette-style kick line.

The performers are all from Legein’s school, and everyone who auditions is cast. Auditions help determine who can handle four or five pieces of choreography and who can handle only one. Legein says the audition process “brings a sense of accomplishment, self-confidence, and camaraderie to the cast.”

Legein produces two performances each year, and she asks patrons to donate $5 per seat, as well as any food donations they can contribute. She has raised more than $1,200 and 1,500 pounds of food per year, which is then donated to a local charity.

Holiday Magic

Jane Roosevelt, director of Longwood Performing Arts and Longwood Dance Theatre in Kennett Square, PA, puts on a show called Holiday Magic every year. Performed the weekend after Thanksgiving weekend, Roosevelt sees the production as a way to “kick off the holiday season.”

The show is composed of six pieces performed by the school’s resident company, Longwood Dance Theatre. Five of the pieces are from the company’s existing repertoire and remain the same every year, and the sixth piece is choreographed specifically for the show. Last year, the company performed a major tap number to “Hot Chocolate” from the animated film The Polar Express.

Between company numbers, students from the academy perform two or three pieces. The musical selections, such as “The Grinch,” are chosen to appeal to a variety of ages. Roosevelt says that having the students involved in what is largely a company production boosts ticket sales and has the added benefit of introducing the students to the workings of the company. In another sales-boosting move, Roosevelt invites a local high school choral group to participate. The chorus opens the show and performs a medley in the second act.

Roosevelt says her goal is “for the audience to walk out of the performance very excited about the holiday season, and for my students to be introduced to putting on a show for entertainment.”

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Kristin Hild and her school, Dance Motions, Inc. of Bartlett, IL, bring a little Halloween to the holidays with their performances of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Adapted from the Tim Burton film, the production tells the story of Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, and how, after accidentally stumbling upon Christmas Town and seeing the joy brought by that holiday, he decides to make a Christmas of his own.

The show features the school’s dance company, Magic Motions, performing mostly jazz and ballet numbers. But the show’s villain, Mr. Oogie Boogie, does some tap, which, according to Hild, “really makes him stand out.” The dance numbers are set to songs from the movie soundtrack by Danny Elfman, as well as a few Elfman compositions from other Burton movies, such as Edward Scissorhands and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The songs from The Nightmare Before Christmas all have lyrics, which Hild says “makes it much easier for the dance company to perform to and also helps the audience follow the story better.”

Audience participation has become an element of the performances. In 2005, says Hild, “some characters went out into the audience during their numbers and made some [viewers] ‘Honorary Oogie Bugs’ by placing antennas on their heads.” According to Hild, the audiences seemed to enjoy it.

Auditions are held in May of each performance year. Performing every other year makes it easier on the studio and company members, Hild says. She also believes that people are more inclined to see the show when it’s offered only every two years.

A portion of the nonprofit company’s proceeds from the two performances of Nightmare goes to charity and the rest to performance costs.

The Nonprofit Nutcracker

Arizona’s Yuma Ballet Academy and its affiliated nonprofit company are on the ball. They’ve established a professional approach and organization that helped them generate $35,000 in ticket sales and $15,000 in corporate sponsorship last year.

Kathleen Sinclair and her husband, Jon Cristofori, are co-artistic directors of the school, which is home to Ballet Yuma. The company, founded in 1994, produces six annual performances of Nutcracker, one at an out-of-town venue and five in their hometown.

Corporate sponsors of Ballet Yuma include a bank, a local media group, an accounting firm, an orthopedic surgeon, a podiatrist, and an agriculture-based corporation (Yuma is a big farming community), among others. “We find local companies easier [to get funding from] than national corporations,” says Sinclair, “in that decisions on funding the arts are made at the local level and don’t have to go elsewhere.”

Ballet Yuma offers impressive sponsor packages ranging from $250 to $2,500. The sponsor receives the goodwill of supporting the arts and such benefits as advertising on performance posters and other printed materials, a fullpage ad in the playbill, and onstage recognition, including the opportunity to make brief remarks at a pre-performance presentation. Sponsors may also place signage and literature (approved by Ballet Yuma) in the lobby. Sponsors also receive complimentary tickets to the performance, and higher-level sponsors receive tickets to a Nutcracker gala dinner.

For the academy, the benefits of corporate sponsorship have been numerous. Sinclair says that it has allowed her to “put on a professional show with professional guest artists, design staff, and production personnel,” while keeping ticket prices reasonable. It has also given the students the chance to perform in a “fully professional, high-quality production.” Any proceeds left over from their corporate sponsorship are used to fund Ballet Yuma’s smaller productions and to supplement the dancers’ training.    

Photo captionns (top to bottom):

Guest artists Crystal Brothers and Joseph Jefferies (Sugar Plum Fairy and Cavalier) are alumni of Ballet Yuma, now dancing professionally with Ballet Memphis. Photo by Bill Butler.

Members of the Longwood Dance Theater in "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers" from Holiday Magic. Photo by Duane Plank.

Members of the Longwood Dance Theater in "Jingle Bell Rock" from Holiday Magic. Photo by Duane Plank.

Kristin Hild and Dance Motions, Inc. of Bartlett, IL, bring a little Halloween to the holidays with their performance of The Nightmare Before Christmas. 

Andrea Hennig, Yuma Ballet Academy student, backstage waiting to perform as a “Soldier” in

Ballet Yuma’s Nutcracker. Photo by Bill Butler.