by Julia Guiheen | Dec 16, 2020 | TBT
In need of extra Nutcracker cheer? Watching Dame Margot Fonteyn and Michael Somes, two former stars of The Royal Ballet, dance the ballet’s grand pas de deux is an instant fix. In this clip from a 1958 Nutcracker television broadcast, even black and white film...
by Emma Love Suddarth | Dec 15, 2020 | Career, Everything Nutcracker, Instagram
“What is that?” the TSA agent asked last year when I placed the giant circular bag onto the conveyer belt. “It’s a tutu—for ballet. You know…like The Nutcracker?” I was quick to explain. “Oh, I see. How do you plan on...
by Kyra Laubacher | Dec 10, 2020 | Everything Nutcracker, Instagram, News, Onstage
As COVID-19 lockdowns, restrictions and mandates have forced ballet companies to alter their seasons, many have transformed the ways they bring performances to their audiences. The time-honored Nutcracker is no exception. While some companies, like Orlando Ballet,...
by Gavin Larsen | Dec 9, 2020 | Everything Nutcracker, Higher Ed, News, Onstage
Earlier this year, anticipating the ongoing repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic, University of North Carolina School of the Arts’ interim dean of dance, Jared Redick, started looking ahead to their annual Nutcracker performances. In May, he and the deans of...
by Julia Guiheen | Dec 2, 2020 | Viral Videos
Updated 12/1/22. In this clip from 1964, former New York City Ballet principals Patricia McBride and Edward Villella perform a pas de deux as Marie and the Nutcracker Prince, choreographed by Kurt Jacob. The footage, from a made-for-TV Nutcracker movie that originally...
by Cory Stieg For Dance Magazine | Nov 26, 2020 | Company Life, Everything Nutcracker, Onstage
To some dancers, a winter without The Nutcracker may seem like a gift. No Tchaikovsky on an endless loop. No missing real parties to dance in the party scene. No pulling fake snow out of your hair. It’s the stuff that burned-out ballerinas might dream about in...
by Jacqueline Callahan | Oct 13, 2020 | Career, Company Life, Everything Nutcracker, News, Training
One afternoon in mid-June, Pennsylvania Ballet’s dancers, administrative staff, school faculty and orchestra members gathered via Zoom to learn the devastating news: We would not return to the stage in the year 2020. Some turned off their cameras to process....
by Lucy Van Cleef | Dec 25, 2019 | Everything Nutcracker, News
The Nutcracker has been a dancer’s tradition for over 125 years. As a student at Russia’s Imperial Ballet School in Saint Petersburg in the early 1900s, a young George Balanchine performed in the original production of The Nutcracker, created in 1892, at...