Borderlands Ballet Company (BBC), in conjunction with the Las Cruces School of Dance and Music (LCSDM) and Dark Circles Contemporary Dance, presents “The Nutcracker,” Friday-Sunday, Dec. 16-18, at the ASNMSU Center for the Arts, 1000 E. University Ave.
The production’s four performances are 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 16; 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 17; and 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 18.
Tickets are $25.
“Our Nutcracker this year is going to be very special,” BBC Artistic Director Monique Foster said in a news release. She has designed and produced tangerine, lavender, coral and gold petals of new Waltz of the Flower tutus she designed. “These amazing waltz costumes are just a small part of many changes we’ve made to this year’s show.”
But, she said, traditionalists who love the holiday classic shouldn’t be worried.
“We’ve kept a lot of our favorite choreography from previous years,” Foster said. “There will be no shortage of fan favorites. But the Nutcracker is a flexible story that can be endlessly reinvented. I think the highlight of the show for many people is going to be our new Grand Pas with Daniel (Lindsay) and Janelle (Hernandez). The classical version is beautiful, but with these two dancing the leads we decided to try something more challenging that highlights their strengths.”
“This version is completely different, but it retains the emotion and musicality of the original,” Hernandez said. “The new choreography is unique and physically challenging. The lifts and partnering transitions are very difficult to master.”
BBC is partnering on this year’s production with Dark Circles, a professional company recently relocated to Las Cruces. Dark Circles dancers are artists in residence at LCSDM.
Even though the Nutcracker is a classical ballet and Dark Circles is a contemporary dance company, the collaboration was a natural fit, BBC said. Joshua L. Peugh, who provided original choreography for Drosselmeyer (Chadi El-Khoury) and Marie (Skye Todaro) for the production, wanted to use his own choreographic voice to accentuate the differences between these two characters and the ordinariness of everyday life, the news release said.
“My goal was to anchor them in the original text and highlight Drosselmeyer as the representative of fantasy and imagination who leads Marie away from the banality of domestic life and toward creativity and beauty,” Peugh said. “The Nutcracker has become an iconic thing that has transcended and grown away from its source material (E.T.A Hoffman's "Nutcracker and Mouse King” fairy tale), embedding itself in popular culture. But what if it was a show artists could truly sink themselves into, getting lost in the messy humanity of the story?”
“I am excited to share a fully realized Drosselmeyer in dancer form,” El-Khoury said. “Joshua's choreography incorporates classical ballet vocabulary from Petipa and Ivanov's original Nutcracker with explosive and visceral contemporary movement. The blend of techniques takes the power of storytelling to new heights and gives a unique glimpse into the real Drosselmeyer.”
“We’ve been working hard on some of the more subtle aspects of the piece,” said Rachel Breck (Snow Queen with frequent partner Joshua Godman as Snow King). “With the help of Monique and Joshua (Peugh), we’ve been working on creating moments that feel like a push and pull to create interesting interactions between us. I hope that people will be able to see not just the technical effort, but the artistic details as well.”
Other BBC dancers performing in the Nutcracker include Maitlyn Warner (Dew Drop Fairy), John Pohl and Saddie Hilburn (Peacocks), Allene Barton and Maximino Robles (Chocolate), Olivia Leon and BBC apprentice Juliana Garcia (Green Tea Crickets), Ryleigh Wellborn (Ballerina Doll), and BBC apprentices Cienna Parker (Cossack Doll), Brooke Gonzales (Harlequin Doll), and Tara Gandy (Lead Marzipan). Cole Novello will be playing the role of Fritz.
The BBC is a nonprofit dance company housed in LCSDM.
For tickets and more information, visit www.borderlands-ballet.com.
