Today@Sam Article
Interactive Performance To Celebrate ‘Nutcracker’s’ 200th Anniversary
Nov. 29, 2016
SHSU Media Contact: Emily Binetti
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| Dance professor Dana Nicolay's "A Wynne Home Nutcracker" is an interactive experience that allows audiences to be "a part of" the performance, taking attendees through the Wynne Home rooms and outdoors as the ballet unfolds. Performances are scheduled four times each day Dec. 6-10. —Photos by Lynn Lane |
Huntsville will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the E.T.A. Hoffman story behind the famous, beloved Christmas ballet at the historic Wynne Home on Dec. 6-10, 2016.
Choreographed by Sam Houston State University dance professor Dana Nicolay, the Nicolay Dance Works production of “A Wynne Home Nutcracker” will include four, 40-minute performances each evening, beginning at 6 p.m., 7 p.m., 8 p.m. and 9 p.m.
The original story behind the ballet, entitled "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King," was written by Hoffman in 1816 and is set in the German home of the Stahlbaum family. In the Hoffman story, the daughter, Marie (Clara, in some versions) Stahlbaum, receives a special gift of a nutcracker that comes to life as a prince and defeats the evil Mouse King before he transports Marie to a magical kingdom.
In 1844, Alexandre Dumas (pere), French writer of "The Three Musketeers" and "The Count of Monte Cristo," adapted the story and called it "Story of a Nutcracker" (“Histoire d'un casse-noisette”). It was this version that was then used as the libretto for the familiar two-act "Nutcracker" ballet, with music by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky and choreography by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. The ballet debuted at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Dec. 18, 1892.
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| A scene from "A Wynne Home Nutcracker" in the parlor of the Wynne Home Arts Center, a 19th-century Victorian home located on 11th Street. |
“A Wynne Home Nutcracker” will provide an interactive experience for small audience groups who will be welcomed into the parlor of the 19th-century Victorian home, where the family is decorating the tree for a Christmas party. Guests will experience the story as it unfolds throughout the Wynne Home.
“Unlike the traditional setting of a performance space, in this unique production audiences will be surrounded by the dance rather than sitting outside the performance,” Nicolay said.
Moving throughout the historic home from room to room, and even outdoors on the grounds of the Arts Center, audiences will partake in the magical world of the Nutcracker story, from helping to trim the Stahlbaum family tree to witnessing the climactic battle between the Mouse King and Nutcracker.
The characters will be portrayed by dancers from Nicolay Danceworks, all of whom are current students or alumni of the SHSU Department of Dance. A total of 20 Nicolay Dance Works dancers in each performance will portray the enchanting, colorful characters that make up the Nutcracker holiday experience including the Stahlbaum family, Uncle Drosselmeyer, The Cavalier, Dancing Snowflakes, Sugar Plum Fairies, and many more, according to Nicolay.
"A Wynne Home Nutcracker" is funded in part by the City of Huntsville Arts Commission.
Tickets are $25 and must be purchased in advance online at nicolaydanceworks.com.
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