A Winter Wonderland: a Review of IAA’s Nutcracker Ballet

Written by Alex Workman & Violeta Vilchis

The Nutcracker, first premiered in December of 1892, is a ballet written by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It was based on Alexandre Dumas’ 1844 short story The Nutcracker, about a girl, Clara, who is gifted a nutcracker for Christmas and later dreams that the nutcracker has come alive to adventure with her. They experience battles with mice, the dance of the Snow Queen, and the Land of the Sweets. 

The ballet opens with different scenes of people getting ready for Christmas. There are children playing in the snow, parents buying presents, and Clara’s Uncle Drosselmeyer preparing his tricks to share with the children. The next scene is of Clara’s house on Christmas evening, and during this party Clara is gifted a nutcracker by Drosselmeyer. 

This gift makes her brother Fritz jealous and it breaks when he tries to take it from her. It is magically fixed by uncle Drosselmeyer and Clara goes to sleep that night happy with her new gift. That night, Clara dreams of the nutcracker saving her in a battle of mice. Although he is injured and falls, similarly to the event at the party, Uncle Drosselmeyer appears to revive the nutcracker. The nutcracker is now a prince that leads Clara through the Land of the Sweets. After seeing each of the sweets perform for her, Clara must say goodbye to her new friends as she wakes up from her dream.

With performances on Dec. 11-14, The Nutcracker is a yearly tradition for dance companies around the world, including the IAA Dance department. The IAA Orchestra starts preparing the music in the middle of November. Similarly, around halfway through the semester, dance students (alongside some acting students) start auditions for The Nutcracker. 

Avery Strong, a senior Dance major, stated that when assigning roles for The Nutcracker, “The teachers observe dancers in their technique class and call them for roles they think would fit. Then they have an audition for the specific role.” 

Many people are involved in producing The Nutcracker. Stage crew get the weekend before to practice changing the set pieces for each scene; long before then, the costume and prop shops are hard at work—actively working with the director and dancers to make the costumes and set pieces enhance the story being told.  

This year’s closing performance was the Sunday matinee at 2 p.m. After the performance was over, the dancers got to meet their families in Corson Auditorium’s lobby to take photos in costume with their family and friends. It was a bittersweet end for many senior dancers as this was their last Nutcracker performance at IAA. With a successful Nutcracker run behind them, the dancers get the week off before winter break each year to rest.