KC Ballet’s record-breaking new Nutcracker sparkles
The Kansas City Ballet’s new $2 million Nutcracker, which premiered last year, is an international production that dazzled audiences and dancers, even those familiar with the fanciful multi-layered paean to the Christmas season.
“It’s still the same story, but with a deep vibrancy from the brand new sets and costumes, lighting and choreography,” says Kansas City Ballet publicity consultant and fan, Ellen McDonald. “There are some new lovely tricks and magic that happens throughout the production that could only be done at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Audiences will be thrilled.”
“The way it was put together gives it a sparkle,” says the Cavalier (Lamin Pereira dos Santos who also plays the butler, a Spanish dancer and an Arabian dancer).
The Brazilian-born dancer is among the Kansas City Ballet’s revolving whirl of international performers who take on everything in the new production of The Nutcracker, from the leading roles of the Sugarplum Fairy and her Cavalier to parents in the party scenes and second-act character scenes. (There are multiple rotating casts.)
Between the artistic staff, the dancers – the 30 members of the ballet company and the 177 KC Ballet School students ages six to 18 performing in 213 roles in Carney’s Nutcracker – and the crew of stagehands, more than 30 countries are represented and all but a handful of U.S. states.
This is Santos’s third annual KCB presentation of the holiday classic. The changes wrought in Devon Carney’s reimagined new Nutcracker are impressive, he says. “It’s so much more exciting. The stage is more spacious, and the dancing, costumes, lighting and design are much better than before.”
This new Nutcracker is a longtime ambition of Carney’s realized. The ballet company’s artistic director since 2013 longed to choreograph his own rendition of the Christmas standard. Toward that end, he began assembling two years ago, in his own words, one of the best design teams in the country.
Credit for the design of the sumptuous sets and scenery goes to Alain Vaës, French-born artist, set designer, and author and illustrator of children’s books. Four studios worked to produce the physical embodiment of his designs. Scenic splendor has always been part of the magic of The Nutcracker; Vaës’s scenic and properties designs don’t disappoint, they’re breathtaking.
Carney’s Nutcracker is elegantly costumed by Holly Hynes, one of the world’s leading costume designers for ballet and a former director of costumes for the New York City Ballet. It took 27 costume studios from here and across the country to fabricate Hynes’s 250 festive, fanciful, shimmering costume designs.
Trad A Burns is an internationally recognized lighting designer whose world-renowned works extend from dramatic theatre and musicals to theme parks. His stylistic designs for The Nutcracker align perfectly with Vaës’s scenery and sets, Hynes’s costumes and Carney’s elegant, energetic choreography, playfully painting a sometimes spirited, sometimes dreamy ambience.
“This spectacular production was an enormous undertaking,” Carney said. “We worked on every detail … for more than a year … The sheer artistry, the level of detail on every design element astounded audiences.”
The premiere in 2015 broke box-office records, and attendance hit a new all-time high in Kansas City Ballet history.
“Our goal is to leave even more audiences absolutely amazed and fully immersed in this magical experience,” Carney said.
BOX: The Nutcracker opens Dec. 3 and runs through Dec. 24 at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets are available online at www.kcballet.org or by calling the box office at 816-931-8993.
NATALIA - KCB School Academy Students Natalia DaSilva dancing the role of Clara and Johnathan Wilkerson dancing the role of Fritz.
CLARAS - KCB Academy Students Maggie Crist, Hannah Zucht, and Natalia DaSilva rehearse the role of Clara.
RYAN - Guest Character Artist for The Nutcracker and former KCB Company Dancer Ryan Jolicoeur-Nye with School Academy Students.
STUDENTS - KCB Academy Students in rehearsal.
CARNEY - KCB School Academy Students Hannah Zucht, Natalia DaSilva, and Maggie Crist rehearsing the role of Clara with Artistic Director Devon Carney.
