By Nolan Leahy
The popularity of “The Nutcracker” this holiday season is higher than normal considering that numerous areas around Indiana are hosting shows of the Nutcracker dance production.
At the same time, “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” has been in movie theaters since
November 2.
The two forms differentiate in their execution by the amount of dance in the shows. While the traditional Nutcracker is a full 90 to 120 minutes of pure dance with accompanying music, “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” only includes a small sequence of traditional ballet, along with smaller bits of dance that don’t have great significance with Clara’s (played by Mackenzie Foy) overall story. It’s mostly an acted-out performance that has elements of other children’s fantasy films like “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.”
Associate Professor of Dance Christie Zimmerman is helping choreograph Ball State’s upcoming version of The Nutcracker in Emens Auditorium. Zimmerman said that with the multiple interpretations of “The Nutcracker” both in film and on the stage, the role of dance in the story has room for multiple interpretations for the audience
to seek out. Her reasoning is that the balance of responsibility for dance on stage, and dance in film are entirely different.
“For director’s and choreographers, once the curtain goes up, their control – they have none.
The final interpretation of [The Nutcracker] is entirely on the actor. On film, you make all these pieces and parts that the actor does, where the director gets to take those parts and put it together however they want,” Zimmerman said. “They are two different forms of creativity.”
As for Ball State’s interpretation of “The Nutcracker,” it won’t be just classical ballet.
Both Zimmerman and Samantha Shoufler, who is playing Clara in Ball State’s “The Nutcracker,”said that Bob Fosse jazz dancing will be incorporated into the university’s version of the production, along with other forms of dance as well.
Zimmerman said that there’s room for different forms of dance in the Nutcracker, and that the university’s dance department is wanting to reflect their curriculum within the production.
“When we first decided here at Ball State to do a version of ‘The Nutcracker,’ one of the things our program does – the dance major program – is we very much honor the different disciplines of dance,” Zimmerman said. “We believe the best dancers are diverse dancers. Dancers who can be successful in classical ballet, in modern techniques, in jazz dance techniques, in contemporary techniques. From the very beginning we said ‘we don’t want to do a classical ballet version of Nutcracker. What would it look like if we were to incorporate all these different things that we value within this umbrella of the Nutcracker?’”
For Shoufler, she says that it’s about Ball State’s dancers expressing the love for the different
styles. “I know for us, not a lot of our dancers are ones that are classically trained in ballet or
anything,” said Shoufler. “We all come from different backgrounds, different training. We all
love different styles of dance more, so I think that plays into a part of what our Nutcracker is.”
Ball State’s “The Nutcracker” premieres on December 8 at 7:30 p.m.
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