Drosselmeyer here, Sugar Plum there, productions of The Nutcracker everywhere as we count down the days to Christmas. If you’ve seen too many period drawing rooms on stage but still need a Clara fix along with your holiday stocking, check out BalletRox’s Urban Nutcracker, which was created by Tony Williams, founder and director of the Jamaica Plain–based company. Williams connects the dots of the traditional scenario but colors it in contemporary shades of neon. The two performances of last year’s premiere Urban Nutcracker sold out, so this year there will be four, starting next Friday (December 20) at the Strand Theatre.
The child of an African-American soldier and an Italian war bride, Williams grew up in Jamaica Plain, where his family lived in the Bromley-Heath housing project. As a teenager he aspired to become a gymnast; he wound up studying ballet with Virginia Williams (no relation) and in 1963 found himself on stage as a founding member of her fledgling Boston Ballet. He went on to join the Joffrey, the Royal Winnipeg, and Norwegian National Ballet before hanging up his dancing shoes. "I was a gypsy. I liked to travel, but I always kept in touch with Virginia. The Snow scene in my production is essentially Virginia’s [former Boston Ballet soloist Leslie Woodies is helping to arrange the dancing snowflakes], and so is the finale."
When Williams returned to the Boston area, he began teaching. In 1995 he founded BalletRox, with the idea of giving inner-city children an opportunity to attend dance classes on full scholarship, as he did. Adding stage experience for his students soon followed. "I’ve been associated with The Nutcracker for most of my career, but the emphasis on classical dance and music as well as the Victorian setting doesn’t resonate beyond a limited circle. There’s been a lack of diversity on stage."
Like Mark Morris and Donald Byrd, who have updated the 19th-century classic to modern sensibilities, Williams sets act one of his production in a city apartment, where the action is happening right now. The hip children on stage play video games, and the mice of the famed battle scene pop out of the television set carrying a picnic basket and a bottle of champagne.
A cast of 65 children and 30 professional and semi-professional performers will be augmented by guest artists from the Dance Theatre of Harlem: Kellye Saunders and Donald Williams as Sugar Plum and her Cavalier, Boston native Jhe Russell, and Ramon Thielen, who comes from Venezuela. Just as the choreography goes beyond ballet, so the music goes beyond Tchaikovsky: Williams has mixed in passages of Duke Ellington to accompany "tap dancing in the opening scene, hip-hop, and swing dancing in the party scene."
His 2002 production budget of $150,00 (up a third from last year), which he raised from private donors and foundations, has allowed him to add more scenery and special effects. "Al [Petrucelli, who was production manager for Boston Ballet during its early years and will direct the backstage operation here] told me the tree must grow and the snow must fall. This year we have both."
The 22nd annual presentation of A Dancer’s Christmas will deliver an equally spirited but quite different theatrical celebration of the holiday beginning this Friday at Boston College. Under the artistic direction of Reverend Robert VerEecke, S.J., the three-part production juxtaposes the stories of the birth and death of Jesus as recalled by Mary with a scene of Christmas in the middle ages. And talk about a segue from the sacred to the profane: the show fast-forwards in time for a trip to the mall before concluding with the touching finale, "Dancing Day." Let’s hope that Father Bob, as he is universally called, performs on stage with the cast of more than 50 dancers, as he has in the past.
BalletRox’s Urban Nutcracker will be presented at the Strand Theatre, 543 Columbia Road in Dorchester, next weekend: Friday December 20 at 7 p.m., Saturday December 21 at 2 and 7 p.m., and Sunday December 22 at 4 p.m. Tickets are $10 to $25; call (617) 423-NEXT or visit www.urban-nutcracker.com. The Boston Liturgical Dance Ensemble presents A Dancer’s Christmas in Robsham Theater Arts Center at Boston College this weekend and next, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $25 ($15 for students and seniors); call (617) 552-4800 or visit www.blde.org
