“The Nutcracker” made its reappearance Saturday evening at Luhrs Performing Arts Center. The State Ballet Theater of Ukraine took Luhrs on a whimsical night of the renowned ballet.
“The Nutcracker” was created by Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky, who also created Swan Lake, in 1892. It became a cherished holiday ballet because it is about imagination and wonder on Christmas Eve.
The show was separated into two acts, with each act lasting for 50 minutes. The story follows a girl named Clara who gets a nutcracker doll for Christmas, and it comes to life.
In the middle of the night, Clara helps the Nutcracker fight the evil Mouse King. The Nutcracker then turns into a prince after Clara saves him from the Mouse King. They celebrate in Candy Land and are surrounded by dancing dolls from all over the world. Clara then wakes up and a realizes that it was all just a dream.
I never went to a ballet before, and it was a different experience to watch. The dancing was enough to take my breath away. Choreographers Marius Petipa and Andrei Litvinov put together an enticing show through unique moves.
The outfits were vibrant and made dancers stand out onstage. The colors used were carefully chosen to correlate with the scene’s mood. The setting is inside a dream of a child, where imagination and dreams are endless, and the wardrobe has a special way of mirroring that.
The intermission began at the most climatic part of the story, when the Nutcracker becomes a prince. It leaves the audience with a reason to come back. The show lasted for two hours but kept families and children engaged the entire time.
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