Jack Reed Posted November 18, 2021 Share Posted November 18, 2021 (edited) Here's a link to Ovation's website, with the schedule and the curtain times: https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/1079946?mc_cid=6578f7f67d As you can see, ticket prices range from $43 and down (including a small fee for ongoing work on this community theater), and people often want to know, how can they do it so cheap? The answer is that the Ballet Chicago Studio Company, which performs in this, with the addition of some younger dancers, some of them very young, briefly, in the matinees - is comprised of the top dancers of an excellent ballet school, so that its dancers are paying tuition, not drawing salaries; their musicians are recorded; and their costumes - which not only look good, but move well, a virtue not always seen even on professional companies, are made by a group of dancers' mothers, sometimes calling itself The Guild of the Golden Needle. Indeed, the quality of this production, especially the dancing, reminds me of the distinction sometimes made, that the main difference between amateurs and professionals in anything is that professionals get paid. (When some archive videos of BCSC's performances were online earlier in the pandemic, they were very well received here.) Indeed, such amateurish aspects as there are add to BC's Nutcracker's charm. And the musicality of the choreography, mostly by Ballet Chicago's faculty, Daniel Duell (of NYCB), Patricia Blair (Eglevsky Ballet, when Edward Villella was "artistic advisor") and Ted Seymour (TSFB and other ensembles) but also including what we have of Balanchine's Sugar Plum pas de deux (with the lost male variation replaced by one by Duell) warms the heart and gladdens the soul of this old Balanchine addict (just to put your reporter's biases on record - I most enjoy seeing what I hear). I've posted about this version of Tchaikovsky's classic on BA! before: Here's a link to some images of those costumes: Here are links to some video: The party guests arrive: https://vimeo.com/195142520 Snow scene (end of Act I, the whole scene): https://vimeo.com/247428800 Flutes (called “Mirlitons”, kazoos, but we hear flutes) from Act II: https://vimeo.com/197326547 Waltz of the Flowers (Act II): https://vimeo.com/197225631 Finale (end of Act II): And here’s a video of Act I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOwYYsWHHIw The Snow Scene begins at 28:33. Edited December 2, 2021 by Jack Reed Link to comment
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