Ballet America’s Nutcracker

Ballet America’s Nutcracker has it all: from enchanting young children, all the way up to the most skilled professional dancers. Features some of the best local ballerinas in the area. A very family-​friendly production — thoroughly entertaining, not stiff and stuffy. Plenty of dancing candy canes and baby mice twirling among the splendid Snow Queen and Russian Dancers. This year’s production again featured Maia Wilkens and MIchael Levine, former principle dancers from The Joffrey Ballet. Venue is the stately Fox Theater — feels as though you’ve gone all the way up to San Francisco for the ballet, but you’re still close to home. Wonderful show. This production is associated with Academy of American Ballet in Redwood City.

Julia Ball-Dugan’s consistently excellent production is crafted with professional polish with the intimacy of a small regional company. No two performances are alike, and there are original scenes each year. Children are transported into a world of beauty and charm. The Fox Theater is a perfect venue for the production, and the tickets are unbelievably reasonable.

The 2010 Nutcracker production from Ballet America was astonishing in the quality of the dancing. Every year this production continues to improve in the choreography and the ability of those dancing on stage. This year was no exception. The professionals that accompanied the junior company dancers and those that were our featured dancers were incredibly accomplished and a delight to watch.
I heard from folks in the audience that they felt the choreography was more difficult than in the past, and the dancers were excellent! The people I heard this from do not see dance productions that often, but have come to this Nutcracker in the past.
The show date tends to fall on the first Friday or Saturday of December.
I hope people reading this review will hold that date for the 2011 performance.
I overheard another patron say the length of the performance was perfect, and was just as enjoyable as any of the major productions in the area.
Redwood City is very lucky to have a production of this quality in their midst.

A great way to support your local arts and dance programs!
Redwood City’s own Ballet America (ballet school) puts on this show every year in mid December, and includes ballet students from all ages (4 and up) to participate. Though the cast is primarily students (and even some parents), they do also use instructors and a few professional dancers to fill out the main roles (e.g. sugar plum fairy, snow queen, etc). The result is magical, fun and surprisingly polished for what you’d expect from a local, low-​budget production. The performance period is short: only 2 days & nights, which makes sense considering all the young children involved.
We attended the final 2009 performance on Dec 11. Though typically held at the Fox theatre downtown (which is in the throes of a foreclosure saga), this year it was held at the Sequoia High School theater (Carrington Hall), a surprisingly nice venue with a colonial Spanish design, built in 1904. As usual, we enjoyed the show and came away feeling like the Holiday season had REALLY begun. Until next year!