{"id":2452423,"date":"2019-12-19T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-19T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=317932"},"modified":"2019-12-19T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-19T23:00:00","slug":"readying-the-nutcracker-at-aspen-santa-fe-ballet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/readying-the-nutcracker-at-aspen-santa-fe-ballet\/","title":{"rendered":"Readying \u2018The Nutcracker\u2019 at Aspen Santa Fe Ballet"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Riley MacArthur, 15, right, practices her marionette routine that she will be performing for Aspen Santa Fe Ballet\u2019s The Nutcracker in their studio in Aspen on Saturday, December 14, 2019. The Nutcracker will be performed at the Aspen District theatre on December 21 and 22. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)<\/strong>
Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Trends may come and go over the years but there is one holiday tradition that has not lost steam since its inception in 1892: Tchaikovsky\u2019s \u201cThe Nutcracker,\u201d the two-act ballet that recounts the story of a young girl who befriends a nutcracker on Christmas Eve and does battle against the evil Mouse King.<\/p>\n

The annual Aspen Santa Fe Ballet production of this classic includes more than 100 local children, 10 company dancers, multiple guest dancers and staff, faculty and technical crew, totaling more than 200 people involved in this production.<\/p>\n

Aspen Santa Fe Ballet school director Melanie Doskocil has been directing \u201cThe Nutcracker\u201d at the Aspen District Theatre for 15 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that this performance is a window into the magic that dance can bring to your life,\u201d said Aspen Santa Fe\u2019s Melanie Doskocil, who has been directing \u201cThe Nutcracker\u201d at the Aspen District Theatre for 15 years. \u201cI hope that the families see the delight and the joy and fun that the children are having in these performances.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always that question of, \u2018Is this a fantasy?\u2019\u201d Doskocil asked. \u201cIs this a dream? Does she really get whisked away to another world? The way everything ties together, audience members begin to get a clearer idea of what our take on the story is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each version of \u201cThe Nutcracker\u201d brings its own twist to the traditional choreography and storyline. Aspen Santa Fe Ballet is no different.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur second act has a circus theme to it,\u201d Doskocil said. \u201cWe were probably one of the first organizations that actually had a traditional Chinese folk dancer come and do a traditional Chinese dance rather than having ballet dancers acting like Chinese dancers. We also have traditional Russian folk dancers for the Russian dance again, instead of ballet dancers. For our Arabian scene, we have a silks performer. She\u2019s been doing it with us for quite a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company likes to honor the tradition of their \u201cNutcracker,\u201d so they don\u2019t change a lot from year to year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the biggest changes are new dancers to our company, and the new children each year that bring a new vitality to it,\u201d Doskocil said. \u201cWe also have added a new character to our snow scene. People can keep an eye out for that, but no big changes, just constantly refining it and keeping it fresh.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doskocil started dancing ballet when she was 10 years old. From that year on, she has never missed a \u201cNutcracker.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI danced all kinds of different roles growing up \u2014 snowflakes, flowers, Chinese, Mirlitons, Spanish, etc,\u201d Doskocil said. \u201cThen when I went on to be a professional dancer, all the companies that I danced with performed \u2018Nutcrackers.\u2019 \u2026 Now, here, I\u2019m getting to pass on this holiday tradition to a new generation of students and that\u2019s really fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

The children start working in early November with rehearsals held on Saturdays.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recognize that November and December are a busy time for people, and we try not to take up people\u2019s weekends for the entire fall,\u201d Doskocil said. \u201cWe have a fairly short but intense rehearsal period.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so lucky, I feel, to be able to stand backstage and watch, but I think my tried and true favorite theme for our performance is probably the snow scene,\u201d Doskocil said when discussing her favorite moments from the performance year after year. \u201cThe snow scene is just magical.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Riley MacArthur, 15, right, practices her marionette routine that she will be performing for Aspen Santa Fe Ballet\u2019s The Nutcracker in their studio in Aspen on Saturday, December 14, 2019. The Nutcracker will be performed at the Aspen District theatre on December 21 and 22. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times Trends may come […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2452423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 01:29:41","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2452423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2452423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2452423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2452423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}