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Defining Clara
The Ballerinas Who Shaped The Nutcracker's Heroine Karyna Shatkovskaya has danced enough to know how a stage works. That, she says, is the complication. "For me, the most difficult part of Clara is probably the childlike excitement," she says. "As a mature and...
Defining Clara
The Ballerinas Who Shaped The Nutcracker's Heroine Karyna Shatkovskaya has danced enough to know how a stage works. That, she says, is the complication. "For me, the most difficult part of Clara is probably the childlike excitement," she says. "As a mature and...
Why Adult Ballet May Be One of the Smartest Workouts for Aging Bodies
There is a persistent myth around ballet: that it belongs only to children, pre-professional teenagers, and elite dancers who began training before they could properly tie their shoes. By adulthood, many people assume the window has closed. If you didn't start at six,...
Before the Magic, There’s Mom
Before The Nutcracker becomes a world of dancing toys, towering puppets, and holiday wonder, it begins at home. The Stahlbaum family’s Christmas Eve celebration is the quiet foundation of the story. And at the center of that home is Mother Stahlbaum — not the loudest...
Different Versions Of The Nutcracker
Every December, as predictably as cold weather and frantic gift-buying, The Nutcracker returns to stages around the world. For many ballet companies, beyond a tradition — it’s the engine that powers the rest of the season. For audiences, it’s a ritual: the snowfall,...
The Show Must Go On: Snowstorms, Sleepless Nights & Saving Chicago
At ten o’clock on a snowy Minneapolis night in 2022, the cast bus shuddered to a stop in the parking lot of an Afghan shopping center. The dancers inside had been expecting to sleep through the long, eight-hour drive to Chicago, where one of the tour’s most important...