Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet FEATURES “DOVE OF PEACE” AND “LAND OF PEACE AND HARMONY” SINCE 1994
April 1, 2018
Dedicating North America Tours to World Peace for 25 Years
“Sergey Chumakov…when partnering Elena Petrichenko…confers an unusual thrill upon the work’s many lifts.”Chief Dance Critic Alastair Macaulay, New York Times, NYC, 2010
Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet’s Great Russian Nutcracker has featured the Land of Peace and Harmony in Act II, traditionally called the Land of Sweets, and the Dove of Peace since their first 1993 North American tour. Hailing from all corners of the former Soviet Union, the Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet company dance from NYC to LA, and from Miami to Calgary for world peace, as they have done since that first tour.
“This acclaimed version of the perennial ballet [the Nutcracker] includes some special touches… when two dancers become one as The Dove of Peace, a “bird” with a 20-foot wingspan, in a prayer for World Peace.” Chicago Tribune, Chicago, 2013
The “Dove of Peace,” which replaces the traditional Sugar Plum Fairy role, was inspired by Bolshoi Ballet Principal danseur Stanislov Vlasov, who was choreographer/balletmaster of Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet’s inaugural 1993 Great Russian Nutcracker, and partner Lilia Sabitova, Honored as People’s Artist of Russia, when they performed their soaring choreography at Carnegie Hall and more venues around the world. Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet’s “Dove of Peace” leads heroine Masha and her Nutcracker Prince into the Land of Peace and Harmony (traditionally known as the Land of Sweets). The 2 person Dove of Peace premiered in 2012 on the 20th Anniversary Tour of the Great Russian Nutcracker and was created by Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet’s acclaimed Sergey Chumakov and Elena Petrichenko .
“Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet’s exclusive Dove of Peace, Elena Petrichenko and Sergey Chumakov, showcases the couple’s immense technical skills, athleticism, strength, and grace in a breathtaking way. Petrichenko and Chumakov’s chemistry and passion is hypnotizing,” Natasha Ashley, Broadway World, NYC, 2017.
Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet dancers also participate in International Day of Peace celebrations in September of each year. The Audition Directors/Ballerinas, who tour the country in the fall auditioning local ballet students for children’s roles in Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet’s Dance with Us program, perform the signature Dove of Peace choreographyfor the public in cities including El Paso, Asheville, Redding, Longview, and Edmonton and Brandon, in Canada.
“Masha, the heroine we know as Clara, dreams not of wondrous sweets but instead visits the Land of Peace and Harmony. The twist works to expose more of her burgeoning maturity, making the journey not a childish dream but an honorable quest,”Dana Gavin Frank, The Dallas Morning News, Dallas, 2003.
Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet has dedicated 25 years of annual tours of North American to advocating for World Peace. In the 1980’s, during the collapse of the “Iron Curtain,” Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet producers brought the International Glasnost Festival Tours to the US featuring Prima Ballerina Assoluta Tatiana Chernobrovkina and Vadim Bondar of Stanislavski fame – the first time in many years American audiences had seen Russian dancers on American stages.
In 1993, Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet’s Great Russian Nutcracker premiered in North America, the first of the annual tours performing in cities large and small across the continent. Choreographed by Bolshoi soloist Stanislav Vlasov, the production featured the “Land of Peace and Harmony,” traditionally called the Land of Sweets, and the “Dove of Peace.” The Dove of Peace and the Land of Peace and Harmony is exclusive to Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet and seen in each performance of Great Russian Nutcracker. It was first performed by a single ballerina. In 2012, Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet Principal Dancers Sergei Chumakov and Elena Petrichenko premiered the 2 person Dove of Peace with a 20 foot wing span! The Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet dancers themselves are not strangers to violence. In 2013 Soloist Olga Aru was in Tahrir Square in Egypt during the Arab Spring uprising, avoiding bullets coming in studio windows, and was soon evacuated. In 2014 Principal Ballerina Olga Kifyak was present at Ukraine’s Maidan Square advocating for peace with a White Rose of Peace. Hailing from all corners of the former Soviet Union, Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet artists dance from NYC to LA, and from Miami to Calgary for world peace, as they have done since Talmi Entertainment first brought Russian dancers Alexander Godunov and Valentina Kazlova to North America in the 1980’s.
“The Great Russian Nutcracker…Breath-taking scene of two principal dancers entwined together as a Dove of Peace, with a gorgeous, pair of white wings…Sheer magic… poetic beauty” Harold Duckett, Tennessee Today, Knoxville, 2017.
“Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet’s [Great Russian] Nutcracker brims with tradition, grace, and delight…the [Troika] sleigh…was conveyed to the Land of Peace and Harmony by “Ded Moroz,” Russia’s Father Christmas, and Snow Maiden “Snegurochka.” Perry Tannenbaum, Broadway World, Charlotte, 2015.
“Anna Radik and Sergey Dotsenko were the most sculpturesque of the couples as the Dove of Peace, each one of the silvery dancers bearing one of the bird’s luxuriant 10-foot-wide white wings,” Perry Tannenbaum, Broadway World, Charlotte, 2015.
“Using music that is usually wasted, [the choreographer] created a sweet Dove of Peace duet at the beginning of Act 2 in which each [dancer is] outfitted with one enormous wing… linked up gymnastically for artful avian imagery…. the result is disarmingly poetic.” Lewis Segal, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, 2013.
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