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By BARBARA L. FREDRICKSEN, Times Staff Writer
Published December 10, 2004
Among the most enduring - and endearing - holiday traditions in this area is the annual dancing of The Nutcracker ballet by Expressions, the Dance Company. The 8-year-old troupe has dancers age 9 and older from throughout the Tampa Bay region.
For The Nutcracker , more than 100 dancers and actors fill the stage with the truly marvelous telling of the magical Christmas experienced by a young girl who is transported to a land far away.
Featured in this production are professional dancers Deborah Buttner, a graduate of the London Studio Center, as the Sugar Plum Fairy; and Eriberto Jimerez, the principal dancer for the Miami Hispanic Ballet, as the Cavalier. This is Ms. Buttner's sixth year as guest artist and Jimerez's fifth year.
The Nutcracker is the story of a young girl named Clara (Bella Calafiura at one performance; Haidee Graves at the other) who is given a wooden Nutcracker (James Rodriguez) shaped like a toy soldier for Christmas.
Clara's jealous brother Fritz breaks the toy, but it is repaired by Clara's gruff Great Uncle Drosselmeier.
After everyone in the household is asleep, Clara tiptoes back downstairs to play with the nutcracker. She encounters the menacing Rat King (Craig Stonestreet) and his minions, who do battle with the toy soldiers. From there, Clara is transported to a beautiful Fairy Land by Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier.
Greeting her are a plethora of lovely dancers and entertainers: angels, cooks and maids, sleigh drivers, gift bearers and heralds.
The gifts include chocolates, coffee, tea, candy canes, all given by dancers in costumes from Spain, China and Arab countries.
A highlight is a larger-than-life figure, Mother Ginger, whose Polichinelles and Petits Polichinelles swarm out of her giant hoop skirt to dance and cavort about the stage.
A new touch in this year's presentation is five students from Palm Harbor Martial Arts and their instructor, Norm Patton. Another different touch: having a real-life husband and wife, Tom and Barbara McClure, play Councilor Von Stahlbaum and his wife.
The show's characters are dressed in more than 100 costumes, some of them purchased in China by Expressions founder and show director Gillian Davis. Ms. Davis danced professionally with the Royal Ballet of London and the Rhodesian National Ballet. She has been a Royal Academy of Dance examiner for 26 years and is the only graded and vocational examiner in the United States.
Published December 10, 2004
Among the most enduring - and endearing - holiday traditions in this area is the annual dancing of The Nutcracker ballet by Expressions, the Dance Company. The 8-year-old troupe has dancers age 9 and older from throughout the Tampa Bay region.
For The Nutcracker , more than 100 dancers and actors fill the stage with the truly marvelous telling of the magical Christmas experienced by a young girl who is transported to a land far away.
Featured in this production are professional dancers Deborah Buttner, a graduate of the London Studio Center, as the Sugar Plum Fairy; and Eriberto Jimerez, the principal dancer for the Miami Hispanic Ballet, as the Cavalier. This is Ms. Buttner's sixth year as guest artist and Jimerez's fifth year.
The Nutcracker is the story of a young girl named Clara (Bella Calafiura at one performance; Haidee Graves at the other) who is given a wooden Nutcracker (James Rodriguez) shaped like a toy soldier for Christmas.
Clara's jealous brother Fritz breaks the toy, but it is repaired by Clara's gruff Great Uncle Drosselmeier.
After everyone in the household is asleep, Clara tiptoes back downstairs to play with the nutcracker. She encounters the menacing Rat King (Craig Stonestreet) and his minions, who do battle with the toy soldiers. From there, Clara is transported to a beautiful Fairy Land by Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier.
Greeting her are a plethora of lovely dancers and entertainers: angels, cooks and maids, sleigh drivers, gift bearers and heralds.
The gifts include chocolates, coffee, tea, candy canes, all given by dancers in costumes from Spain, China and Arab countries.
A highlight is a larger-than-life figure, Mother Ginger, whose Polichinelles and Petits Polichinelles swarm out of her giant hoop skirt to dance and cavort about the stage.
A new touch in this year's presentation is five students from Palm Harbor Martial Arts and their instructor, Norm Patton. Another different touch: having a real-life husband and wife, Tom and Barbara McClure, play Councilor Von Stahlbaum and his wife.
The show's characters are dressed in more than 100 costumes, some of them purchased in China by Expressions founder and show director Gillian Davis. Ms. Davis danced professionally with the Royal Ballet of London and the Rhodesian National Ballet. She has been a Royal Academy of Dance examiner for 26 years and is the only graded and vocational examiner in the United States.