Nutcracker 2004
Sugar Plum Fairy and Angels
Conejo Civic Ballet Company's Nutcracker 2004 production was performed November 14, 2004 at the Kavli Theatre, Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. The music for the ballet is of course by Peter Tchaikovsky and his timeless score was choreographed by John Ling for the 2003 performance. Mr. Ling has danced, choreographed and taught extensively throughout the world, including at Shanghai Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. His talent and experience are everywhere evident in CCBC's Nutcracker production.
As is usually the case for ballet and more so for CCBC, the choreography and staging change a bit from year to year to reflect the progressing talents of our student dancers and new members to our company. The changes were made by our artist director, Eva Pokorny, and Helena Pokorny, our talented Ballet Mistress/Stage Manager. The talented teaching staff of Ballet Arts was essential to ensuring that the dancers were well prepared for this performance. Lastly, thanks goes to Robin Twarowski, Executive Director of CCBC, who garnered resources and had a hand in every aspect of the production.
Los Robles Children's Choir helped to make the Snowflake Waltz scene a special moment as their voices added to the orchestral score. They also set the mood before the Nutcracker performance with their performances of three Winter Songs.
A list of the program credits is extensive and highlights the number of people that worked on props, costumes, staging and rehearsals. We just want to specially mention Harry and Ann Mathias, who designed and constructed the Mother Ginger platform and Cindy Borbas who sewed the miles of fabric that form the Mother Ginger skirt. Sue Hosteler, Leigh Barry and Ann Mathias completed the rest of the costume and decorated the skirt. A long list of volunteers sewed, tied, fitted and altered the many colorful costumes for the dancers. Suzanne Hess is our prop mistress who somehow knew where every prop was and when it would be needed on stage. Last, but not least, are our dancers that create the excitement and energy of the performance itself. Their enthusiasm, born from dedicated training and rehearsal, was communicated to all in the audience who attended the performance.
We have tried to capture some measure of that excitement in the Storybook slideshow page linked below, using photos from the 2004 performance. No amount of multi media material can take the place of actually experiencing a live performance such as this one, but for those who were in the audience Nov. 14th, I hope the Storybook can remind you of the totality of that wonderful performance. And for those that did not attend, we hope to give a small glimpse of this magical ballet and the dedicated and talented members of CCBC who create that magic.
The photo slide show is divided into two parts, Act 1 and Act 2. Both are 800x600 pixel images.
Slideshow
Video Clips
These video clips are encoded in Windows Media Player format (.wmv) and are 1-3 MBytes in size. To play the videos you will need a Windows Media Player. You can get the the Windows Media Player here. For those who prefer open source applications, a popular media player is Media Player Classic available at SourceForge.net.
Click the text button on the left to play a video. If you move your mouse pointer over the text button, the text will change to display the file size you will be downloading. All video clips are 320x240 pixels in size and are taken from the November 14, 2004 performance of CCBC's Nutcracker.
Act 1: Families walk to the Christmas Eve party.
Act 1: The children dance at the Christmas party.
Act 1: Clara and Drosselmeyer dance.
Act 1: Clara dances with her new Nutcracker doll.
Act 1: Drosselmeyer presents his mechanical Ballerina doll.
Act 1: Boisterous children scare Clara.
Act 1: The Grandparents lead a dance.
Act 1: Late in the evening the mice come out.
Act 1: Clara kills the Mouseking with her slipper.
Act 1: After the Battle the Nutcracker becomes a handsome prince.
Act 1: Waltz of the Snowflakes.
Act 1: Waltz of the Snowflakes highlighting the Snow queen.
Act 2: The Angels assemble to greet the Sugarplum Fairy.
Act 2: The Spanish Dance.
Act 2: The Arabian Dance.
Act 2: The Chinese Dance.
Act 2: The Russian Dance.
Act 2: The Mirliton Dance.
Act 2: Mother Ginger arrives with her candies.
Act 2: The Waltz of the Flowers.
Act 2: The Grand Pas de Deux: Sugarplum Fairy & Cavalier.