Nutcracker 2008
Conejo Civic Ballet Company's Nutcracker 2008 production was performed Sunday, December 7, 2008 at 2:30pm in the Kavli Theatre, Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza to an enthusiastic audience. Peter Tchaikovsky's score for Nutcracker remains one of the most beloved in ballet. This production was choreographed by Brett Weidlich and this year the Mother Ginger scene was changed to Candies and Christmas Cookies. Of course there are always changes in choreography from the previous year's performance. Dancers advance in their training and are capable of more difficult choreography and new dancers are added and need an opportunity for stage experience.
Many people contributed to make this performance special. Besides our choreographer, Brett Weidlich, who also performed in the role of Drosselmeyer, and the dancers of CCBC, special thanks goes to our artist director, Eva Pokorny, and Helena Pokorny, our talented Ballet Mistress. Catrina Quintanilla served as stage manager and called the show. Melisa Sutherland and Linda Lewis, two instructors at Ballet Arts, danced in this production of Nutcracker. Since Ashlyn Lewis was chosen by our our executive committee to dance the role of Clara, we could not pass up the opportunity to cast Linda Lewis, her actual mother, in the role of Clara's mother. The talented teaching staff of Ballet Arts was essential to ensuring that the dancers were well prepared for this performance. Tiffany Koepke and Jose Chavez danced the roles of the Sugarplum Fairy and her Cavalier and were borrowed from Mark Erickson's company for this performance. Michael Waldrop danced the role of the Nutcracker. He came to us from Stefan Wenta's studios and we owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Wenta for referring some excellent male dancers to us over the years.
A full list of the program credits can be found on the electronic copy of the Program for the show.
We have tried to capture some measure of the excitement of this performance in the photo galleries accessed in the right hand column. Both the Performance photos and the Dress Rehearsal photos were taken for CCBC by Harry Mathias. The Dress Rehearsal photos have a more intimate tone since they were taken in the wings and around the stage - something we cannot do for the actual performance.
Video Clips
The video clips are displayed in a "flash" multimedia embedded viewer so you have to have "flash" installed on your computer. It is free and plays on almost all computers. The controls below the video image are play/pause on the left, the progress bar in the middle, the full screen control on the right of the progress bar, and the volume control on the right. Below the controls is the playlist with the scroll bar to the right. Run the scrollbar up or down and when you find the selection you want click on the title with your mouse. The title should play. On the far right of the title in the playlist is a control to let you download the clip if you wish.