Nutcrackers set to dazzle in San Mateo County

Since then, companies all over the world have performed the beloved holiday show annually, bringing a fantastical tale of Christmas eve, a magical nutcracker doll and Clara’s journey through the Kingdom of Sweets to life. 

This holiday season, local San Mateo County groups are preparing or already putting on their versions of the Nutcracker, each with a unique spin that makes the beloved story so enduring. 

At the San Mateo Performing Arts Center Dec. 21 and 22 at 2 p.m., Peninsula Ballet Theatre will perform a classical version of The Nutcracker with the addition of 50 singers from Skyline High School and Masterworks Chorale. 

Singers will perform before, during and after the show, singing all together in the iconic snow scene and highlighting the beauty of the Nutcracker music, Artistic Director Gregory Amato said. This inclusion, along with other tweaks — in his version, the journey into the land of sweets isn’t a dream, but a book coming to life — is the amalgamation of many different Nutcrackers. 

“I’ve done The Nutcracker probably 40 years now. I’ve done it all over America and performed it all over Europe, South America. A lot of different versions, different ideas, from different great productions,” he said. “I’ve taken a few ideas from each one and molded our own story.” 

Stuck Sanders, artistic director of the Hip-Hop Nutcracker — performing Dec. 21 and 22 at 2 p.m. at Redwood City’s Fox Theatre — is also no stranger to switching The Nutcracker up. 

In his version of the beloved tale, hip-hop choreography blends with the Christmas story to create something at once well-known and entirely new. In one classic scene, where toy soldiers fight a mice army, Sanders’ performers go into a time-honored hip-hop tradition: an unchoreographed, freestyle dance battle.  

“Our battle scene is like in the story, of course, the mice battle, the nutcrackers,” he said. “However, with hip-hop, we actually come up from the culture of battling. So our battle scene is actually a dance battle … one day the soldiers may win, the next day the mice may win.” 

The performance, which uses the iconic score with exciting twists, is a way for the traditional Nutcracker audiences to engage with a potentially new style of dance for them. 

“I know when a lot of people do watch it, they are blown away, and they’re appreciative of hip-hop,” Sanders said. “A lot of these people have never seen street dance live, because when would they ever be in a street dance like situation?” 

For many, many, ballet dancers, The Nutcracker is an annual tradition, building relationships and camaraderie within companies and ballet schools. Moving up through the roles, dreaming of playing Clara, the Snow Queen or the Sugar Plum Fairy is a true shared experience, Amato said. 

“I think because every ballet school in the world does The Nutcracker or a version of The Nutcracker, they grow up doing Nutcracker every year,” he said. “You start as a mouse, angel, fairy … next year you move up, do another role.” 

For some young dancers, seeing the show performed for the first time can be a life-changing experience. That was the case for Bay Area Youth Ballet Director Lindsay Salvadalena, who choreographed the Bay Area Youth Ballet Nutcracker — showing at Skyline College Theatre Dec. 14 at 4 p.m. and Dec. 15 at 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. 

“It was seeing a local Nutcracker production at the age of 5 in my small Louisiana hometown that ignited my curiosity and later passion for ballet and the performing arts. I began my classical ballet training shortly thereafter,” she said in a press release. “It is a full circle experience to have children come to us inspired after seeing our Nutcracker performances, wanting to learn classical ballet.” 

For Sanders, bringing that stability and longevity to the traditionally marginalized dance style of hip-hop and the young people that love it has been an incredible element of the Hip-Hop Nutcracker, now going on its eighth year. 

“A lot of us are actual street dancers, and we’ve never had something annual to actually support ourselves, to support our families … ballet dancers, every year, for the rest of their lives, there’s going to be Nutcrackers for them to audition for,” he said. “It’s given the street dance culture [the chance] to come back every year.” 

Regardless of what Nutcracker performance you might see, the magic of the show is bound to spill out from stage to seats. 

“You develop wonderful relationships, working relationships, friend relationships,” Amato said. “The icing on the cake is you get to present it, and show what you’ve been working on for so long. For performers and dancers, that is everything.”