Most people say, "Ballet, oh that's boring." Well The Nutcracker is never boring. Especially the new version we've done here which really enhances what it is. She doesn't just get a nutcracker now, she gets a toy theater and she goes into a fantasy land where the entire stage changes from the palace of the sweets into a toy theater where six more sets, each danced in the second act, visually has its own look, which is very 21st century.

We now have television where things change every four minutes. Looking at a set for forty minutes is not the answer for us. So it's spectacular as well as endearing.

We have a program here called City Dance. We audition literally the entire third grade of the Boston Public School kids and give kids who seem to have some pension for this, some love for this art form, we give them a chance to dance. And some of them stay on with us. This is how we're addressing really the issues of: is dance for everyone? Of course it is.

And those children are now on the stage. They're getting to be 10, 12, 14, 16 even. When you have the rainbow coalition on stage, the audience changes completely. So those parents are there in the theater and their friends are there. And they discover that ballet's an art everyone can understand.

I've used The Nutcracker to really fulfill the mission of this company: and that is, to actually become Boston's ballet company as we train the children of the inner city of Boston, as well as the children of the suburbs. So, we're becoming Boston Ballet as we do this ballet.

But, Boston Ballet's Nutcracker has been a boon to every other small dance school and ballet company in the area. Because it has created such an interest, specifically in this thing called The Nutcracker.

So right across the street we have Ballet Theater of Boston doing Nutcracker. Of course it's to taped music, it isn't of the same scale, it doesn't have the same ballet stars that we have, but it is in its own way wonderful.

And then you've got it at The Strand, you've got it up in Portland, Maine. It's all around. There are hundreds of productions literally, most of them fueled by what we've grown here and that can only be good for the art form.

There are a lot of them. It's the one constant in our lives. Everything else may change, but Nutcracker is there year after year. And in a time where nothing is constant. We never live in the same place any more. We move around. Nothing is constant in anyone's lives any more. The Nutcracker is there and it will be there forever.

Boston Ballet
Boston Dance Company
Ballet Theatre of Boston