George Walker: Friday, November 4th at 7:30. The IU Ballet Theatre presents The Nutcracker.Here's IU Ballet Theatre faculty member Sarah Roth
Sarah Wroth: I'm the chair of the IU Ballet Department. We will honor Michael Vernon's Nutcracker. Production has been in working order for over 20 years now. He, Michael's version is amazing and charming and has told the story for us so beautifully for such a long time.
George: What was your first Nutcracker?
Sarah: My first Nutcracker, I was. I was actually nine years old and I was thinking this is actually the first year in 29 years that I haven't been a part of in a Nutcracker in some way. On some active way, I mean we're putting on this production. It is on December 4th at 7:30 PM.
Sarah: My first role was a teddy bear on stage in The Nutcracker, and I slept on stage. The entire party scene, and then kind of walked around. It's so funny. Nutcracker is something that always exists. It's always sort of a benchmark for growth and success for the dancer. How they progress through the ranks of the performance. You start as a toy a bear, a doll, a mouse, a child, and then you grow through this production wherever you are, and then you move on.
Sarah: It's really a special event. That was my first experience. My dad you know, paid for all these ballet lessons and then I just. Like slept on the stage.
George: Ballet Theatre dancer Andy Dasilva. Andy what was your first experience of The Nutcracker?
Andy,: My first Nutcracker. I was The Nutcracker Prince. I didn't get to do the roles like the mice, which I think would always be something fun to do. When I first started, I didn't really know the story of The Nutcracker, let alone that there was a ballet.
George: Andy dances the Cavalier.
Andy: With doing the Cavalier, I also got to do a party-parent in the first scene with the house and you see Drosselmeyer coming in with the presents. There’s all the dancing right before the different countries that Clara travels too. Soon it's the dances which I did with my partner Haley Baker, the Sugar Plum Fairy.
George: What were you doing with her?
Andy: Right off the bat in second act it starts off with us coming into presenting Clara . I guess you could say the King and Queen of what she sees. We present her and we tell her to tell our story. And, I do lots of partnering with the Sugar Plum Fairy and we both have solar variations.
George: What do you think of in the Nutcacker?
Andy: I think of Nutcracker, I just think of family holiday time like, always revisit that every year.
George: The Theatre dancer Andy de Silva. You can see him as the cavalier and that's Friday at 7:
30 on December 4th
https://iumusiclive.music.indiana.edu/
I'm George Walker.
