A more traditional take from NBT

Northern Ballet Theatre are the latest company to decide that possibly the most popular dance title of them all should be included in their repertoire - the show makes an early appearance at Sheffield's Lyceum from October 17 to 20.

Even artistic director David Nixon concedes that there were some early misgivings about the idea of launching yet another version of the story of a young girl's Christmas dream onto the public.

But having already presented new productions of Tchaikovsky's other great dance works, Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty - albeit in radically different adaptations - he realised there was room for a new take on an old favourite.

"I think of the three Petipa ballets, The Nutcracker is the one we can do in the most traditional way," he explains.

"I just felt that I wanted the dancers to have the opportunity on something with more of a classical basis, something that is looking more at steps for steps sake, which is what a lot of classical ballet is about. This type of work will inform how we dance everything else we do too, it will bring back to the dancers a sense of discipline..

"I do think NBT needs to do something more traditional.

I think we are a good enough classical company that it would be nice to think that people who would go and see other companies with a reputation for classical dance would come and see us in a classical performance."

The emphasis, therefore, is going to be more traditional but, as David points out, that's almost what audiences expect at a traditional time of year.

That said, David went back to the original ETA Hoffman story which provided Tchaikovsky with his original inspiration and decided to set the piece in the early years of the 19th century, rather than the more usual Victorian era, inspired by the exotic visual style of the Brighton Pavilion and stories like Vanity Fair.

"We've gone for the Regency period, the beginning of the 1800s, which is a very English look," he says, adding that the biggest difference will be in the second act, where heroine Clara's fantasy adventure is more fully developed.

"We've decided that with her being influenced by her uncle, a traveller to the exotic east and Asia, in her dreams she is taken to those places, where things are much more colourful."

The original aim, he adds, was that the piece would coincide with the opening of NBT's new headquarters and school in the centre of Leeds, but with that project not even started yet, he became impatient to add The Nutcracker to the company's repertoire anyway.

"With a bigger school in Leeds we are looking at the community and how you make the company much more of a community thing,."There's a great chance in The Nutcracker to use lots of children and we are working with schools in all the different areas we are performing."

The ultimate aim is that the piece will eventually form part of a strong Christmas repertoire alongside David's dance version of Peter Pan and NBT's perennially popular Dickens piece, A Christmas Carol.

"What I'd really like is a fourth piece," he admits. "Maybe I'll take another look at Beauty and the Beast, which is full of imagination and the possibility of magic.

"And that's what you have with The Nutcracker too. It's a journey, a child's early romance, not a romantic love but a sweet love, which is perfect for Christmas.

"You know, what interests balletomanes is necessarily what interests the theatre-goer in the holiday season.

"This is the sort of production that grandmothers and mothers bring children and grandchildren to. People think of The Nutcracker as part of their childhood and they want to relive their childhood by seeing The Nutcracker again with their own children."

The Nutcracker, The Lyceum, October 17-20