CriticalDance Forum

Anything goes at 'Dance-Along Nutcracker: The Musicals'
BROADWAY babies, grab your tutus and your sense of whimsy for the 2002 "Dance-Along Nutcracker: The Musicals," which plays three shows Saturday and Sunday at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

This very San Francisco event places the beloved holiday story before the footlights of Broadway, and director Jadine Louie has mixed well-known show tunes with the traditional Tchaikovsky music. "You'd be surprised how well Nutcracker-style flourishes work in the music from 'Guys and Dolls' and 'West Side Story,'" she says.

Plum Fun
`DANCE-ALONG NUTCRACKER' BRINGS OUT JOLLY SPIRITS

Anita Amirrezvani, San Jose Mercury News

Even if you've never stumbled through a single ballet class, the ``Dance-Along Nutcracker'' can make you feel as graceful as a Snowflake or a Sugar Plum Fairy.

'Nutcracker' sweeter when we dance along

By EMILY NUNN
The Chicago Tribune

"One of the first things to remember if you want to dance tonight -- if you don't have ballet slippers, which I'm sure most of you do -- is just take off your shoes and dance in your socks," Mark Sutton told the audience at the Cultural Center on Sunday, where folding chairs circled a makeshift dance floor and the Lakeside Symphonic Band was perched on a temporary stage. He was dressed in a red turtleneck, red socks and a Santa hat; some of the band members wore reindeer antlers.

"The second rule?" Sutton added: "No throwing up on the dance floor."