Maybe your favorite family holiday is Mardi Gras. Maybe sugar plum fairies give you cavities, and candlelit carols put you to sleep. If so, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” a collaboration of the Owen/Cox Dance Group and the People’s Liberation Big Band of Kansas City (PLBB), might be the rum-soaked fruitcake for you.
There’s not a chance of dozing during this anarchic, in-your-face rendition of the 1816 E.T.A. Hoffman story that inspired the famous ballet. This contrasts are stark: primary colored polka-dots vs. pastel tutus; raucous cacophony vs. dreamy Tchaikovsky.
Interestingly, the most recognizable element is the actual dancing, which is still very much grounded in ballet technique. The choreography here is impish and saucy, but so too is that of the classical “Nutcracker.” The dancers were all excellent, including six students from AileyCamp the Group, a youth training program of Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey. It is always wonderful to see dancers really having fun, and these talented young people (Samahria Johnson, Anaya Miguel, Anissa Miguel, Jordyn Hunt, Mauriah Francis and Chancelor Glast) brought delightful energy to the ensemble scenes, especially the beautiful glitter-sleeved “Waltz of the Snowflakes.”
Rare in the ballet canon, the most prominent roles in “The Nutcracker” are for male dancers, who are more often relegated to supporting (literally) the prima ballerina. Christopher Page-Sanders was a standout as Godfather Drosselmeier, with dynamic moves that made the most of the mischievous character and his harlequin-checked costume. Alexander Anderson had fantastic moments as the Nutcracker, as did Kyle H. Martin as Father and Matt Otto as the Mouse King. The doll roles are all about mechanical precision, and J.M. Rodriguez, Marlayna Locklear and Sandy Strangis performed them with just the right charm and humor.
To be honest, though, the point of this production doesn’t seem to be the dance. Its origin is a solely music piece by the PLBB, with the collaboration with Owen/Cox beginning a couple years later. Perhaps this is why the show is still mounted as band concert as much as dance performance, with the band occupying the back of the stage, and dancers confined to the front.
While this configuration allows a key moment of interaction in the second act, the question nevertheless comes to mind if some other arrangement could better serve both sides of the equation. As it is, the band often overwhelms the dancers, both visually and sonically. It can be difficult to make out the dancers’ fine line work (and costumes) against the busy background of the band (very unlike, for instance, the isolated Godfather Drosselmeier in the stunning publicity photo above).
In turn, the music and narration sometimes sounded bottled up in the boxed-in backstage, to be delivered, via a heavy-handed mix, like a night-long flight of shots, rather than a gentler distillation into the ether. Then again, all this may be part and parcel of the band’s deliberately shambolic, democratic ethos. There was a sweetly informal school pageant vibe, complete with gym lighting, a wheeled-in spinet piano, and uncertain but adorable child singers.
But don’t let the scruffiness fool you. PLBB is free-wheeling and improvisational, but it is also virtuoso. Their work abounds in smarts, prankish wit, and wide-ranging, deep-cut references. This “Nutcracker” is a brilliantly conceived journey — or shall we say trip. It kicks off with an earsplitting, brashly dissonant intro that resolves into a frisky jazz rendition of the Tchaikovsky overture. Then it proceeds to let its hair down. Much like the second act of the classical ballet, a sequence of dances from one storybook world after another, the PLBB has itself a motley little Christmas, with an eclectic parade of jazz styles and world music influences.
According to introductory remarks by Owen/Cox founder Executive/Artistic Director Jennifer Owen and Midwest Trust Center Performing Arts Executive Director Stacie McDaniel, this was the first production of “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” since 2016. It received a warm welcome back from a jolly, sold-out audience. This is a holiday tradition for people allergic to traditional holidays. Here’s to that, and many more.
“The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”
Choreography: Jennifer Owen and the dancers
Music: Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky, arranged by Patrick Alonzo Conway, Brad Cox, Jeff Harshbarger, Forest Stewart and the People’s Liberation Big Band of Kansas City
Costumes: Peggy Noland, Peregrine Honig, Mark Southerland, Ari Fish, Zainab Alkhazraji
Friday, December 13 and Sunday, December 15
Polsky Theatre, Midwest Trust Center Series
Johnson County Community College
