Nutcracker En Pointe

It was certainly a Nutcracker with a difference when State Street Ballet – alongside the Opera San Luis Obispo Grand Orchestra conducted by Brian Asher Alhadeff, and a chorus of youngsters from the Music Academy of the West’s Sing! Project and the State Street Ballet Academy – joined in the spectacular production at the Granada.

For the first time the Tchaikovsky show featured a Rat Queen rather than a Rat King with the Sugar Plum Fairy danced by Saori Yamashita and Akari Kato, and the Cavaliers by Harold Mendez and Ryan Lenkey.

State Street’s energized production was choreographer by founder Rodney Gustafson, a former member of New York’s American Ballet Theatre, where he danced with the legendary Mikhail Baryshnikov.

There was also a new pas de deux choreographed by Nilas Martins, son of New York City Ballet icon Peter Martins, who is the ballet’s new artistic associate and former principal dancer with the Lincoln Center company.

As usual, Sergei Domrachev as both Drosselmeyer and perky Mother Ginger, was an absolute hoot, with various performers playing the role of Clara and the Snow Queen during the show, which had also played in Spokane, Washington, and Durango, Colorado, before hitting our Eden by the Beach.

A classic cracker to go justifiably nuts over!