Almost to the day, 129 years after the first “moderately successful” production of The Nutcracker ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Sunshine Coast Youth Dance Association (SCYDA) opened the doors at Gibsons Heritage Playhouse to a renewed, smashingly successful post-COVID-19 production of this now classic ballet. With live performances sold out within six days of tickets going on sale, and brisk sales for livestream simulcasts, the SCYDA returned this Coastal holiday classic to its roots. Under the direction of Kathleen and David Holmes’ Coasting Along Theatre Society, The Nutcracker was staged at Heritage Playhouse in 2012 – a monumental achievement involving dozens of young dancers, professional soloists of international calibre, scores of sumptuous costumes and a massive amount of scenery and special effects.
In the following years, in spite of David Holmes’ untimely passing in 2013, The Nutcracker grew in scope and became a holiday must-see tradition – until Covid-19 brought Coasting Along to a halt in 2020. When Kathleen Holmes opted to move back to Kentucky and dissolve Coasting Along Theatre Society, Zoe Barbero and Dominique Hutchinson launched the SCYDA to acquire its assets: the costumes, the scenery, and the choreography for The Nutcracker. And then they collaborated even further, merging their Coast Academy of Dance with Danceworks to create the Gibsons Dance Centres.
Drawing on their enthusiastic young dancers and a raft of supportive parents, Barbero and Hutchinson oversaw a massive fundraising effort to cover the cost of the acquisitions and a new, full production of The Nutcracker that would incorporate a broader spectrum of dance with classic ballet performed by professional and student dancers of all ages, supplemented by tap, jazz and hip hop numbers. Barbero called it “Nutcracker – with a twist.” Tchaikovsky, who reportedly hated the 1892 ballet, would have loved this.
“The focus is to renew the production – a rebirth after COVID,” Barbero explained.
Working furiously through the past year, Barbero and Hutchinson choreographed and organized almost 100 performers including two from Powell River (“I have lost count a little bit,” says Barbero), oversaw creation and alteration of additional costumes, and headed up that fundraising effort. The most successful single fundraiser, the Tim Horton’s Smile Cookie campaign, raised almost $19,000 thanks to the enthusiastic young dancers who showed up day after day at the Gibsons Tim Horton’s location to decorate and sell the Smile Cookies Coastwide. Franchise owners Klaus and Oliver Fuerniss found their Gibsons ovens couldn’t keep pace with the sales, and had to enlist other Lower Mainland stores to bake more cookies to meet the demand. The hugely successful campaign placed the Gibsons Tim Horton’s as the top fundraiser in B.C. and one of the top 10 in Canada.
For those who missed the live and livestream performances, digital copies of SCYDA’s production of The Nutcracker will be available. Email [email protected] for more information.
