The Greensboro Cultural Center is a City of Greensboro Office of arts & culture facility, and is home to many arts-related programs in Greensboro, North Carolina .
52-607: The Cultural Center is a four-story building plus a basement and is located at 200 North Davie Street. It houses gallery and exhibition spaces, performance venues, and studio spaces, as well as a privately operated restaurant with outdoor cafe-style seating and an outdoor amphitheater. Four contemporary visual art galleries are located within the Cultural Center. African American Atelier Inc. , Center for Visual Artists, The Guilford Native American Art Gallery, and GreenHill Center for North Carolina Art each have public gallery space on
104-482: A ballet-féerie ; Russian: балет-феерия , romanized: balet-feyeriya ) by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , set on Christmas Eve at the foot of a Christmas tree in a child's imagination. The plot is an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' 1844 short story The Nutcracker , itself a retelling of E. T. A. Hoffmann 's 1816 short story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King . The ballet's first choreographer
156-428: A number of programs for community outreach throughout Greensboro and North Carolina. Of these include: Greensboro Ballet also provides complimentary tickets to other non-profit organizations . Sugar Plum Fairy The Nutcracker ( Russian : Щелкунчик , romanized : Shchelkunchik , pronounced [ɕːɪɫˈkunʲt͡ɕɪk] ), Op. 71, is an 1892 two-act classical ballet (conceived as
208-584: A number of works made especially for the Greensboro Ballet by Rick McCullough, Jill Eathorne Bahr, Leslie Jane Pessemier, Elissa Minet Fuchs , and Emery LeCrone . Maryhelen Mayfield , who served as artistic and executive director of Greensboro Ballet from 1980 to 2019, choreographed over twenty-five works for the company. In 1964 the Greensboro Civic Ballet was formed. The original focus was on providing local dancers with annual performances. In
260-528: A string of beautiful flowers perform a waltz. To conclude the night, the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier perform a dance. A final waltz is performed by all the sweets, after which the Sugar Plum Fairy ushers Clara and the Prince down from their throne. He bows to her, she kisses Clara goodbye, and leads them to a reindeer-drawn sleigh. It takes off as they wave goodbye to all the subjects who wave back. In
312-460: Is her doll's name. In the adaptation by Dumas on which Petipa based his libretto, her name is Marie Silberhaus. In still other productions, such as Balanchine's, Clara is Marie Stahlbaum rather than Clara Silberhaus. Scene 1: The Stahlbaum Home In Nuremberg, Germany on Christmas Eve in the 1820s, a family and their friends gather in the parlor to decorate the Christmas tree in preparation for
364-677: Is located on the first floor of the Cultural Center. Greensboro Community Television, ArtsGreensboro, and City Arts are based out of the Cultural Center as well. Adjacent to the Greensboro Cultural Center is the 4-acre Carolyn & Maurice LeBauer Park . The park contains two cafes, a children's play ground, dog park, putt-putt green, ping-pong tables, and a fountain "splash pad," which is seasonally converted into an ice-skating rink. The park's stage and concert lawn hosts many outdoor gatherings, movie nights, and concerts. A public art installation by Janet Eschelman entitled "Where We Met"
416-594: Is prominently featured above the concert lawn. 36°04′26″N 79°47′19″W / 36.0738°N 79.7885°W / 36.0738; -79.7885 Greensboro Ballet Greensboro Ballet is a professional ballet company in North Carolina. It is the only ballet company in the Piedmont Triad . It is one of the few non-profit ballet companies in North Carolina. Greensboro Ballet has presented works by George Balanchine . The company also has performed
468-400: Is transformed into a human prince. He leads Clara through the moonlit night to a pine forest in which the snowflakes dance around them, beckoning them on to his kingdom as the first act ends. The Land of Sweets Clara and the Prince travel to the beautiful Land of Sweets, ruled by the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Prince's place until his return. He recounts for her how he had been saved from
520-555: Is written for an orchestra with the following instrumentation. Woodwinds Brass Percussion Keyboard Voice Strings Titles of all of the numbers listed here come from Marius Petipa's original scenario as well as the original libretto and programs of the first production of 1892. All libretti and programs of works performed on the stages of the Imperial Theatres were titled in French, which
572-553: The Christmas season . ) Tchaikovsky is said to have argued with a friend who wagered that the composer could not write a melody based on a one-octave scale in sequence. Tchaikovsky asked if it mattered whether the notes were in ascending or descending order and was assured it did not. This resulted in the Adagio from the Grand pas de deux , which, in the ballet, nearly always immediately follows
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#1732869161510624-588: The Greensboro Cultural Center . The Director of The School of Greensboro Ballet was John Dennis, a former dancer for the Dallas Ballet, from 1986 to 2019. He was succeeded by Nina Bass Munda, a former principal dancer with the company. The School of Greensboro Ballet is supported by parents of students through the Ballet Resource and Volunteer Organization (BRAVO). The mission of BRAVO is to support
676-630: The Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Although the libretto was by Marius Petipa , who exactly choreographed the first production has been debated. Petipa began work on the choreography in August 1892; however, illness removed him from its completion and his assistant of seven years, Lev Ivanov , was brought in. Although Ivanov is often credited as the choreographer, some contemporary accounts credit Petipa. The performance
728-628: The Royal Ballet and the Birmingham Royal Ballet . In recent years, revisionist productions, including those by Mark Morris , Matthew Bourne , and Mikhail Chemiakin have appeared; these depart radically from both the original 1892 libretto and Vainonen's revival, while Maurice Béjart 's version completely discards the original plot and characters. In addition to annual live stagings of the work, many productions have also been televised or released on home video. The following extrapolation of
780-521: The "Waltz of the Flowers". A story is also told that Tchaikovsky's sister Alexandra (9 January 1842 — 9 April 1891 ) had died shortly before he began composition of the ballet and that his sister's death influenced him to compose a melancholy, descending scale melody for the adagio of the Grand Pas de Deux. However, it is more naturally perceived as a dreams-come-true theme because of another celebrated scale use,
832-609: The 1970s the Greensboro Civic Ballet was reorganized under the name Civic Ballet Theatre and a ballet school was created. Organizers of the company approached the United Arts Council of Greensboro for membership as well as funding and space within the Greensboro Cultural Center . Elissa Minet Fuchs , a former soloist with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet of New York City and a dancer with Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo , served as artistic director for one year before joining
884-667: The COVID pandemic. Christine Cervino Grider was hired as Artistic Director in 2022. Greensboro Ballet's 2020 production of The Nutcracker received national attention by the CBS Morning News because Greensboro Ballet safely filmed its full-length holiday production at the Carolina Theatre and then presented this film in a Nutcracker Drive-In in the parking lot of the Greensboro Coliseum . This not only allowed its dancers
936-498: The Christensen-founded Ballet West . The New York City Ballet gave its first annual performance of George Balanchine 's reworked staging of The Nutcracker in 1954. The performance of Maria Tallchief in the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy helped elevate the work from obscurity into an annual Christmas classic and the industry's most reliable box-office draw. Critic Walter Terry remarked that "Maria Tallchief, as
988-549: The Mouse King ", by Alexandre Dumas called "The Story of a Nutcracker". The plot of Hoffmann's story (and Dumas' adaptation) was greatly simplified for the two-act ballet. Hoffmann's tale contains a long flashback story within its main plot titled "The Tale of the Hard Nut", which explains how the Prince was turned into the Nutcracker. This had to be excised for the ballet. Petipa gave Tchaikovsky extremely detailed instructions for
1040-478: The Mouse King by Clara and transformed back into himself. In honor of the young heroine, a celebration of sweets from around the world is produced: chocolate from Spain, coffee from Arabia, tea from China, and candy canes from Russia all dance for their amusement; Marzipan shepherdesses perform on their flutes; Mother Ginger has her children, the Polichinelles , emerge from under her enormous hoop skirt to dance;
1092-524: The Sugar Plum Fairy, and Jocelyn Vollmar as the Snow Queen. After the enormous success of this production, San Francisco Ballet has presented Nutcracker every Christmas Eve and throughout the winter season, debuting new productions in 1944, 1954, 1967, and 2004. The original Christensen version continues in Salt Lake City , where Christensen relocated in 1948. It has been performed every year since 1963 by
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#17328691615101144-520: The Sugar Plum Fairy, is herself a creature of magic, dancing the seemingly impossible with effortless beauty of movement, electrifying us with her brilliance, enchanting us with her radiance of being. Does she have any equals anywhere, inside or outside of fairyland? While watching her in The Nutcracker, one is tempted to doubt it." Since Gorsky, Vainonen and Balanchine's productions, many other choreographers have made their own versions. Some institute
1196-530: The ascending one in the Barcarolle from The Seasons . Tchaikovsky was less satisfied with The Nutcracker than with The Sleeping Beauty . (In the film Fantasia , commentator Deems Taylor observes that he "really detested" the score.) Tchaikovsky accepted the commission from Vsevolozhsky but did not particularly want to write the ballet (though he did write to a friend while composing it, "I am daily becoming more and more attuned to my task"). The music
1248-539: The ballerina did not dance until the Grand Pas de Deux near the end of the second act (which did not occur until nearly midnight during the program). Some found the transition between the mundane world of the first scene and the fantasy world of the second act too abrupt. Reception was better for Tchaikovsky's score. Some critics called it "astonishingly rich in detailed inspiration" and "from beginning to end, beautiful, melodious, original, and characteristic". But this also
1300-600: The ballet have been staged there since 1952. Another abridged version of the ballet, performed by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo , was staged in New York City in 1940, Alexandra Fedorova – again, after Petipa's version. The ballet's first complete United States performance was on 24 December 1944 by the San Francisco Ballet , staged by its artistic director, Willam Christensen , and starring Gisella Caccialanza as
1352-417: The ballet. Its score has been used in several film adaptations of Hoffmann's story. Tchaikovsky's score has become one of his most famous compositions. Among other things, the score is noted for its use of the celesta , an instrument the composer had already employed in his much lesser known symphonic ballad The Voyevoda (1891). After the success of The Sleeping Beauty in 1890, Ivan Vsevolozhsky ,
1404-700: The board of directors. In 1980, Fuchs brought on Maryhelen Mayfield , a former dancer with the Kansas City Ballet , to serve Artistic Director and Executive Director. which performs primarily in Greensboro, North Carolina at the Carolina Theatre of Greensboro . Under the direction of Mayfield and John Dennis, director of The School of Greensboro Ballet, the school received membership in the Southeast Regional Ballet Association and became
1456-574: The changes made by Gorsky and Vainonen while others, like Balanchine, utilize the original libretto. Some notable productions include Rudolf Nureyev 's 1963 production for the Royal Ballet , Yury Grigorovich for the Bolshoi Ballet , Mikhail Baryshnikov for the American Ballet Theatre , Fernand Nault for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens starting in 1964, Kent Stowell for Pacific Northwest Ballet starting in 1983, and Peter Wright for
1508-405: The characters (in order of appearance) is drawn from an examination of the stage directions in the score. Below is a synopsis based on the original 1892 libretto by Marius Petipa. The story varies from production to production, though most follow the basic outline. The names of the characters also vary. In the original Hoffmann story, the young heroine is called Marie Stahlbaum and Clara (Klärchen)
1560-455: The choreography of the battle scene as confusing: "One can not understand anything. Disorderly pushing about from corner to corner and running backwards and forwards – quite amateurish." The libretto was criticized as "lopsided" and for not being faithful to the Hoffmann tale. Much of the criticism focused on the featuring of children so prominently in the ballet, and many bemoaned the fact that
1612-605: The composition of each number, down to the tempo and number of bars. The completion of the work was interrupted for a short time when Tchaikovsky visited the United States for twenty-five days to conduct concerts for the opening of Carnegie Hall . Tchaikovsky composed parts of The Nutcracker in Rouen , France. The first performance of the ballet was held as a double premiere together with Tchaikovsky's last opera, Iolanta , on 18 December [ O.S. 6 December] 1892, at
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1664-632: The concert stage, and was excerpted in Disney 's Fantasia , omitting the two movements prior to the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. The outline below represents the selection and sequence of the Nutcracker Suite made by the composer: The Paraphrase on Tchaikovsky's Flower Waltz is a successful piano arrangement from one of the movements from The Nutcracker by the pianist and composer Percy Grainger . The pianist and conductor Mikhail Pletnev adapted some of
1716-530: The dance education of students at The School of Greensboro Ballet by fostering relationships among the school, parents, teachers, artistic staff and the Board of Directors. BRAVO provides financial support through fundraising activities and provides adult volunteers to assist the School of Greensboro Ballet students, artists and faculty. Notable alumni of the School of Greensboro Ballet include: Greensboro Ballet has
1768-415: The delight of all. He then has them put away for safekeeping. Clara and her brother Fritz are sad to see the dolls being taken away, but Drosselmeyer has yet another toy for them: a wooden nutcracker doll , which the other children ignore. Clara immediately takes a liking to it, but Fritz accidentally breaks it. Clara is heartbroken, but Drosselmeyer fixes the nutcracker, much to everyone's relief. During
1820-406: The director of the Imperial Theatres, commissioned Tchaikovsky to compose a double-bill program featuring both an opera and a ballet. The opera would be Iolanta . For the ballet, Tchaikovsky would again join forces with Marius Petipa, with whom he had collaborated on The Sleeping Beauty. The material Vsevolozhsky chose was an adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann 's story " The Nutcracker and
1872-541: The first African-American to dance the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy in the company's production of The Nutcracker . In November 2019, the Ballet's Board of Directors made a change in leadership, hiring a three directors to lead the Greensboro Ballet including: Executive Director - Jennifer Savage Gentry, an Interim Artistic Director, and School Director - Nina Bass Munda. These directors held Greensboro Ballet through
1924-871: The first Honor Company in North Carolina, the highest level of membership within the Association. The name then changed from Civic Ballet Theatre to Greensboro Ballet. Professional dancers were introduced into the company in 1995. Greensboro Ballet has performed with the accompaniment of the EMF Young Artists Orchestra of the Eastern Music Festival and with the Greensboro Symphony. While the company performs mainly in Greensboro, it has gone on tour various times throughout North Carolina. In 2017, Greensboro Ballet company member Lauren Dorn became
1976-409: The mice, led by their king. The nutcracker appears to lead the gingerbread men, who are joined by tin soldiers, and by dolls who serve as doctors to carry away the wounded. As the seven-headed Mouse King advances on the still-wounded nutcracker, Clara throws her slipper at him, distracting him long enough for the nutcracker to stab him. Scene 2: A Pine Forest The mice retreat and the nutcracker
2028-440: The night, after everyone else has gone to bed, Clara returns to the parlor to check on the nutcracker. As she reaches the small bed, the clock strikes midnight and she looks up to see Drosselmeyer perched atop it. Suddenly, mice begin to fill the room and the Christmas tree begins to grow to dizzying heights. The nutcracker also grows to life size. Clara finds herself in the midst of a battle between an army of gingerbread soldiers and
2080-454: The opportunity to perform, but supported other local businesses including the Carolina Theatre, Greensboro Coliseum, and filmmaker, Paul Byun. That season, Greensboro Ballet also created a virtual production called A Benefit for Healthcare Heroes , offering a link to this performance of ballets and other works by local dance groups, at no cost, to the over 10,000 Cone Health employees. In 2022 Megan LeCrone, and Alicia Mae Holloway performed
2132-618: The original libretto, the ballet's apotheosis "represents a large beehive with flying bees, closely guarding their riches". Just like Swan Lake , there have been various alternative endings created in productions subsequent to the original. The Nutcracker is one of the composer's most popular compositions. The music belongs to the Romantic period and contains some of his most memorable melodies, several of which are frequently used in television and film. (They are often heard in TV commercials shown during
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2184-410: The party. Once the tree is finished, the children are summoned. When the party begins, presents are given out to the children. When the owl-topped grandfather clock strikes eight, a mysterious figure enters the room. It is Drosselmeyer— a councilman, magician, and Clara's godfather. He is also a talented toymaker who has brought with him gifts for the children, including four lifelike dolls who dance to
2236-556: The piano reduction score by Sergei Taneyev (1892), both published by P. Jurgenson in Moscow, and the Soviet collected edition of the composer's works, as reprinted Melville, New York: Belwin Mills [n.d.] Tchaikovsky made a selection of eight of the numbers from the ballet before the ballet's December 1892 première, forming The Nutcracker Suite , Op. 71a, intended for concert performance. The suite
2288-519: The role of Sugar Plum Fairy as guest artists in The Nutcracker. Greensboro Ballet has performed a wide variety of ballets, including: The company also hosts The School of Greensboro Ballet , one of the few not-for-profit schools of classical Russian ballet in the Piedmont Triad , and the only school in Guilford County with access to Balanchine choreography. The school is located in
2340-520: The second floor. Art Alliance hosts art classes and manages a pottery studio on the first floor of the Cultural Center. Music organizations including Bel Canto Company, Eastern Music Festival, Greensboro Opera, and the Greensboro Symphony are based out of the Cultural Center. Performing arts organizations located in the Cultural Center include Community Theatre of Greensboro, Dance Project, Greensboro Ballet , and Triad Pride Performing Arts. The Van Dyke Performance Space, named in honor of Jan Van Dyke ,
2392-611: Was Marius Petipa , with whom Tchaikovsky had worked three years earlier on The Sleeping Beauty , assisted by Lev Ivanov . Although the complete and staged The Nutcracker ballet was not initially as successful as the 20-minute Nutcracker Suite that Tchaikovsky had premiered nine months earlier, it became popular in later years. Since the late 1960s, The Nutcracker has been danced by many ballet companies, especially in North America. Major American ballet companies generate around 40% of their annual ticket revenues from performances of
2444-650: Was conducted by Italian composer Riccardo Drigo , with Antonietta Dell'Era as the Sugar Plum Fairy, Pavel Gerdt as Prince Coqueluche, Stanislava Belinskaya as Clara, Sergei Legat as the Nutcracker-Prince, and Timofey Stukolkin as Drosselmeyer. Unlike in many later productions, the children's roles were performed by real children – students of the Imperial Ballet School in Saint Petersburg , with Belinskaya as Clara, and Vassily Stukolkin as Fritz – rather than adults. The first performance of The Nutcracker
2496-659: Was first performed outside Russia in Budapest (Royal Opera House) in 1927, with choreography by Ede Brada. In 1934, choreographer Vasili Vainonen staged a version of the work that addressed many of the criticisms of the original 1892 production by casting adult dancers in the roles of Clara and the Prince, as Gorsky had. The Vainonen version influenced several later productions. The first complete performance outside Russia took place in England in 1934, staged by Nicholas Sergeyev after Petipa's original choreography. Annual performances of
2548-581: Was first performed, under the composer's direction, on 19 March 1892 at an assembly of the Saint Petersburg branch of the Musical Society. The suite became instantly popular, with almost every number encored at its premiere, while the complete ballet did not begin to achieve its great popularity until after the George Balanchine staging became a hit in New York City. The suite became very popular on
2600-470: Was not deemed a success. The reaction to the dancers themselves was ambivalent. Although some critics praised Dell'Era on her pointework as the Sugar Plum Fairy (she allegedly received five curtain-calls), one critic called her "corpulent" and "podgy". Olga Preobrajenskaya as the Columbine doll was panned by one critic as "completely insipid" and praised as "charming" by another. Alexandre Benois described
2652-517: Was not unanimous, as some critics found the party scene "ponderous" and the Grand Pas de Deux "insipid". In 1919, choreographer Alexander Gorsky staged a production which eliminated the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier and gave their dances to Clara and the Nutcracker Prince, who were played by adults instead of children. This was the first production to do so. An abridged version of the ballet
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#17328691615102704-480: Was the official language of the Imperial Court, as well as the language from which balletic terminology is derived. Casse-Noisette . Ballet-féerie in two acts and three tableaux with apotheosis. Act I Act II List of acts, scenes (tableaux) and musical numbers, along with tempo indications . Numbers are given according to the original Russian and French titles of the first edition score (1892),
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