Taken into a dream land

The Shona Dee Academy of Dance presented the popular children’s story ‘The Nutcracker’ at the Chowdaiah Memorial Hall recently. 

Over 85 performers, from young beginners to advanced adult dancers, took part in the classical ballet performance that took the audience on a magical journey.

The performance was divided into two sections — while ‘The Nutcracker’ was performed in the first half, the performers danced in different styles to various numbers in the second. 

The first half opened with ‘The Christmas Party’ with different guests at Clara’s house.

After some merry dancing and an exchange of gifts by guests, Clara finds ‘The Nutcracker’ doll that she had got. 

The next scene involved ‘Clara and the Nutcracker Prince’ in which she interacts with a life-size ‘Nutcracker Prince’ and is taken into a dream world of interesting beings. 

In ‘The Snowy Forest and the Snowflakes’, Clara walks around with the Nutcracker Prince and visits a land where snowflakes dance for her.

 

The performance concluded with Clara and the Nutcracker Prince visiting ‘The Sugar Plum Fairy and the Land of Sweets’, where different items like ‘Chinese tea’, ‘candy canes’, ‘marzipans’, ‘red velvet cupcakes’ and ‘cotton candy’ come to life and perform for her. 

The whole performance was like a dream come true and even the adults in the audience wished that it wouldn’t end.

 

The different costumes and colours used for different characters, the cute footwork by the young dancers and the teamwork on stage made the performance a big success. 

After a short break, the evening resumed with different dance numbers by the 

different batches of the dance school. 

 

The non-ballet performance included vibrant performances like a cheerleader dance on ‘Everything At Once’; a junior jazz performance on ‘Safe and Sound’; a junior broadway on ‘Stronger’; a freestyle presentation on ‘Me and My Girls’ and a country and hip hop performance on ‘Timber’. 

This was followed by a freestyle dance on ‘I Love It’, a retro freestyle performance ‘Happy’ and a broadway performance ‘For Your Entertainment’. 

The grand finale had all the performers coming on stage and doing some footwork one by one.

The audience was throughly impressed by the performance and couldn’t stop clapping and cheering for the artistes. 

Soundarya Ramesh, a relative of a young performer, said, “My niece has been excited about this day for a while now. 

The performance was so magical and took even the adults through a fantasy tale where things like cupcakes and other sweets came to life. 

The dance performances after the ballet were so energetic. I wished I could go on stage and dance with them!”

A contemporary dance performer, Rajeev Hamsika said that despite there being small flaws here and there, the performers did a good job. 

“The most important thing in any performance is the presence of mind and the dancers in this show had that. Also the cheerful smiles on their faces could melt any heart. The stage details and choreography also deserve appreciation,” he said.