University Daily Kansan, December 6, 1984
Page 6
Amy Turnbull, 9, at left, leaps out during a rehearsal with Mother Ginger's children. Mother Ginger will be played by Ed Hartley, Las Vegas, Nev., senior, at right.
Christmas tradition dances on
Pounding hammers and buzzing chain saws are the only noises that filter up the steps.
At the top of the stairs that lead to the Lawrence School of Ballet, the noise of construction begins to fade as the ballerinas walk feet and Christmas music grows.
But once in the studio at Eighth and Vermont streets, the familiar sound of Peter Lichter Tehakovsky's "The Nutcracker Suite" overwhelms the noise of the construction going on downstairs. In the pinch walls, the singer plays a saxophone by the Kaw Valley Dance Theater's fourth annual "Nutcracker Ballet."
FOR THE PAST six weeks, seven days a week, four hours a day, members of the dance company and students of the Lawrence School of ballet for what has become a Christmas tradition in Bologna, founder of the dance company and owner of the school.
"It's something I did not anticipate," she said, "but it's become a Christmas tradition for many of the community families."
Many families would not have the opportunity to see the ballet unless it was performed locally, she said.
Until four years ago, the company was too small and too inexperienced to perform the ballet, she said. "The dancers needed more experience in doing classical ballet," she said. "Gradually, it's developing a real solid, classic repertoire."
Once she felt it was ready, the company took on the challenge of doing "The Nutcracker Suite". But Benjamin, who choreographed the entire ballet, had our ideas about the way it should be done.
"THE MUSIC in the first scene is wonderful, but there's not much action," she said. "It can be a real tedious scene."
Benjamin decided to make the first scene, in which little Clara receives her treasured Nutraracker at her parents' Christmas Eve party, into a play rather than a ballet. She hired Rick Averill, director and founder of the Lawrence children's theatre, to rewrite the first scene.
Averill said that he dramatized the first scene so that the audience would better understand what was happening.
"I took what Tchaikovsky had in the beginning and literally dramatized it," he said. "This way, someone who has never seen the
Above, Kristen Benjamin directs children who will be in the opening scene. At right, Benjamin instructs Janelle Meyen. Baldwin High School will be one of the Spanish dancers in the production.
dance before gets a little more involved with the characters."
CRISSY HESS, Norman, Okla,
sophomore and a member of the
dance company, said that drama-
tizing the first scene was very helpful
for children and people who had
never seen the ballet before.
"When I was 6 years old, I watched my cousin perform in the Nucracker in Omaha," she said, "and I didn't understand the first scene."
The way Averill and Benjamin approached it makes it very understandable, she said.
Dramatizing the first scene requires actors as well as dancers, Benjamin said. All together the ballet has a cast of about 150 people.
This year, as for the past four years, the music for the ballet is being performed by the Lawrence Symphony, said Charles Hoag, conductor of the symphony.
A GIRLS' CHOIR is also being added this year. It will sing one song in the ballet, "We have both an orchestra and a choir, which is unusual in a community this size." Benjamin said.
Producing the ballet costs between $5,000 and $6,000. Ticket sales and money donated by Lawrence businesses pay for the performance,
which will take place at 8 p.m. Dec.
21 and 22 at the Crafton-Preyer
Theatre in Murphy Hall Costs tickets
$6 for adults and $3 for children
12 and under and can be purchased
at all Raney Drug Stores.
stenjamin, who received a degree in theatre from the University of Kansas 11 years ago, said that when she started the Kaw Valley Dance Theater the company had 10 members who were all in their late 20s. The group now has 20 members ranging in age from 15 to 30.
THE MEMBERS of the company play the main parts while the other parts are played by many of them at the school and people who audition.
Jerri Niebaum, Lawrence freshman, and a member of the dance company for the past three years, has been performing in the Kaw Valley Dance Theater's "Nutcracker Ballet" since they began doing it.
Niebaum, who has been dancing since she was 5, said that while the company's dancers were younger than her, she is still the quality of dance was just as good.
"As far as the mood we create and the way the audience feels," she said, "it's the same."
Photos by Steven Purcell Story by Erika Blacksher
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