The Kansas City Ballet’s new Nutcracker is happily maximal

December 9, 2015

Liz Cook,

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The Kansas City Ballet’s spectacular reboot of The Nutcracker is incontrovertible proof that anything is possible with passion, dedication and a $2 million budget.

The company’s artistic director, Devon Carney, has made the holiday classic a snow-dipped, candied Christmas dream, with an all-new staging that restores much of Tchaikovsky’s score and a production design that’s heavy on Victorian glamour.

Back in the mix is an opening scene at Dr. Drosselmeier’s workshop, where the toymaker brings his creations to life. Carney crowns the scene with comically rubbery choreography. The dancers move like animatronic dolls, their limbs stuttering watch hands. Michael Davis and Amanda DeVenuta danced those roles this past Sunday; in those and all other key parts, four casts rotate performances during the show’s run.

The party scene gets an infusion of energy as well, with Carney’s choreography finding martial grandeur in the Silberhaus children’s skipping to every pulse of the buoyant score. Clara (played at Sunday’s matinee by the sunny Hannah Zucht) greets her nutcracker soldier with infectious delight. And through it all sweeps Drosselmeier, with a magician’s knack for mischief, bewitching the children and animating Clara’s doddering grandparents into a modern pas de disco (expressively danced by Tempe Ostergren and Yoshiya Sakurai).

As with George Balanchine’s Nutcracker, Drosselmeier here is a kindly soul, free from the sinister undertones of some productions. Charles Martin danced the role Sunday afternoon with impeccable timing and outsized comedic expression — he even downed a drink with a Liberace flourish.

And in Clara’s home, no gesture feels too grand. Remember that $2 million production budget? It shows. Alain Vaës’ set is full of Christmas miracles, from a Tannenbaum growing like a Grinch heart to a pinstriped hot-air balloon with a unicorn at the prow.

And the scrims — oh, the scrims. Vaës and his crew deploy a seemingly endless rotation of painted backdrops, all Claymation curves and rococo ripples, indulgent as eggnog. The party scene is a design highlight, a cozy backdrop glittering under Trad A. Burns’ rosy LEDs. Stage manager Victoria Frank deserves the first helping of Christmas pudding for calling an impeccable show.

Holly Hynes’ costumes are every bit as sumptuous as the sets and the lights. See the apple-bodied dancing bear, performing a highbrow truffle shuffle in a Cosby sweater. Behold the impossibly tubby mice in their nappy gray suits, belly-flopping to an imagined cartoon timpani bounce. Hynes stuffs the production with colorful confections, from plump ribbon sashes to airy skirts and pancake tutus aplenty.

Her designs for the Snowflake dancers are especially ethereal, skirts shining under cold blue lights and realistic snow. “Waltz of the Snowflakes” boasts some of the show’s most exquisite choreography as well. In Sunday’s performance, Danielle Bausinger and Thom Panto danced the Snow Queen and King’s duet with effort-belying grace: In one lift, Bausinger’s toes brushed almost imperceptibly across the stage, her body an icicle curve.

Act 2 sees Clara and her Nutcracker Prince (Dillon Malinski in the performance I saw) to the Land of Sweets, where Tchaikovsky’s most beloved dances come to life. The hot-air balloon makes another Oz-worthy appearance, and Vaës retires the scrims in favor of multiple arches and whisk-away pieces to add dimension and depth.

The trimmings are outrageous, too, with a pantomime lion for the Chinese dance and a draped palanquin for the Arabian dance. Sunday, Taryn Mejia danced an especially eye-popping solo in the latter.

But with so much spectacle comes a danger: Bodies are occasionally lost in competing clashes of color. Some of this comes down to blocking, some costuming. In the Russian dance, for example, the corps is clothed as noisily as the principal dancers, making it almost impossible (particularly for those near the back of the house) to pluck featured performers from the fray.

And while the new choreography mostly dazzles, a few kinks remain. Carney isn’t always attuned to power positions onstage, and the spacing in more crowded dances such as “Waltz of the Flowers” seems inconsistent. So, too, could the Act 1 fight choreography between the soldiers and the Mouse King be sharpened and extended.

These are minor growing pains for a reboot of this scale, and the finale, a grand pas de deux between the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Chevalier (Sarah Chun and Travis Guerin, respectively, Sunday afternoon), banishes any lingering gripes. Carney resists the expected footwork, timing looser, sustained movements to Tchaikovsky’s musical flutters. Chun and Guerin do what they do best: achingly elegant lines and angles, with no shortcuts and no stutters.

Chun emerges from each butter-smooth spin with perfect control. We emerge from the theater as if from a snow globe, wishing that the real world felt half so enchanted.