When choreographer and 2002 USM graduate Brigitte Blose-Paulus danced in “The Nutcracker” during her years in Bangor’s Robinson Ballet Company, she and her fellow dancers would often liven up rehearsals by doing parodies of their parts. “People take [The Nutcracker] so seriously, and it just begs to be made fun of,” she said, while acknowledging that the elaborate ballet is the bread and butter of many dance companies. As co-producer (with Ellen Joyce) of the new “Nutcracker Burlesque,” opening this Thursday at the Portland Performing Arts Center, she is bringing some of those backstage jokes to center stage, with the help of four other choreographers, 20 dancers, and a live six-piece rock band. The show is the first production from the newly-formed dance company Vivid Motion Inc. All proceeds from ticket sales are being donated to the Preble Street Teen Center, a Portland drop-in center for homeless teens.
Blose-Paulus and Joyce have reworked the story line, using the same lead characters –Clara and Drosselmeyer — who appear in the original Nutcracker and keeping the basic structure, with its various divertissements. But in the burlesque story, Clara, danced by Zeus-Hannah Mills, is an adult, and the play opens at a corporate Christmas party, where she catches her boyfriend Hans (Trevor Bean) fooling around with another woman in the coat closet. She then leaves the party with Drosselmeyer, danced by USM student Kyle Bouchard, and the two go barhopping together.
Each divertissement is set in one of the bars Clara and Drosselmeyer visit. For example, the Arabian bar features belly dancing, and the Chinese bar is a strip club. Industrial and country-western bars are also featured. The Waltz of the Flowers segment has been adapted into a Vegas showgirls-style performance, and in the Snowflakes segment, the dancers are dressed in lingerie instead of the traditional tutus.
As you may have guessed by now, this particular adaptation of “The Nutcracker” is not appropriate for children. True to burlesque tradition, it combines parody with campy sexuality. According to co-producer Blose-Paulus, the show is geared toward audiences who would not typically go out to see “The Nutcracker.” When asked about her main reason for co-producing it, her answer was simple: “There’s not enough dance opportunity in Portland.” With that in mind, she joined with a group of fellow dancers this fall to form a new nonprofit organization called Vivid Motion Inc. Their mission is to make dance more accessible to people who normally do not attend dance shows, and “Nutcracker Burlesque” is their first project.
The show’s live band features musicians from an assortment of local bands, with audioblacK’s guitarist Ted Millington and drummer Jason Leone, Victory Swing Band’s string bass player Gordon Mangum, and Tree Squid’s Joe Paulus, Conrad Maurais and James Hussiere on keyboard, electric bass and percussion, respectively. During rehearsals over the past three months, they have collaborated to arrange Tchaikovsky’s original score into a rock band format. They have also added original compositions and a wide variety of pop music references, ranging from the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” to the Star Wars soundtrack.
During the show, the band will frequently change gears, going from driving heavy metal rock to waltz, swing and country-western, with lots of musical jokes along the way. In what keyboard player Joe Paulus calls a “moment of great cheese,” the band will perform Journey’s “Open Arms” during the Sugar Plum Fairy segment, which features a surprise guest dancer. The show will also include techno versions of Tchaikovsky’s score, remixed by USM alumnus James Shay and student Jerome Wills.
“Nutcracker Burlesque” is choreographed by Ellen Joyce, USM student Gerry Shannon, and USM alumni Emily Zack, Brigitte Blose-Paulus and M. J. Emerson. All together, 14 people from the USM community are involved in this production. Matt Meeds, the technical director for the USM Theatre Dept., will lend both his technical and dancing skills to the show. Kris Hall, the Theatre Dept. costume shop supervisor, designed the Sugar Plum Fairy costume. Among the dancers are USM students Patience Goodwin, Wendy Getchell, Jill Shapleigh, Alissa Laitres and Stephanie Sample.
The one hour (plus intermission) show runs Thursday night through Sunday at The Studio Theater in the Portland Performing Arts Center, 25A Forest Avenue in Portland. Times are Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 5 p.m. Tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for students and seniors, and can be purchased at Casablanca Comics at 151 Middle St. in Portland or through the website www.nutcrackerburlesque.com. For reservations or information call 773-1951.
Brian O’Keefe can be contacted at [email protected]