NARRATOR: Artworks is made possible in part by...

The Citizens of Baltimore County.

And by the Ruth R. Marder Arts Endowment Fund.

The Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker Endowment for the Arts.

The E.T.

and Robert B. Rocklin Fund.

And The Henry and Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Foundation Arts Endowment in memory of Ruth Marder.

IRIS: So the Nutcracker is for the young and the young at heart really.

A picturesque story that young minds crave at a time of year that you know there is much to celebrate you know, seasonally.

And the idea of um, of the narrative of it has always drawn people in.

The production value alone with all of the different elements has really created a, a beautiful story that you can get pulled into but you can also relate to.

♪ It's also a gateway experience you know to culture, for many families who want to bring their, their children in to see, to see a story, but not only you know story but art and, and beauty and through dance, you know this can happen with Nutcracker.

♪ WENDEL: Hi, I'm Wendel Patrick.

I'm here in Baltimore City in front of the Baltimore School for the Arts.

Established in 1979 the School for the Arts offers art concentrations in vocal and instrumental music, acting, theatre production, dance, visual arts, and film.

Notable alumni include Tupac Shakur, Tracie Thoms, Jada Pinkett Smith, Christian Siriano, Warren Wolf, Moses Ingram, and Eze Jackson.

Today we will be watching a film by BSA faculty member Katiana Weems entitled, “The Nutcracker in Mount Vernon”.

“The Nutcracker” is a ballet composed in 1892 by Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

It was actually inspired by E.T.A.

Hoffmann's 1816 short story entitled “The Nutcracker and The Mouse King”.

The work has become an international staple over time and is performed by countless ballet companies worldwide, especially during the holiday season.

This film showcases all the different production elements involved in bringing a theatrical performance to life here at the school.

As the host of “Artworks,” it is my pleasure to invite you along for this special look into the Baltimore School for the Arts production of “The Nutcracker”.

Enjoy.

ROSILAND: We reimagined and re-envisioned the whole thing, the whole Nutcracker, and said, “How can we make this more relevant to our students here and now in today's society?"

IRIS: This was a really, really important factor for this Nutcracker creation here.

That the Nutcracker that we are presenting takes place in modern-day times, that it takes place right outside our doors and that it is relatable to the young person today.

ROSILAND: This Nutcracker's set in Baltimore, in Mount Vernon, a Baltimore-based family, you know going through this whole situation.

We took some of those things in second act about culture and just sort of flipped it and just made it more authentic and more real.

IRIS: There are many ways that traditional Nutcrackers are not relatable, right, for culturally um, and for the time period that it took place, mainly Victorian times, this Nutcracker here presents itself very differently, I mean not only is it, is it modern-day, there's cellphones, there's a tablet, there's same-sex couples in the party scene, there's a variety of different like current and existing family dynamics that, that are present as well as costuming, and, and magic.

We are asking within this narrative for them to be able to find the magic in places they are familiar with instead of traveling to far and distant lands to, to find it you know, and therefore it being less accessible but this is, this is about discovery, you know, the discovery of the magic that is all around them if they know where to find it.

BRIGID: We are a gem in our city, we have incredible opportunities, for our kids.

Our kids come to us with the most amazing backgrounds and they work so hard while they're here and so it's easy to get people to want to be a part of that magic.

THOMAS: Kids come here because they want to be artists, right?

I'm sort of in charge of giving them the classes that they're like “Ugh.” You have to use what I would say is sort of an artistic sensibility to appeal to them.

You have to speak to them in ways that helps them understand that doing the things for the academic program are gonna help them on their artistic journey.

And the things that they're doing in their artistic journey are helped by what they're learning in their academic classes.

And so you try, you try and create like a little bit of a, a symbiosis.

LARA: So it's not just like us who are behind the camera but also people who are in front of the camera.

Like the stage design production people, the adults, the dancers who like range from seven-year-olds to 17-year-olds and my team, like in terms of like production and crew there was maybe six, there was a freshman who was doing animation like it's huge and like every single department has to talk to one another.

KATIANA: I think one of the biggest thing that I try and talk about with these young filmmakers is the importance of collaboration.

Um, this school is sort of right for collaborations just because there's so many different departments.

ROSILAND: The collaboration across departments that it takes to build something like “Nutcracker” I think are the things that prepare our students for the professional world.

Very rarely these days are artists working in, in silos purely only in their form.

You have musicians who are working in film, you have dancers who are working in theater, you have stage design and production students who are also spoken word artists.

Those things are being blended more and more and those points of connection, those moments where we blend, are the most interesting to me.

Um, the most innovative and I think that's when we truly learn from each other when we have to work together.

RACHEL: Baltimore School for the Arts has more than prepared me for my future.

I've had the opportunity to learn about audio, I've had the opportunity to learn about set design, I've had, you know, cinematography, animation even.

I've been all over the place during this program, um, and I'm so lucky to have learned all this because now I can be thrown on set and pretty much can do what you ask me to do.

DENZEL: This film challenged me because it allowed me to focus on the different parts of the film that might not be shown to the audience.

We kind of went down every single block that was working on “The Nutcracker” piece so the teachers, the film students, the stage design/production students.

The dancers the TWIGS students, so it's just so many parts that worked together to create this piece.

BEATRIZ: This year's our second graduating senior class, so we're constantly rewriting the curriculum and still building our program.

Our fabulous Katiana Weems who is faculty at the film program in the film program, um, she's the one who pulled it all together, filmed, and edited.

KATIANA: I think the the big thing that I really wanted to showcase with this was how hardworking and how passionate the students are.

And how passionate they are about um, making things.

You know, I mean the stage design and production students, like you can see it in their eyes.

What you're about to see is a documentary, documenting the process of Baltimore School for the Art's production of “The Nutcracker” made for the 2021 school year and onward.

Uh, this film is a collaboration between the student filmmakers and myself and the film was largely documenting the process of the stage design and production students and faculty members, the dance students and faculty members, and a lot of other key players here at Baltimore School for the Arts.

Please enjoy the film.

(present rattling).

(clicking).

(swooshing).

(crunch) (sketching noises).

♪ AMY: Yay!

(clapping).

Easy, easy.

♪ ♪ (clapping).

♪ Huh, huh, huh, huh.

Huh, huh, huh, huh, hey!

♪ (clapping).

Finish it, hold, hold, hold, hold.

Get your breath, breath.

And stand up, stand up and bow.

Come on, act like you're doing it.

And.

(clapping).

Yea, so everybody look, you hold this, look, look, look.

LAURA: I see that you're reviewing all the steps and stuff.

AMY: One, two, three.

Can it chug one, two, three throw.

Yeah.

One, two like one throw.

One, two, three, pop.

Boom, boom, boom, pop.

So here.

Boo-boom, ♪ Dee, dee, dee-dee, de, de, dee-dee.

♪ ♪ Dee-dee, dee-dee, dee-dee, ♪ Dee-dee, dee-dee, dee-dee.

♪ Dee-dee-dee-dee-dee.

♪ Dee-dee-dee-dee-dee.

♪ Dee, dee, dee, dee, ♪ Dee, dee, dee, dee, dah!

♪ ♪ Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, hah!

♪ ♪ Dee, dee, dee, dee, hah!

♪♪ Chasse, chasse, down up, down kick.

Remember you have two signals.

Chasse, chasse, one, two, three kick.

The third one.

I need to hear the music.

♪ Chasse, chasse, T-up, T-up, T-up.

Kick in time.

Chasse, chasse, T-up, T-up, T-kick.

Then it's not so bad.

Edward, here!

Yeah, I don't do this.

Here.

Let it go up.

That's it!

Yeah.

Energy here, ♪ Dun, dun-dun-dun, dun, dun-dun-dun.

♪♪ Yes, now watch, then did you did this.

No one saw your face, just now.

So you want to go here, you have to go and scan the audience, like you have a scanner, on your, on your hands.

(makes scanner noise).

Scan.

Thank you.

You have to scan the audience, you give.

Yeah.

So you don't do that.

We have to see it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like presenting.

Exactly.

LAURA: I think what's happening is that you're opening a little too late before, so then it was already over-rotated.

Yes!

Uh-huh.

You're going to land.

Go ahead, keep your head and body here, and then you can't do anything.

Laura Halm Hamilton.

(claps).

My name is Laura Halm Hamilton, and I'm the Dance Department head here at the Baltimore School for the Arts.

So there are a couple of things that I prioritized in the creation or even just the conceiving of this production.

Um, number one was to find ways to incorporate as many students as possible in the production um, and to make sure that the choreography itself, the narrative, how we were thinking about the production would be inclusive.

So that takes into account different techniques um beyond classical ballet alone, Um, we are incorporating both contemporary and modern dance influences into the choreography, and we are also working to decenter the narrative away from a celebration of colonialist values, particularly in the second act, which we're now in a time and place where that's completely unacceptable.

Um, but that doesn't mean that the narrative doesn't have value.

So in classical narrative ballets, there is usually a divertissement section, which is, uh, which was used for highlighting different dances from different places um, within this story, there was traditionally a Spanish dance, something influenced by China, uh, Arabian, Arab, and so at the time those were often explorations of different folkloric and ethnic dances, but they were often based upon stereotypes that were completely inaccurate.

And as you know, decades have gone on, the choreography has not necessarily been updated to reflect those actual cultures, but also who gets to portray those cultures and how do we portray those cultures are questions that are only now really being considered in newer productions of, of narrative ballets.

“The Nutcracker” was not a popular ballet when it was first created at all.

Um, it premiered in the United States in 1944, decades after its original creation.

So that's when it came to the United States.

So why is it important for this school, or at least for this department?

Um, a large project like this gives more opportunities for more dancers.

Also, having the opportunity to work in something that's a narrative is very different from abstract movement.

So it asks of them to not only rely upon their technique or to use their technique to tell a story, but it also requires them to be actors and to be able to um, embody characters that are fully fleshed out, um human beings are not, and that's a different level.

That's a different challenge.

And for our dancers to be multifaceted, and viable dance artists by the time they graduate, I think this is an excellent opportunity for them to, to feel what that actually is.

♪ Back up, arabesque, ♪ Dah, dee, dah, dah, up, dah, dah, ♪♪ down and around and dip and ♪ Dah, dah, dah, dee, dah.

♪♪ That's good.

Come forward the arms like open, cross over to close.

AMY: Yea and do you want them to kind of plei, here, down, two.

LAURA: Up, plie, I like that, yea, yea.

AMY: We all understand that?

LAURA: It's two flaps.

AMY: And then keep going, that's it.

LAURA: Otherwise we're gonna end up... (overlapping chatter).

Again one more time before coming in.

Five and six and seven and eight.

♪ LAURA: And a dee, dee, dee, dee.

♪ ♪ And a duh, duh-duh, duh, duh, and a dee.

♪ ♪ Dah, dah, dah.

♪ Dah, dah, dah.

♪♪ AMY: Five again.

LAURA: Uh-huh.

AMY: Up and then down to first.

Five, six, seven, and up, down to first.

That's it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's do it through again, this group from the J, let's do it again with the music and Ms. Laura will tape.

From Shimmer.

♪ And.

And forward.

Go Jay go!

Dee, dah... Dee, dah, up.

♪ Arms!

Step, step, good job.

Step, step leap off!

We're still watching you.

We're still watching you.

DANCER: Okay.

AMY: The other group's coming on, but we're still watching you.

DANCER: Okay.

AMY: ‘Cause you may do with them, so it's, so it's a nice bleed off.

Yeah.

All right.

Thank you, everybody.

(clapping).

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

Leave your four.

DANCERS: Thank you.

Thank you.

LAURA: I think it's important to do this re-envisioning because it allows the students to see how the performing arts are a vehicle for change so that as we respect the cannon, that doesn't mean that the cannon is inalterable.

So as we worked towards this incarnation, it's with the anticipation of creating the full length for next year so that we still have even more to look forward to.

AMY: Chasse, two, three, four.

Chasse, dee, dee, dee.

Chasse, dee, dee, dee.

Six, up, down.

Go, that's right.

Dee, dee, dee, look out.

Yes?

Tie through.

Then, we go upstage we're going spread out.

Okay, low and tight and you look out to the front on which step?

Boom, boom, right?

Five, six, show me.

♪ Dee, duh-duh.

Dee, duh, dee, duh-duh.

♪♪ ANINA: My name is Anina, I'm 13 years old and I'm a Candy Cane.

I've been in “The Nutcracker” a while.

I've been like an angel, a soldier, and I was a party girl a couple times.

I've been thinking about this school since I was in like in fourth grade and my friends are auditioning too.

I think it's cool that I can just go to do dance and to do school too, like, I'll be able to practice my technique more which is awesome.

I feel like I, what's that word?

Progressed.

I feel like I've progressed a lot since I first started dancing and like, for example, for the last year, like I feel like I've progressed a lot from that and I'm honestly pretty proud of myself because there's like things that I used to work at that I would be like "oh I can't do that," but now I think I can do them pretty well.

♪ Drop, kick, drop, kick, drop, kick, drop, kick.

Down, up, and, down, and, come on.

Good, you're going, too, too, too, too fast.

Now first of all here, let them try to scooch up a little bit or you're going to get kicked in the face.

So scooch up a little bit.

Get up.

ROZ: I am Roz Cauthen.

You know, I was thinking about this earlier today of like, what is my relationship to “The Nutcracker”?

And I must say, mostly my relationship to “The Nutcracker” has started in my time here at BSA.

I was a kid that grew up in a middle-class family background.

I'm a first-generation college graduate, very proud to say that.

And my parents really didn't have money to take me to the ballet or the opera.

I remember begging my mom to take dance classes when I was really young and she was like, “That's too expensive, we can't do that right now.” Um, so that just hasn't been my experiences growing up.

But now that I'm here at BSA, I'm so thankful to just be immersed in so many different art forms and to have an opportunity to see “The Nutcracker” in development.

And the thing I'm most excited about is we're bringing over 250 Baltimore City Elementary School students and middle school students here to see it for a student matinee.

And so when I look at those kids, um, we do this every year.

When I look at the the the children that come to see “The Nutcracker”, some of them are like third grade or fourth grade.

And I see that excitement and, and wonder in their eyes.

And some of them are sitting on the edge of their seats.

And I think how special it is for them to be able to have um, an experience with “The Nutcracker” at such a young age.

And hopefully, some of them will audition to get into BSA and maybe be in “The Nutcracke”" themselves when they get to be in high school.

And I would say that's probably the most rewarding part of my job, is being able to offer opportunity to Baltimore City students that they may have never had before.

So when I started this job, it's my first year as principal at BSA, it was already in the works.

And one of the things that Dr. Ford said to me before he retired was we're carrying through this new Nutcracker.

So I felt like it was my job to pick it up and support it and do everything that I could to make it a success.

Um, it was already well underway when I started working and Laura Halm had already decided that Amy Hall Garner was going to be the new choreographer and director.

And I met Amy and she's so exuberant and creative and real and authentic, and she hasn't been in our building that long.

But I've already seen her build relationships with students.

I see students pass in the hallway.

“Hi Miss Amy, how are you doing?” Even though she's a guest artist or artist in residence actually, she's been living and working here in Baltimore the past couple months.

Um, she feels like a part of the BSA family.

It's so exciting to see the Stage Design and Production students doing the design work.

They're crafting the costumes, they're working on lights, they're working on sound, Nutcracker is truly, even though it lives within the dance department, it is truly a BSA-wide event, celebration, the entire community gets involved from the donors to the parents and so and the students and so I'm just really excited that it gives us an opportunity to approach the work collaboratively and interdisciplinary.

WENDEL: Hello again, I'm your host Wendel Patrick and I hope you're enjoying watching the making of “Nutcracker in Mount Vernon”.

Let's take a quick peek at some of the performances from that wonderful night.

♪ ♪ (audience cheers and applause) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (audience cheers and applause) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (music stops) (audience cheers and applause) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (music stops) (audience cheers and applause) ♪ (sewing machine).

NORA: Um, and she said we need it to be less full in the front.

TRACEY: Less full?

NORA: Yeah, so if you can sort of if you can get to the point where you have basically directions that you could give somebody.

So if for some reason somebody else had to be on your team to help make these.

Um, it's like six bags across the back overlapping by an inch and four bags across the front, overlapping by, whatever, you see, are you with me?

TRACEY: Yeah.

NORA: So you're, you're the snow expert, in fact, I told the people who were writing the article for the school paper that if they wanted to talk to somebody who is working Nutcracker to talk to you.

TRACEY: Yeah, right now.

And what I'm working on is cutting all the bags to give this like angle effect.

‘Cause if they're not cut, it gives like, it goes like all in one side and I want them to go down.

So it could give that, like the costume its own form.

When I'm done doing that, I just have to stitch it up, cut these up to give this like, like flowy effect.

Then spray paint them.

Rachel, you look so cute!

WOMAN: Pick your bottom up though.

RACHEL: Like this?

WOMAN: Yeah.

No, no, no, tuck your fullness underneath, yeah.

RACHEL: Wait.

Oh no, no!

(laughter).

What's up with the camera?

Ah, no!

Oh, you're so adorable!

We love you!

STUDENT: Look up at the camera.

Smile.

(laughter).

RACHEL: Hi!

STUDENT: Hi!

Jump up and down Rachel.

NORA: Nora Worthington.

(claps).

My name is Nora Worthington, and I'm the resident costume designer at the school.

Three words that describe “The Nutcracker” are big, big, and big.

It's just huge.

It's, it's got a big impact for many young people.

It's the only ballet they'll ever see in their lives.

And so you want to leave them with something really special and really magical.

You want them to walk away with a positive impression.

And it involves a lot of people and a lot of forces coming together to do one story.

I was really excited that we were going to be doing something new and innovative.

“The Nutcracker” is kind of an old chestnut, and it's definitely ripe for reinvention.

I think it's just the right moment for us to reinvent it.

So the process before was a little more, um, I was fulfilling the the ideas that the choreographer came in with.

So we did a production that we did for about ten years, and the choreographer had very specific ideas.

I think one of the things that's really special about this Nutcracker is that the choreographer, Amy, has really been an incredible collaborator and really looked for a lot of input into what the different characters, especially in Act Two, could look like.

So we're able to make them very tied to Baltimore and make them very specific and contemporary things that our students walk past every day in the Mount Vernon neighborhood.

And we're able to bring elements of the Mount Vernon neighborhood to life in a really magical way.

And that's very special, special for our school, special for our dancers and special for our designers.

And it's different in that it's, it's been a dialog as opposed to fulfilling dictation.

What I'm most nervous for this year is just getting everything done.

Um, we have 88 roles in this Nutcracker, and so we're building probably close to 100 costumes new.

That's a tremendous load because it's a new production.

Obviously, we wouldn't make new costumes for every year, but because we are trying to get the new production launched, it's a tremendous amount of work and that's why I'm glad that the students are on board now that they've finished their work on the fall play for the theater department, they're wholeheartedly throwing themselves into actualizing the designs that we've been working on since last spring.

What's hard for me is that I had to do the beginning of this process without them, I had to do it, you know, over Zoom with the choreographer and a lot of the things that we discover in design have to do with very tactile things like the feel of the fabric or the way that the colors reflect.

Computers not the best space for us to be making those kinds of judgments and decisions.

So a lot of that developmental work I had to do on my own.

And then when the students came back to school, they could be part of that collaborative process.

But I think what's the hardest for them is moving from one priority to another.

They've just finished having their fall play and as they were wrapping up their fall play, they were running down to my shop to do hours working on “The Nutcracker”, and there wasn't a big transition time, it was an overlap.

So I think for them that's very demanding.

Um, it does, it does give us a real sense of camaraderie because we're all in it together.

Um, we're all committed to getting the show done on time.

And so as the students look around and see what needs to be done, they jump in and they start coming in on their free periods and their lunch periods and their advisories, and they start making up the difference because they know we've only got six out of the 14 flower skirts made and they see it and they take ownership about that.

SILVANA: I'm working on the lemon skirts.

Um, I think they're going to be part of the 'Flowers' act, and basically what they are is they wanted something to represent kind of like the flower mart in Baltimore and something that did that was these things called like lemon sticks and they're basically half a lemon like a peppermint stick.

So the design idea is that the skirts will look kind of like this, a lemon.

So when the kids twirl, it'll like look like the, you know, like a lemon slice, and the top the leotard part of it is actually like stripes, like a candy cane, and they're like that in white.

So it's going to kind of look like, you know, like a lemon with a stick in the top.

(sewing machine whirring).

MAITHILI: So I'm currently making patchwork pieces for the jacket of Aunt Dee.

So you know how in the original Nutcracker there's Drosselmeyer?

So in this, we're changing it to a character named Aunt Dee and she's going to be wearing this very elaborate patchwork jacket.

Um, I'm not the only person working on this, there are at least two other people working on it.

And yeah, right now I'm just, earlier I was stitching these patchwork pieces together and now I'm just sort of cutting more pieces because we've run out, it's quite an elaborate costume.

(sewing machine whirring) NORA: And you put them to a hanger.

STUDENT: Okay.

NORA: With their bass going, going through the layers like this.

Okay, and that's, that's sort of the signal that it's ready to go.

EMMETT: You dropped a layer.

NORA: Oh, man.

EMMETT: Now I'm done serging.

NORA: Now you're done serging!

EMMETT: Now I'm done serging.

NORA: One.

EMMETT: One skirt.

NORA: One.

Emmett made a thing!

(cheering).

EMMETT: It hasn't been stitched together yet.

NORA: Oh, wow.

EMMETT: I've finished serging.

Oh, okay.

NORA: It's pretty Emmett.

EMMETT: It's still a thing.

NORA: It's pretty Tucker.

TUCKER: So I am pinning together layers of skirts for the flower dancers um, and I'm getting them ready for Emmett here.

EMMETT: I'm actually sewing the skirts.

TUCKER: To stitch them together.

EMMETT: That's what each layer is going to look like.

Know, kind of like, you know, this.

Yeah, there's going to be 14 skirts like that in this color.

WOMAN: As kind as yoiu are... (overlapping chatter).

WOMAN: We're gonna change.

We're gonna do this.

MAN: Do you have time to do this one?

MAN 2: Whoa, I'm sorry.

AMY: I have notes for you two in my cab.

They want to meet face to face.

There, we want to get both, yeah, if anything come in a little bit, but you're like a little bit in front of her.

DANCER: Okay.

AMY: Yeah.

Okay, ladies, we have it.

Let me see with that.

Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum!

(clapping).

Hi, I'm Amy Hall Garner.

(claps).

My name is Amy Hall Garner and I am the choreographer of “The Nutcracker”.

This is Tech Week.

And if you know anything about tech week, we're in the theater from, from sunup to sundown, and we're doing all the lights and the extra things that make the ballet come to life.

And so we'll add the costumes on next week.

So we'll have dress rehearsal and then we open on December 9th.

It's, it's the little things um, that the dancers have to understand that everybody has choreography.

They have choreography in the back with moving sets and props, and they have to practice what they need to do and who, who grabs what sword and, and the sofa that goes off in the chair and the gifts.

And so it's, it's, it's the bigger picture now.

And so now the dancers see the whole entire picture, and they have to understand that as well as the stage design students, they see what the dancers are doing and how that culminates into their off stage choreography or their or this is what it's being used for.

So it's really a nice marriage and I hope the students are looking at that and retaining that because when they get out into the real world, those are the things, those are the important things that you want to get quickly and understand and have an appreciation for everybody's role in the theater that makes the production what it is, which is really fun.

It really is.

It comes to life this week, it's coming to life for me.

So I'm getting another layer of excitement.

I mean, I've been doing “The Nutcracker” since I was five years old, four or five years old, that's when I was introduced to it, I did it all the way up till I was 17.

And so I did all the parts and I know all the music and coming to it as a choreographer, I always, you know, dreamed of doing something like this.

And so I thought it was a wonderful opportunity for me to create with this music and create the story and create my own story within such a traditional, such a holiday tradition.

I have never choreographed a production of “The Nutcracker”.

This is actually my first full-length work, and that's kind of the reason also a reason why I said yes when Laura made the phone call because I wanted to do something like this.

I mean, it's a challenge creatively, choreographically, it makes you think differently.

Um, the other pieces I've done have been commissioned.

I just kind of let my brain go, when I got into the studio in terms of casting, I got to cast how I wanted to cast.

I got to use the people who I wanted to use.

There were um, restrictions on me, you know, so I got to do what I wanted to do.

So that was wonderful.

You don't have an opportunity to do that often and so I really stayed in the parameters of the department, but I got to do creatively what I, what I wanted to do.

My main goal going into this would just be to honor the work and to make it my own.

Honor from what I know of it looking at so many different Nutcrackers, growing up and with different ballet companies honor that vision, and also bring my vision into it and also the vision that we created here at BSA.

I wanted to kind of do all three just so that it has that element of tradition, you know, creativity and also exclusivity for BSA.

We did everything from scratch, everything that you see on the stage, it would have been created in the studios in real-time with those specific dancers.

So I hope they take away from this process that they actually were um, collaborators in this process.

And that's not always a thing when it happens, especially with Nutcracker.

So I hope they, they're very proud of that and I hope they take away that, you know, they have their input in this and their stamp on this, so many years down the line, they can look back and say, “I did that.

I was in the room when that was created and that's pretty awesome.” ♪ (overlapping chatter) DANCER: Where?

WOMAN: Guys, wait, let us get everyone else ready, please.

Uh, actually you can run and see Ms. Iris.

Valerie go see Iris.

DANCER: Oh, hi!

DANCER 2: Hey, y'all!

(laughter).

JAY: Hi, my name is Jay Symonette, and I'm a demi-soloist in Flowers.

Right now, we're getting ready for our first dress rehearsal.

Yeah, so this is basically just our first full run with music and in costume to basically work out any kinks or anything that's wrong with the show.

So there's some stopping and starting, but the hope is to run it all the way through.

(overlapping chatter).

CASSIDY: I'm Cassidy Reigel and I'm Snow Princess.

Dress rehearsals and tech week are kind of crazy because we're kind of, we're collaborating with the other department.

I think my favorite part of being in “The Nutcracker” would be dancing with people who aren't in my normal dance classes.

So I'm in D and I get to dance with people who are in C2 and C1, and I don't really get to see them very often in like the dance hours, so that's what I like that most.

♪ LAURA: The best part of this process is to see students be so surprised with what they're capable of achieving.

NORA: The best part has been the collaboration and the freedom to really do something innovative and new.

I'm so, so proud of the work that the BSA is going to be bringing to a modern audience.

The way that we're really in many ways doing groundbreaking things that professional ballet companies aren't even taking the risks to do.

We're envisioning things that are very gender-neutral.

We're envisioning things that can be separated from sort of the painful stereotypes that have been a part of ballet and opera in the past.

And we can look at them with fresh eyes, fresh young eyes, and perspectives and really do something that people in the professional world might not even have the courage to do.

ROZ: I honestly think the best part of the process has been Amy.

Having Amy Hall Gardiner here.

You don't often hear of a black person, woman of color directing “The Nutcracker”, but she comes to us from Juilliard, a Juilliard education background, very classically trained, but also with an eye on diversity.

And an eye on contemporary and modern dance and an eye on how do people of color and today's current generation fit in a classic tale like Nutcracker that honestly wasn't really meant for people that look like us, like myself or Amy, but she's been innovative enough and creative enough and bold enough to say, “You know what?

This is a story for everyone.” And the decision to base it in Baltimore, the decision to use the current students and their bodies and their input, to include the students in the process as they look at some of the difficult things around cultural appropriation of some of the scenes.

I think Amy and Laura both have approached this in a way that's just not about the art or the dance, but it's about the theory of how we can be more responsible community artists.

How we could do more responsible storytelling.

So when little brown boys and girls who come to “The Nutcracker” and they see someone who looks like them on stage, a story that feels relevant to them and their neighborhoods, that is the power of art to touch people, to affect people and change their lives in very real ways.

And I think the way that they're reimagining “The Nutcracker” will do just that.

♪ (music ends) (audience cheering and applause) WENDEL: I hope you enjoyed watching this film.

It's truly wonderful to get a glimpse of the vibrant creativity generated inside this historic building.

I'd like to wish you all a happy holiday season and stay tuned for more from these amazing students at Baltimore's School for the Arts.

We will definitely be watching them do big things.

I'm Wendel Patrick, your host for “Artworks”, see you next time.

(music playing through credits).

NARRATOR: Artworks is made possible in part by...

The Citizens of Baltimore County.

And by the Ruth R. Marder Arts Endowment Fund.

The Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker Endowment for the Arts.

The E.T.

and Robert B. Rocklin Fund.

And The Henry and Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Foundation Arts Endowment in memory of Ruth Marder.