“Everybody loves The Nutcracker,” says China Smith, the founding artistic director of Austin’s Ballet Afrique. “It's a traditional piece for the holidays, and so I knew I was going to do it at some point. [But] I didn't know what was the perfect fit for us. And so when we stumbled across Duke Ellington's interpretation, I was like, that's it. That's the one.”
Ballet Afrique first performed their version of Duke Ellington’s The Nutcracker Suite several years ago, and it’s become a holiday tradition for them, moving from then Boyd Vance Theatre at the Carver Museum to the McCallum Arts Center to the Paramount. This year, they’re taking the production to their largest venue yet: the Bass Concert Hall.
The Nutcracker is undeniably the biggest moneymaker in the ballet world – ballet companies often make nearly half their annual revenue from seasonal productions of Tchaikovsky’s classic. But Smith says she always knew that when Ballet Afrique created their version of the work, it would have to be unique and true to the company’s greater vision. “We are Ballet Afrique,” she says. “So we do classical ballet and contemporary dance and African dance. [So] our version of the Nutcracker [is] still the same story but told a different way, different music.”
Ellington’s version of The Nutcracker was released as an LP in 1960; as such, it’s only a little over half an hour long (“he kind of just only did the pieces that he liked,” Smith says). That meant that to turn his version into a full-length ballet, Smith had to include some other pieces of Ellington’s oeuvre as well. “We've also pulled in other people, such some of his friends during that time,” she says. “And so we've pulled in Charles Mingus and he kind of gives us this funky feeling for the rats that kind of pulls in a different feel, sort of this antagonist of the story. And you know, some pieces were impossible to match and we thought that Tchaikovsky's version was so beautiful, [so] we stuck with that.”
In addition to changing the music, Smith also opted to change the story’s setting. “I decided to do this interpretation that happens in the 1920s,” she says. “And there's lots of things that are happening during that time. You have World War One, you have the Great Migration, you have the Great Depression, you have Jim Crow laws. And so it's a beautiful way to look at it differently because the times that I have seen The Nutcracker, it takes place in this mansion, in this parlor. And so what happens if we look at the same story that happens to a little girl in different circumstances, during this time and looking at the possibilities of what can be when you have this imagination. That something magical is happening in your house during a time where things are very difficult.”
Smith says she’s excited to have her dancers take to the stage of the Bass Concert Hall (where, as a native Austinite, she made dance debut as a child in Porgy and Bess). But she’s also aware that, with nearly 3000 seats, it can be a difficult room to fill. “Will people show up?” she wonders. “Will we sell it out? We're excited to share our artwork and we're excited to give this opportunity. But more importantly, we're excited to contribute to what it means to have Austin as such a diverse place for the arts. Is it really diverse if companies like ours aren't seen? So that's why it's so important for people to show up to this show and sit in that seat. Because my objective is to have a platform for professional black dancers here in Austin and let all of Austin see what you really have here.”
