HipHop Nutcracker

Seth and Cristina took us all out to see the highly-skilled dancers in a brilliant adaptation of the original Nutcracker (many liberties taken with the story, but oh, what athletic and spirited dancing). Terrific production values: spectacular lights, fascinating video backdrop, exciting costumes. The one thing missing was good sound. Portions of the score are pure Tchaikovsky, with scratch and electric drums cleverly worked in, a fusion of styles. The musical sound track was pre-recorded, but the difficulty occurred when they brought in Kurtis Blow, one of the original HipHop performers, to do some live performing.

Seth, who makes his living as a monitor engineer, sat back rolling his eyes. This show had no monitors, so Blow sounded offbeat and slurry. Otherwise it was splendid, and it has appeal for multiple generations. I was one of the few grandmothers in the theatre, and there were more Black people in the audience than I have ever seen before at Keller Auditorium. Hooray for an updated Nutcracker!

The kids were exhausted by intermission, so we left at that point and missed the second half of the show (the show is only in town for two nights, both school nights). 

My deep apologies for not commenting at all today. I was working on tomorrow's event and something I have to finish by Sunday, and I didn't have a moment.