If you are looking for a family outing to kick off the festive season, the Aberdeen Academy of Performing Arts is bringing The Nutcracker to The Tivoli Theatre. It is a timeless Christmas ballet pitched at younger audiences, and this year's production pairs the Academy's own students with professional dancers from the USA, Matisse Love and Aaron Smyth.
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The 2026 season is a single day's affair, running on Saturday 7 November at The Tivoli Theatre on Guild Street, with two performances at 3:00 pm and 7:00 pm. Standard tickets are £21.50, with under-16s and over-60s at £19.50, and a £1 venue restoration donation is built into the price. A few other listings quote slightly lower figures, so it is worth confirming at the point of booking.
The show is split into two acts, each running around 40 to 45 minutes. Act One takes you through a festive Christmas Eve party hosted by Uncle Drosselmeyer, the battle between the Mouse Queen and the Nutcracker Prince, and the journey through the snow to the Land of Sweets. Act Two stays in the Land of Sweets, with its international dances, the Waltz of the Flowers, the Sugar Plum Fairy, and a pas de deux between Clara and the Nutcracker. At under two hours in total, it is an easy one to bring younger children to.
It is worth knowing who is on stage. Matisse Love is a professional ballerina from Los Angeles who trained at the Marat Daukayev School of Ballet before graduating from the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow in a year and a half; she performed with the Russian Ballet State Theatre in Moscow until 2022 and is now working in Scotland alongside Aaron Smyth. Smyth is an Australian dancer born on the Gold Coast who trained at the Prudence Bowen Atelier and the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School of American Ballet Theatre, and has been a company member with the American Ballet Theatre Studio Company, The Royal Ballet in London, and The Joffrey Ballet in Chicago. He took home the Gold Medal and the Bravo Audience Choice Award at the Genee International Ballet Competition in Toronto back in 2008.
The Academy behind it is a registered Scottish charity founded by Rachel Mearns in 2005, based at Jopp's Lane in Aberdeen. It runs more than 80 classes across dance, performance, gymnastics, and musical theatre, from pre-school right up to adult level, and was the first Scottish dance school to bring in acrobatic gymnastics under the Scottish Gymnastics membership. That breadth is what puts so many students on stage alongside the professionals.
For a production that has become a bit of a local tradition, the 2024 season ran over two days in early November with Matisse Love and Aaron Smyth already in the cast, so the pairing is a returning one. This year it is condensed into the one day, which makes the two-performance split the only way to catch it. It is a gentle, festive way to start the holiday countdown in the Granite City, and with the two acts clocking in at around 40 to 45 minutes each, it is built to keep younger audiences happy from start to finish.
Published Date
30 October 2026
