A narrated, hour-long holiday dance production with Christmas magic, featuring jazz-infused choreography by Dallas Black Dance Theatre and students from the Dallas Black Dance Academy.
Dallas Black Dance Theatre brings Espresso Nutcracker to The Majestic Theatre on Saturday, December 12, from 7 to 8 PM. It's a narrated, hour-long holiday production that puts a jazz spin on The Nutcracker. The story is told through the Dallas Black Dance Academy students, who dance Clara's Christmas dream as it unfolds with waltzing flowers and dancing snowflakes.
The music is what sets this version apart. It pairs Tchaikovsky's original score with Duke Ellington's swing-era reworking, which Ellington and Billy Strayhorn recorded for Columbia Records in 1960. The two run side by side, so you get the classical foundation and the jazz interpretation in the same show. It's become a holiday tradition for the academy, with the students taking the lead on stage.
There's some deep Dallas history behind the production. The Dallas Black Dance Academy was founded in 1973 by Ann M. Williams, the first African American woman to earn a Master of Arts in dance from Texas Woman's University. She trained under Alvin Ailey and Arthur Mitchell and led the Dallas Black Dance Theatre for 38 years until 2014. Both the academy and the professional company work out of the Moorland YMCA building on Flora Street, which opened in 1930 as the first YMCA for African American men in the American Southwest.
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The venue has its own story, too. The Majestic Theatre was designed by John Eberson and opened in 1921 as a vaudeville house; it's the last surviving venue on Dallas's historic Theater Row on Elm Street. Tickets are $65 to $75, and the performance runs from 7 to 8 PM on Saturday, December 12.
