YELLOWSTONE BALLET COMPANY’S
THE NUTCRACKER IN LIVINGSTON
Celebrate the season with the Yellowstone Ballet Company (YBC) and its delightful staging of the most popular of all story ballets ~ The Nutcracker. YBC presents its 26th annual production at 4pm on both December 10th and 11th at Sleeping Giant Middle School in Livingston. Children may come dressed as the Nutcracker Prince, the Snow King, the Snow Queen, or the Sugar Plum Fairy. Prizes will be awarded for best costume during intermission!
Audiences will delight in YBC’s intimate staging of this beloved story about Clara and her Nutcracker Prince with additional choreography by Deanne Snyder of Bozeman Dance Academy and Katy Raczkowski of Kadosh Dance Company. All ages will enjoy the magical and colorful characters: a mechanical dolls, Mother Ginger and her children, Little Bo Peep and her lost sheep, the Snow Queen and and her waltzing Snowflakes, the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Nutcracker Prince.
The starring role of Clara ~ the girl who dreams that her Nutcracker is really a prince under the spell of the evil Rat Queen ~ will be danced by Eva Molina, a tenth grader at Park High School. Hunter Lynch performs the role of Queen of the Flowers. The Nutcracker Prince will be danced by Dionysios Mitsios of Boulder Ballet. Mr. Mitsios trained at the Nutmeg Conservatory for the Arts and the School of Russian Ballet. He has danced with the Colulmbia City Ballet and Ballet San Antonio before settling in Colorado. Rania Charalambidou will dance the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Miss Charalambiou trained with the Hungarian National Ballet and the Royal Academy of Dance. She has danced profesionally with the Sarasota Ballet of Florida before joing the Boulder Ballet.
Under the artistic direction of Kathleen Rakela (AISTD), the Yellowstone Ballet Company has been featuring local, national, and international dance talent in the Livingston/Bozeman area since 1987. YBC has staged such classic ballets as Cinderella (1990, 2002, 2014), Giselle (1994, 2011), and Sleeping Beauty (1995), Swan Lake (2012) as well as world premieres of Ms. Rakela’s original ballets, Romeo and Juliet of the Rockies (1999), Hiawatha (2005), Hansel & Gretel~with a Twist (2008). Pinocchio (2010) The Elves & the Shoemaker (2013), and The Little Mermaid (2015) In 1998, Ms. Rakela was the recipient of the Montana Arts Council Fellowship for the Performing Arts. She also runs the Yellowstone Ballet School, whose students have received scholarships to the National Ballet of Canada, School of American Ballet, Hartford Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Houston Ballet, San Francisco Ballet School and Interlochen School of the Arts.
Performances of the Yellowstone Ballet Company’s production of The Nutcracker will be Saturday, December 10 at 4pm, and Sunday, December 11 at 4pm. Both performances will be presented at Sleeping Giant Middle School 301 View Vista Drive in Livingston. A fly fishing kit, value $200, and a gift certificate from Chico Hot Springs Resort will be included in a silent auction.
General Admission seats are $15 for adults $10 for children. Tickets are available at www.yellowstoneballet.org and at Conley’s Books & Music, Etc., 106 South Main in Livingston. Tickets are $2 more at the door.
For more information, please call (406) 222-0430 or visit www.YellowstoneBallet.org.
