Abbreviated Nut

Brittany Sterling staged a bit of the Nutcracker for the New Genres class (and a couple other classes too -- she basically closed down the third floor of the art building for a half hour as she set things up). She's been performing in the Reno Dance Company's production of the venerable Nut, and ported over some of the dancers to do the Waltz of the Flowers on the scuffed linoleum of the printmaking area.


It was all very intimate; no room for the ellipsis of any stage wings. A few stretches with pointe shoes poking out from under some sideline curtains, and they were off.





Off to the side, "offstage," Tchaikovsky's music had to compete with the noisy bodily imperatives of the dancers, breathing heavy and swigging bottled water. At one point, there was a brief collision, followed by a whispered "sorry," and one strip of the side curtains was taken down either by a curving arm or a whirling foot -- that bit of business might've been followed by a balletic expletive, I'm not sure.





Bonus pic: after the dancers were done, to the right, Lane was piecing together a big grid of a picture of the ebola virus. It was hard not to think of it as a floorplan for some of the interweaving waltz patterns.