For the first time, Ballet Chicago performers brought a glimmer of holiday magic from the renowned “Nutcracker” ballet to children who would otherwise be unable to attend the holiday production.
Through its Open Doors Initiative, a live rendition of “The Nutcracker” at Lurie Children’s Hospital Thursday gave families and children who will spend the holiday in its wards a sense of normalcy and a way to continue their festive family traditions, according to Sharyn Pulling, general manager of Ballet Chicago.
“Kids love ‘The Nutcracker’ — it’s such a favorite, year after year. It’s such an important part of people’s holidays,” Pulling said. “For children who can’t get out to see it, because they’re sick, I think it gives them a sense of something normal, something celebratory, something that makes them feel happy.”
A small group of kids, parents and staff watched as seven trained dancers in shimmering costumes and tutus spun and leaped across the Panda Cares Center of Hope on Lurie’s 12th floor. They performed in front of a large purple screen and a broadcast camera so that kids unable to leave their hospital rooms could tune into the performance via their TV. Chris Wilkinson, who runs the in-house TV production network at Lurie, will also edit the recorded footage to share again throughout the season.
“They’re constantly getting prodded, poked, and it needs to be that way. The medical is No. 1, trying to help the child that’s sick,” said Wilkinson, who creates all kinds of TV programming for the pediatric patients to watch during their stay. “But a child gets sick of that. They need to play, get a break and feel a distraction from that medical world.”
There was no stage, no special lights and no extraordinary production, but still, the children smiled and danced along with the seven costumed performers. Claire, 2, was among the young patients in the crowd moving to the recorded music.
“‘The Nutcracker’ is classic and our little girl is a little ballerina,” said Claire’s mother, Catherine Cordero. “She loves to dance and we thought this would really lift her spirits.”
Claire was set to be discharged from Lurie Children’s Hospital following the show Thursday, after a kidney procedure and a nine-week hospital stay. Her parents and two siblings traveled from Lancaster, South Carolina, to get her from Lurie. The “Nutcracker” was “the best way to say goodbye” to the facility, her father, Daniel, said.
Ballet Chicago took a unique approach to adapt the normally two-hour show into a 30-minute show for kids at Lurie. While founder and artistic director Daniel Duell read on camera from a shortened “Nutcracker” script, the dancers were the narrated characters come to life, re-creating some of the most famed scenes in ballet, including the sugar plum pas de deux.
“It was a perfect length for her age,” Cordero said. “They condensed the performance, which I think was appropriate how it was a bit of storytelling through a narrator and the dancing.”
Planning the live performance and adapting the show were no small order. Pulling said choreographers were forced to think about space constraints and had to avoid dance excerpts with a lot of jumps that could be hard on a dancer’s body without the correct type of flooring.
The 10 dances performed were hand-selected as what Ballet Chicago staffers hoped would be the most engaging for the young audience members.
“We wanted to give the children something that was a spectacle,” Pulling said. “So we chose pieces that were very visually exciting, and music as well, that would be very exciting for them.”
Dr. Mahima Keswani, a pediatric nephrologist, and Dr. Patrick Myers, a pediatric neonatologist, are both physicians at Lurie and board members of Ballet Chicago. They served as a connection point to bring “The Nutcracker” to life within the hospital ward.
“Sometimes kids are here for hundreds of days, and they’re stuck in their rooms,” Myers said. “(It’s) doing something that brings life back to them.”
Myers and Keswani were also quick to point out that the live “Nutcracker” performance in the hospital was not only good for the patients at Lurie, but is a good experience for the performers in Ballet Chicago’s Studio Company program.
“The dancers also get something out of it,” Meyers said. “It’s an opportunity for them to give back, to learn a bit more about Lurie and the kids. I think as a kid who doesn’t have any illnesses or challenges, I think it’s good to see the broader spectrum of life.”
Pulling said she hopes a live “Nutcracker” performance will become an annual tradition between the hospital and the ballet company.
“We’re really excited that this partnership has grown over the past year and we hope to see it continue to grow in years to come,” she said.
