Nutcracker Experience

Saturday December 9^th 2023

Birmingham Royal Ballet’s production of Sir Peter Wright’s The Nutcracker made a welcome return to the Birmingham Hippodrome stage this November and December, and once again included a number of students from our Lower School and Elmhurst Young Dancers’ weekend programme.

To perform in the best Nutcracker in the world (many of the UK’s national dance critics have said it since Sir Peter Wright’s production premiered in Birmingham in 1990) must be a wonderful experience for professional dancers, let alone for the youngest Elmhurst students. This year, 13 students were given the opportunity to dance alongside the accomplished BRB artists, to the playing of the musicians of the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, surrounded by the brilliance of John F. Macfarlane’s designs, in Sir Peter Wright’s much-loved production of the Christmas ballet.

Students from Elmhurst’s Lower School and our weekend pre-vocational Elmhurst Young Dancers’ Programme graced the Birmingham Hippodrome stage, also joining a number of school alumni who are now dancing full-time with the company under the direction of Carlos Acosta CBE, including Rosanna Ely, Olivia Chang Clarke and Ryan Felix.

Students involved in this year’s production of BRB’s The Nutcracker, from the Lower School:

Matthew Tittley as Fritz; Zuzu Davies, Vayana Yordanova, Xavier McIntosh and Otto Wisberg as Party Children.  

And from the Elmhurst Young Dancers’ Programme: Uzziah Gray, Johan Beech, Lars Hetherington-Howell, Ava Kimberly, Freya Williams-Black, Ella Holmes, Daniel Webley and Jack Stevenson as Party Children.

We would like to congratulate them all on their performances.