On Sunday, November 11, Publisher Ava Slocum attended Columbia University Ballet Ensemble (CUBE)’s production of The Nutcracker at the Manhattan Movement & Arts Center downtown.

The last time I saw CUBE perform The Nutcracker was in my first year, when there was no in-person audience for COVID-19 concerns, so I watched the video livestream in Butler while writing a Lit Hum essay. Four years later as a senior, I was excited to head downtown to Columbus Circle in the newly post-Daylight Savings Time cold and dark afternoon to get a head start on the holidays. This year’s Nutcracker—my second and final one—made me forget all about the dreariness outside as it took me and the rest of the audience on an hour-and-a-half trip to a magical land of sugary treats and gorgeous dancing.

The Columbia University Ballet Ensemble or CUBE is open to students from all of Columbia’s schools and dancers of all experience levels, from complete beginners to professionals, and anyone who auditions for a show is cast. This kind of inclusivity allows for a lot of enthusiasm in their performances that certainly comes across to the audience. It’s fun to see dancers who may be brand-new to ballet trying it out for the first time in college as well as more experienced dancers en pointe. CUBE is also the only one of Columbia’s ballet groups that performs full-length classical story ballets, with past productions ranging from Giselle to Sleeping Beauty to A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

I’ve seen a small handful of Nutcracker productions throughout my life (plus the Barbie movie, of course), and with some variations, it seems like the plot of Tchaikovsky’s classic ballet stays relatively consistent. Marie (or, in some versions, Clara) Stahlbaum, a young girl in 19th-century Germany, receives a wooden nutcracker doll from her uncle Herr Drosselmeyer at the family’s Christmas Eve party. That night, she falls asleep and dreams of an epic battle between an army of mice and their ferocious Mouse King versus an army of toy soldiers, led by none other than Marie’s Nutcracker. After the Nutcracker’s victory, Marie is whisked away through a snowy forest to meet the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Land of Sweets, where an array of coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and candies from around the world welcome Marie with a dazzling display of dances.

CUBE’s version this year had a couple of (small) differences from what I was used to. Unlike in other productions, there was no mischievous little brother Fritz who breaks Marie’s nutcracker doll, and Marie (played by Catie McWilliams, BC ’27) does not win the battle for the Nutcracker by throwing her shoe at the Mouse King. Instead of the Nutcracker-Prince leading her through the Land of Sweets (with a tiny implied hint of romance between Marie and the Nutcracker-Prince), Marie’s uncle Drosselmeyer (Luke Garbacz, CC ’27) accompanies her instead.

Besides the cast of Columbia and Barnard dancers, for this year’s Nutcracker CUBE partnered with the Morningside Heights chapter of the organization Ballet & Books, which connects college students with younger children to reduce the literacy gap through a hybrid program of dancing and reading.

Alongside the college student dancers, CUBE’s production featured Ballet & Books participants, young dancers between the ages of three and five, in the first act as party guests, mice, and toy soldiers, drawing quite a few photos and “aww!”s from the audience. The production also featured a collaboration with Columbia China Dance. Five dancers from the group with fans and traditional costumes appeared in the second act as “Tea.”

This production made efficient use of the small stage, with only projections on the back wall creating the background images of the Stahlbaums’ house, the snowy forest, and the Sugar Plum Fairy’s palace. What CUBE’s cast lacked in a relatively sparse set, they made up for with lovely period costumes (donated by professional dancer François Perron) and energetic dancing to bring Tchaikovsky’s music to life. In the first act at the Stahlbaum family’s Christmas party, the three dancers playing toys quickly created a festively chaotic atmosphere, especially the spinning top (Beatrice Reilly, BC ’28) who spun around and around the stage with impressive poise for a dance that would have made anyone else dizzy beyond belief.

In the battle scene, the Mouse King (Maddy Doty, BC ’26) and the Nutcracker (Bwog’s own Arts Editor Avery Baumel, CC ’26) did an admirable job of wrangling their preschool-aged armies (as did Olivia Théard, BC ’26, as a parent during the party). Next came what for me is one of the highlights of the ballet when the snow corps arrived in a flurry of white tulle to transition us from the Stahlbaum party to the magical second act. The corps of ten dancers and the Snow Queen, King, and Princess (Shiori Horton, BC ’25; Eirik Peterson, CC ’26; and Naomi Roth, BC ’28, respectively) danced with technical precision and grace to one of the most-loved sections of Tchaikovsky’s score. The dancers also filled up the stage beautifully with a series of patterns as intricate as a snowflake, which they held with near-perfection despite the complicated choreography.

I’ve always liked The Nutcracker because the major plot event—the battle—is over in the first act. After that, it’s just a party. CUBE’s dancers did a lovely job portraying the festive victory celebration, with one number after another representing food, flowers, and cultures from around the world. My personal favorite of the dances was the first one, which featured the Polichinelles (or “little clowns”)—they were just so cute!—wearing black-and-white commedia dell’arte costumes dancing as a happy, smiley group, and sometimes breaking up into pairs.

CUBE’s artistic director Charlotte Vaccaro (BC ’25) was a standout as “Coffee” (what some people know as the ballet’s “Arabian” section), as was CUBE répétiteur Ema Suárez (CC ’27) as “Hot Chocolate” dancing to Tchaikovsky’s Spanish-style music with a flamenco-inspired black-and-red costume and fan. Columbia China Dance garnered some of the most applause for their short but animated “Tea” routine, also featuring fans, which they handled with aplomb. Also memorable were the Russian dancers and Russian soloist (Adara Allen, BC ’26), rose petals and Dewdrop Fairy (Cameron Heanue, BC ’26), and the trio of Mirlitons (Lorelei Gorton, CC ’28; Naomi Roth, BC ’28; and Madalina Stoicov, BC ’27) dancing to the ballet’s “Dance of the Reed Flutes.”

Besides Marie and the Nutcracker, the ballet’s best-known character is probably the Sugar Plum Fairy with her famous dance, a piece of music that even people who have never seen the ballet can recognize. Something about the music in CUBE’s production’s “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” sounded a tiny bit off to me (the silvery bell-like notes were somehow more shrill and jarring than I’d heard in other recordings). However, Annie Rhow (BC ’27) was phenomenal as the Sugar Plum Fairy, with graceful, technically precise dancing and a lovely smile every time she appeared in the second act, even through some of the ballet’s most challenging choreography.

My favorite part of Tchaikovsky’s score has always been the pas de deux toward the end of the ballet between the Sugar Plum Fairy and her cavalier, danced in this production by Elias Re (GS ’25). Rhow and Re danced the pas de deux beautifully, making its series of lifts and spins look easy amid the sweeping, grandiose (and strangely sad and wistful) music. Re, as the cavalier, was utterly fantastic. After he mostly supported Rhow in the pas de deux, we got to see him dance a dizzying sequence of perfect pirouettes in his solo. (According to a quick Google search, besides being a Columbia GS student, Re is a professional ballet dancer at the Dance Theatre of Harlem and has danced with the American Repertory Ballet and was trained at La Scala, so there you go.)

CUBE performed to an absolutely packed house at the Manhattan Movement & Arts Center. It was nice to see not just an audience of other students, as with most shows on campus, but a wider range of people from the community, including family members and the parents of the littlest dancers. I’m so happy I got to take a break from mid-semester studying and travel downtown for The Nutcracker (A reminder that winter break is on its way). CUBE’s production, full of lively and enthusiastic dancers, did a lovely job of bringing out the magic and festiveness of Tchaikovsky’s music. Welcoming the end of the semester and the holidays to come before we all slipped back out into the dark, rainy afternoon and the subway back to campus.

Marie and her Nutcracker via Lillian He