Photos — Dancers light up the stage as Elevation Studio brings ‘Nutcracker’ to life

John F. Russell/Steamboat Pilot & Today
The Steamboat Springs High School auditorium figures to be jam-packed this week as Elevation Dance Studio brings “The Nutcracker” to life.
Dancers will step into the spotlight at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday on the stage at the high school, located at 45 Maple St. Doors will open nightly at 6 p.m. and all seats are reserved.
“We are making the music come alive. We’re making the characters come alive, and ‘The Nutcracker’ is based on a fairytale, so we are making that fairytale come to life for our audience members,” said Meg Southcott, artistic director.
Elevation Dance Studio owner Renee Fleischer, who is producing the performances, said Tuesday that there were still a few tickets left for this week’s performances, but that they were going fast.
The limited number of remaining tickets were available at elevationdancestudio.com/events/2024-nutcracker.
The classic fairytale follows Clara, who is given a nutcracker, which magically comes to life as a prince and battles a Mouse King. As the story unfolds, the prince leads Clara on a journey into an enchanted forest wonderland where they are welcomed by dancing snowflakes, and to a land of sweets where they encounter various dancing sweets and the Sugar Plum Fairy.
The story is based on a fairy tale by E.T.A. Hoffmann titled “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” and features famous music composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Fleischer said this year’s show will include 90 dancers representing a wide range of dance styles including ballet, tap, jazz, jazz funk, Latin ballroom, hip hop and lyrical contemporary. Fleischer said Elevation started producing the show in 2012 and has only missed two years since. She said the annual event is a great opportunity to step into the spotlight for her dancers as well as staff members who help choreograph the iconic show.
“It is another opportunity for the dancers to perform on stage,” Southcott said. “It’s an opportunity to embrace a character. It’s not the dancers on stage doing a number for a recital, but to learn about character development and how to project that and how that makes them better dancers and performers in the future.”

The process for “The Nutcracker” began in April with auditions. The cast was announced in June with the young dancers stepping into their roles in the studio at choreography camp during the first week of school in August. Regular weekly classes leading up to the performance started in September. Fleischer said there are 10-15 new performers in this year’s shows.
“It brings in a lot of people who wouldn’t normally come to one of our recitals, and I think that there’s clearly a need for it in the community, especially this close to Christmas,” Fleischer said. “I think we may cater to some people who don’t live here, which is cool — I love that, I love that we reach a bigger audience.”
“It is synonymous with Christmas, so it makes a lot of sense especially to do it here in the resort community,” Fleischer added. “It is a lot of work, and I’m lucky to have an amazing team — I certainly don’t do it alone.”














John F. Russell is the business reporter at the Steamboat Pilot & Today. To reach him, call 970-871-4209, email jrussell@SteamboatPilot.com or follow him on Twitter @Framp1966.

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