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'Nutcracker' comes to Raue Center Dec. 19-20

From a mouse's viewpoint, everything seems big!

Imagine, being on stage as a mouse and growing 100 times your actual size! Watching all that you know swell and balloon and the battle of your life about to begin!

Mayhem, pandemonium with swords and soldiers all choreographed to Tchaikovsky's music.

That's what Jennifer Lopez sees, as a 5-year-old mouse, in the Berkshire Ballet Theatre's annual "Nutcracker Ballet." Jennifer and her fellow mice, are just 5 or 6 years old and ready to pounce on the toy soldiers and the Nutcracker, along with their chief in command - the Mouse King!

Who wins? Come and find out for yourself, it's a "tail" of a mouse that tells the whole inside story of "The Nutcracker," performed by the Berkshire Ballet Theatre, School to The Summers Academy of Dance.

Performances will be 3 and 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 19, and 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 20, at the Raue Center For the Arts, 26 N. Williams St., Crystal Lake. Tickets are $27-$30. Tickets are available at www.Rauecenter.org.

For information, stop by the Summers Academy of Dance, 5186 Northwest Hwy., Suite 115 in Crystal Lake; call (815) 477-0033; or visit summersacademyofdance.com.

"The Nutcracker Ballet" itself is based on the story of E.T.A. Hoffman, but over the years the story of the Nutcracker has come to be nearly synonymous with Tchaikovsky's masterpiece. It takes Hoffman's literary world and transports it to a new medium in which the fantastic happenings in the Nutcracker are given a new lighthearted dreamscape; one in which the imaginations of children can thrust real lives into the inanimate dolls that inhabit their mind's world.

Summers Academy of Dance is celebrating 20 years in business in June 2016 with the theme, "Platinum Performances, Celebrating 20 Years of Dance Excellence 1996-2016."

The Berkshire Ballet Theatre, located in Crystal Lake, has worked in conjunction with Raue Center for the Arts for years bringing talented and profession works to the stage. Its mission is to create a professional performance environment that the Berkshire Ballet Theatre and apprentices, trainees, and company dancers can use to gain experience, artistry, education, and a love of the arts.

The Raue Center's stage will again feature "The Nutcracker Ballet" by Berkshire Ballet Theatre on Saturday, Dec. 19, and Sunday, Dec. 20. Courtesy of Kayla Natoli Photography
Berkshire Ballet Theatre, celebrating its 20th year in 2016, brings "The Nutcracker Ballet" to the Raue Center's stage on Saturday, Dec. 19, and Sunday, Dec. 20. Courtesy of Kayla Natoli Photography
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