“The Nutcracker”: National Ballet of Peru presents the Christmas classic for the first time at the Gran Teatro Nacional

The curtain rises and the lights come on. The dancers warm up their steps while the scenery finds its place on the stage. Ready?, mention Grace Cobianthe director of National Ballet of Peru. The cast is positioned, and in the blink of an eye they become a picture of “The Nutcracker”, the Christmas classic that arrives for the first time at the Grand National Theater.

The family production, based on the story “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” –written in 1816 by Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann–, is structured in two acts that will lead us to navigate between extravagance and romanticism. “It has been a great challenge to bring this work to such a spacious stage, mainly in the technical and artistic part that classical ballet demands, even for a story as universal as The Nutcracker, it was necessary to ensure that all aspects are up to par”says Cobian.

The magic of The Nutcracker lies mainly in the Christmas symbolism that it currently represents. “For families it is like celebrating their Christmas Eve with us in the theater, especially here in Latin America on which it is a very important date, full of gifts and decorations. That is one of the reasons why the play will always be a hit no matter how many times it is performed.”add.

as director and prima ballerina From this production, Grace has had to handle almost every aspect of the play. “I must divide my work in two. On the one hand, be attentive to technical issues, rehearsals, the cast; besides not neglecting my personal training as a dancer. It can be a bit exhausting, but for me, ballet is pretty much what I’ve done all my life, so I love it.”bill.

Her career began precisely at a very young age at the Escuela Nacional Superior de Ballet, where she acquired a large part of her technique as a dancer in this distinguished art. After spending a few years at the Municipal Ballet, Grace managed to enter the National Ballet of Peru. For this reason, she knows very well that each company has a touch that makes it different from the others.

“In our case, The Nutcracker carries the main skills of the original play adapted in choreography by Marius Petipa, without being completely disconnected from our current context. We have 40 dancers from two casts who must interpret an even higher number of characters, so we must always be attentive to the dance group of each one, so that it adapts to each interpreter”Explain.

All the effort finally paid off. Well, the fact of having had an extraordinary reception in ticket sales could give us a clue about the reception of our country in terms of ballet culture. However, Grace believes that there is still a long way to go. “Peru is still not very used to attending this type of event. We know that now we had excellent sales due to the popularity of the work itself, but I would love it if in the future people would approach Ballet Nacional performances solely because of our popularity, regardless of the title of the performance.”he concludes.