Southern California Ballet's 'The Nutcracker' goes virtual

Southern California Ballet's 'The Nutcracker' goes virtual

Poway News Chieftan | San Diego Union Tribune

by Emily Sorenson

Poway OnStage has teamed up with the Southern California Ballet to present “The Nutcracker” virtual field trip, available now through Dec. 18.

Southern California Ballet traditionally performs the classic Christmas ballet on the stage of the Poway Center for the Performing Arts every holiday season. With COVID-19 restrictions, the dance company and Poway OnStage have a found a way to bring the show to life in a safe manner for children.

Through the virtual field trip series, Southern California Ballet will perform narrated show excerpts of “The Nutcracker,” as well as provide extension activities in movement, pantomime and costume design, according to a press release.

The field trips are free for children in first through seventh grade due to grant funding. Parents, teachers and community members can sign up children to participate at powayonstage.org.

The collaboration between Poway OnStage and Southern California Ballet is thanks to Sharlene O’Keefe, Poway OnStage’s operations and program manager, said Toby Batley, co-artistic director for the ballet. O’Keefe formerly taught at SCB and has a child studying with the school, he said.

Batley said the two organizations have wanted a collaboration for some time, but it was not until O’Keefe and Poway OnStage developed the virtual field trip series that something panned out.

“(Poway OnStage) did the first (virtual field trip) with (singer Sonia del los Santos),” Batley said, “and (O’Keefe) approached us for ‘The Nutcracker’ because we do outreach shows for schools every year.”

Batley said he and Martha Leebolt, his co-artistic director, looked at the first virtual field trip and thought it was “really great.”

For their own virtual field trip, Batley said he and Leebolt took recordings of last year’s productions of “The Nutcracker” and cut the ballet down to two, 18-minute acts to make the videos and story easier for children to watch.

They also created several workshops to accompany the video clips, including ballet movement and designing a costume template for children to create their own Nutcracker-themed costume. O’Keefe took an informational packet provided by Southern California Ballet and turned it into a Nutcracker “time machine,” Batley said, going through the history and story of the ballet. O’Keefe also ensured the material was suitable for visual and performing arts standards for education, he added.

Editing the videos was more difficult than expected, Batley said. “It was a long process,” he said. “It sounds easy, but if it isn’t something you’re good at, it takes a long time. It turned out well though.”

Batley said as of Tuesday, 100,000 students have signed up worldwide to view the virtual field trip. This includes about 12,000 local students, as well as students in other areas of San Diego. There are also about 7,500 Canadian students who have signed up for the field trip, and students in Malaysia, Myanmar and Indonesia.

“To have 100,000 students around the world doing (the field trip) is incredible,” Batley said. “We usually do four outreach shows with about 600 students per show. For this little ballet school in Poway, it’s pretty cool.”