(14/50) “I can remember very well,” Ms. Tallchief says, “standing downstage on opening night toward the end of the first act, before I...

(12/50) I love these two photos of Arthur Mitchell dancing Balanchine's 1954 choreography for Arabian/Coffee. He just looks so radiant...

(13/50) “Diana Adams as the Sugar Plum Fairy is a vision of beauty, The act opens, in this version, with her variations from the grand...

(10/50) “The original costumes with Karinska using her imagination…My costume was the most comfortable, wonderful costume because she had...

(11/50) “Jumping through that damn hoop at breakneck speed was not easy. I was trying to do it academically when Mr. B said, ‘Bobby, you...

(9/50) The skirt of the tutu [for Dewdrop] has taken on various lengths over the years, depending on the individual ballerina's physique....

(8/50) On the first night of Nutcracker in 1964, when the ballet and sets had been expanded to fit the massive proportions of the new New...

(7/50) The best thing you will see all day today is little baby Suzy Pilarre as a Polichinelle when she was 11 years old. The pictures...

(6/50) Violette Verdy as Dewdrop. Photo by Fred Fehl, 1962. Harry Ransom Center. From left to right down the line: Patricia Neary, Leslie...

(4/50) You may (or may not) know that Janet Reed danced lead Marzipan in 1954 when Balanchine's Nutcracker premiered...but she wasn't the...

(3/50) Jacques d'Amboise & Melissa Hayden in the Nutcracker Pas de Deux. Photo by Fred Fehl, 1962. Harry Ransom Center.

(2/50) The Sugar Plum Fairy, welcomes the Nutcracker Prince and Marie into the Land of Sweets in the original 1954 production of...

(1/50) It's here! It's here! It's Nutcracker season! Follow along as I post historical photos of George Balanchine's Nutcracker in tandem...

Three Balanchine Duets* Part 2 *commissioned for the Vail Dance Festival This week, Vail’s International Evenings of Dance performances...

[50/50] One last bow for 2022! Allegra Kent on dancing Sugar Plum in 1964 for the first time on the larger New York State Theater stage,...

[48/50] Paloma Hererra guesting with NYCB as Dewdrop. Photos by Costas. Probably 1994, according to Paloma.

[49/50] Suzy Pilarre recently reached out to me to share her history with the Nutcracker: "In 1958, at 10 I was brought to SAB by Melissa...

[47/50] “Suki Schorer was a Dew Drop that had the lightness of a refracted sunbeam, and made the “Waltz of the Flowers” an enchanted...

[45/50] *This photo is of Merrill Ashley as Sugar Plum, but the story is about Dew Drop. [After recovering from a hip injury] My thoughts...

[46/50] “Little Miss Bethune, incidentally, gave up a good job in Broadway’s ‘The Most Happy Fella’ in order to appear as Clara. Her...