into the
Season
“ this whole new element of jazz and step … will add a new and, I think, unexplored dimension to this holiday classic.”— Nicholas Hersh
no one more so than Jakari Sherman, who choreographed and directed the work with producer and Step Afrika! founder C. Brian Williams.“ Stepping” is a percussive dance form punctuated by chants that originated in African- American sororities and fraternities as a means of showing unity. Because stepping creates its own rhythm, with the dancers making their own form of music with their bodies, it must come together with the jazz orchestration into a cohesive whole. All this while telling the world’ s most well known holiday tale.
“ One of the things I love about choreography is that it is like a puzzle,” says Sherman.“ Here we have jazz music, The Nutcracker story, the orchestra on stage with us— how do we put these elements together so we’ re true to each?”
While it may seem like too many worlds colliding, Sherman points out that the Ellington jazz score, which came out at the same time that stepping was spreading across the country, has roots in African- American culture, just as step does. There is a synergy there, he says, and the rest is a
matter of shifting the rhythmic patterns of the dancers.
“ Stepping takes a lot of its cues from the military and certain musical forms from the 1950s and‘ 60s, so the rhythmic patterns are very straight, while the Ellington Nutcracker, the jazzy rhythms, have a lot of swing in them,” he says.“ It’ s one of the challenges and one of the delights of working with Ellington’ s work and the music created in tribute to Ellington. It’ s an opportunity to play with the stepping form.”
This performance of The Nutcracker promises to be groundbreaking, with high energy from the dancers, an incredible and demanding score performed by the orchestra, and the youthful energy of Hersh bringing it all together under his baton. For certain, this reimagining of the old classic is anything but predictable.
Step Afrika!
Ellington and Strayhorn’ s swinging score reimagined these iconic movements from The Nutcracker
Overture
Toot Toot Tootie Toot( Dance of the Reed-Pipes)
Peanut Brittle Brigade( March)
Sugar Rum Cherry( Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy)
Entr’ acte The Volga Vouty( Russian Dance) Chinoiserie( The Chinese Dance)
Dance Of The Floreadores( Waltz Of The Flowers)
Arabesque Cookie( Arabian Dance)
Duke Ellington
Holiday 2016 | Overture 5