On Dec. 5, ballerinas dressed in tights and tutus will bring sugar plum fairies to life amid Reid Park Zoo’s menagerie of zebras, lions and elephants.
The zoo is among several locations where Ballet Tucson will perform socially distanced outdoor pop-up concerts in December as part of its reimagined 35th anniversary season. Even though a full-out “Nutcracker Ballet” will not take place this year, the company is planning to at least capture some of its spirit.
Ballet Tucson hosted its first public event, a fall showcase, last weekend at Tucson Botanical Gardens and will present it again in two performances on Sunday, Nov. 15, at the Tucson Museum of Art.
“I loved seeing our Ballet Tucson dancers perform ... The weather was not the best but the dancers performed beautifully in spite of the wind,” said Ballet Tucson treasurer Nancy Causbie.
Back in March, Ballet Tucson, which is Tucson’s only professional ballet company, was in the middle of performing the spring season finale “Dance & Dessert” when they had to cancel their two remaining performances due to COVID-19. Since then, the dancers have all been anxiously awaiting the chance to get back on stage.
“We are spending some time in the digital world, but there is no comparison to live,” said Margaret Mullin, Ballet Tucson’s new artistic associate and media director. “People crave that human connection.”
A recent fundraiser that the company just completed is helping them to sustain their basic operational expenses during these unprecedented times and has allowed them to create a series of pop-up performances before limited, socially-distanced audiences. Mullin said that seeing how people are supporting each other, especially community-wide, has been encouraging.
“It makes me proud to be a part of the Tucson community,” she said.
The company will take its holiday showcase in December back to Tucson Botanical Gardens as well as to Reid Park Zoo and St. Philip’s Plaza.
In lieu of the traditional “Nutcracker,” which the dance company has performed annually since the mid-1990s, the holiday redux performances will feature Jenna Johnson’s “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.”
“I think it’s funny with ballet in particular; there are so many preconceived notions about what it is, but I think people would be genuinely surprised to discover all that it can be,” Mullin said.
