Cal Performances | Dance | Mark Morris Dance Group The Hard Nut

Watch video clip excerpts from The Hard Nut !

Snowflake Fairies	QuickTime Player (get player) :	Hi-res version	Low-res version

Waltz of the Flowers	QuickTime Player (get player) :	Hi-res version	Low-res version

Christmas Eve Party	QuickTime Player (get player) :	Hi-res version	Low-res version

“ There are dance experiences that generate awe, and there are dance experiences that inspire affection. But there are far fewer that automatically make the lips curl in a broad smile, even at the very thought. Mark Morris’ The Hard Nut, the Bay Area’s most off beat and most rejuvenating holiday dance tradition, falls into that special category… [A] reasonably modern, deceptively irreverent, strikingly designed, peerlessly musical and unexpectedly touching reconsideration of Nutcracker. ”
— Allan Ulrich, San Francisco Chronicle

“ One of the most remarkable things about Morris’ choreography is the way he manages to mix heartfelt emotion with deep comedy…The Hard Nut is always a delight, and it only grows more funny and meaningful with each passing year ” — Anita Amirrezvani, Contra Costa Times

“ The Snowflakes scene in Act 1 of The Hard Nut, with its rhythmical sprays of stardust and its gender-blind casting of the corps, is also a sublime marriage of wit, music and movement. Morris' is the most exhilarating version of this moment since Balanchine's. The giddy, precise execution of this choreography by the Mark Morris Dance Group was electrifying — more than once, the Berkeley audience simply burst into cheers in the middle of the scene …”
— Octavio Roca, original 1996 Cal Performances West Coast premiere review in the San Francisco Chronicle

“ The Dance of the Snowflakes alone is worth the price of a ticket.” — Judith Mackrell, The Guardian, 15 Nov 04

“ Pity not the child who has been weaned on Mark Morris’ enchanting lunatic version of Nutcracker. With all the makeovers the original story has had, throwing in the confusion of go-go boots, Barbie Dolls and gender-swapping roles has simply made it a ballet of our times — and the roaring crowds who return every year attest to its touching, comic endurance.”
— Contra Costa Times

“This is ballet vérité. It’s not pretend. It’s theatrical and broad and big. But the story is really plain and simple and true.” — Mark Morris, The New York Times, December 1992

“The Hard Nut: Snowflakes, Snowflakes, Snowflakes, Snowflakes, more snowflakes than are necessary, incredible snowflakes. I laughed until I cried. Mark Morris recreates the Nutcracker in a way to make those tired old dances come alive. I'll never hear the music again without smiling.” — Nancy K. Amy, Cal Performances Email Club member

“Seriously entertaining, gorgeously danced and improbably touching…it frankly celebrates all that is familiar about the beloved ballet: love of family, the warmth of the holidays, one little girls’ lovely dream on Christmas Eve”
. — Octavio Roca, San Francisco Chronicle

“ All I can say is thank god it’s David,” said Grant. “It makes my job of having to fall in love on stage very easy.” In a pragmatic way,” added Levanthal, because of our relationship, we communicate extremely well…[w]e really work to perfect every minute detail of every step.” — Real life partners Lauren Grant and David Leventhal in the Brooklyn Free Press, on their Hard Nut roles.

“ I used to laugh when I was younger and think: ‘Oh, I don’t want to be one of those dancers in their fifties doing Drosselmeier every year,’ he says. “And here I am! Be careful of what you don’t wish for. But David and Lauren have really freshened it for me.” — Rob Besserer in New York Time Out on how Lauren Grant and David Leventhal’s Act II pas de deux has revitalized the show for him

“The Hard Nut is a breath of fresh air...my favorite scene is not a funny one, it is the pas de deux between Drosselmeyer and the Nutcracker...in the middle of laughing myself silly there is a tender poignant moment that makes me catch my breath. It never fails.”
— Gabriela Martinez,
Cal Performances Email Club member

“ When we saw The Hard Hut we knew we'd been provided with a rare treat. Morris' wit and humor shone through in the sets, costumes, music, and in his dancers' movements. From the mice to the dancing snowflakes, and from start to finish, it was a truly complete and joyous experience. ”
— Ellen Gobler,
Cal Performances Email Club member

“ I’ve always felt as though every dancer in it was integral, not only as an individual flower, but as part of a giant flower…I feel beautiful in it, and it’s not just because I get to wear a dress! It feels like it looks. It’s a great dance.” — Joe Bowie of the MMDG as quoted in New York Time Out.

“ Mr. Morris’s handsome, witty and moving production…remains as savvy as it is theatrically winning…as time passes, his idiosyncratic staging stands to become as famous and lasting as Balanchine’s traditional rendering”. — Wall Street Journal

“The Hard Nut has wonderful dancing, creatively beautiful sets, and hilarious moments, but I think that one of the best things about it is its inclusion of the Women's Chorale in the performance. It's such an honor that they make space for one of UC Berkeley's own student groups to participate in these amazing performances, and their singing contribute to the overall, well-rounded beauty of the performance.” — Stephanie Shih, Cal Performances Email Club member

“ The end of Act One is one of the most brilliant ensemble pieces I've ever seen. It looks very funny, but it's also very complicated. Sometimes the dancers are up in the air on the downbeat, and you see how Mark understood this phenomenon in the music of working across the beats. It's very surprising, and a brilliant theatrical stroke.” — Hard Nut conductor (and Cal Performances Director) Robert Cole, as quoted in the San Francisco Examiner, 1999.

“ Mark Morris' The Hard Nut is one of the most surprising and refreshing combinations of music, dance, drama, sets, costumes and personnel assignments I have ever encountered. It is a production that immediately becomes your own, one you want to share with as many others as possible. I have seen it seven times and have hosted about 20 unsuspecting individuals, who in turn have shared the ballet with others further still. I can't wait until my grandchildren share it with their children.” — Russ Irwin,
Cal Performances Email Club member

“ Morris reveals what pure choreography can do that narrative dance-theatre can't: make music visible, show what happiness looks like.” — The Observer, London

“ It is all great fun. Mr. Morris’s acutely observed, outrageous first-act cameo appearance as an increasingly drunken party guest is alone worth rounding that windy corner to the academy. ” —The New York Times (Of BAM’s presentation of The Hard Nut in 2002)

“ Searching for something un-Nutcracker...witty, we heard, entertaining; edgy and smart. At our first performance, our 5 year old son sat rapt and we realized that this is a program that excites every age...and it still does for us, every year. It's like drinking fine scotch after a lifetime of peppermint schnapps. ”
— Vivian Richardson, Cal Performances Email Club member

“I've seen it twice; I love the maid in Act I and the snowflakes in Act II. The second time, I dragged along a friend (no pun intended), as I just had to share the cheer!” — Paula Rudman, Cal Performances Email Club member

“ Here, the sweetness of its final moments contrasts with the sleezy boisterousness of its 1970s party…One of the beauties of Morris’s initially flippant, joke filled work, in addition to the multigendered dances for energetically drifting Snowflakes and lush flowers, is that everyone in the ballet works to bring these two together, they are lifted by hordes of Chinese dancers and rats and soldiers and snowflakes and flowers and more, pouring onstage like waves of love to wash them into each other’s arms.”
— Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice

“ On repeated viewings, the piece reveals itself more deeply and clearly to be a masterly work of art. (With) Morris' gift of irreverence and ability to joke around, choreographically... you have a classic.” — San Francisco Chronicle, 2003

Special thanks from Cal Performances to all our Email Club members who were willing to share their Hard Nut memories with us. And congratulations to Email Club members Marta Grabien, Alex Hoeppen, Gabriela Martinez and Paula Rudman who each won a pair of tickets to see The Hard Nut in a random drawing of entrants!