There’s one ingredient the Nutcracker clearly can’t do without: Christmas. It awakens our very personal nostalgia, the joy of celebration and perhaps the last meaningful ritual that is still part of our everyday lives.

With his Nutcracker, which was premiered in Antwerp in 2016 and is now reinterpreted for the Ballet am Rhein, Demis Volpi shows us a family portrait: a generous and loving middle class household, where young Clara is on the verge of adulthood. The quirky and eccentric Drosselmeier then bursts into the family’s usual hustle and bustle. He gives Clara the present of a nutcracker, that inspires her imagination and takes her on a wild night-time journey to the realm of all human desires and fears.

The spectrum of the journey is expressed through a polyphony of choreographic languages and the evening is enhanced by a range of different signatures from young choreographers. read less